A Vancouver Island woman is on the hook for $750 in fines after a squabble over space at a Tim Hortons drive-through accelerated into a case of road rage.

The bizarre encounter began around 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 7, 2013, when Christopher Smith decided to grab a coffee in Mill Bay on his way from Victoria to Nanaimo, a B.C. provincial court heard.

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Smith pulled into a Tim Hortons and steered his Ford F250 long box pickup behind the two vehicles waiting in line at the drive through, according to a court decision.

Then another vehicle tried to squeeze in line. The driver of the small car bumped Smith’s front tire then backed off, letting Smith proceed.

The driver then bumped Smith’s truck a second time and gestured angrily at him, according to the decision.

Smith said the car might have been a two-door early 1990s model Acura Integra, and while he could not make out its colour through all the dirt on it, Smith guessed it might have been brown.

Rather than confronting the other driver, Smith grabbed his coffee and proceeded north on the Trans-Canada highway, according to the decision.

A few kilometres down the road, the driver of the small car overtook Smith, stomped on the brakes a few times, then came to a stop on the highway.

The driver, whom Smith described as a “scruffy” looking Caucasian man in his early 20s who stood about five-foot-nine and weighed 165 pounds, jumped out of the car wielding what Smith thought was a sledgehammer.

The man started to pound on the truck with the hammer, smashing Smith’s driver’s side window and headlight, and denting its side and hood.

It was then that Smith stomped on the gas, pushing the smaller car off the road and fleeing. Smith later pulled off the highway and dialled 911.

A witness later came forward and described a similar version of the events. The witness had also jotted down the licence plate of the small car.

Police repeatedly tried to contact Crystalina David, a Mill Bay resident and owner of a blue 1991 two-door Acura Integra with a licence plate that appeared to match the witness’s statement.

David gave evidence that while her parents might have driven her car from time to time, she never let anyone else, including her boyfriend, use the car.

Judge Brenda Edwards said in her decision that David came across in court as defensive and rehearsed. “I simply did not find her believable.”

While Edwards found David’s car had been used at the time of the road-rage incident, David did not allege that the car had been stolen or was in anyone else’s possession.

Edwards also wrote that she was satisfied David’s boyfriend matched the description of the driver, “although I need not determine the identity of the driver for the purposes of this case.”

The judge found David, as the registered owner of the car, guilty of two counts under the Motor Vehicle Act. She was ordered to pay $368 for driving without due care and attention and $368 for failing to remain at the scene of the accident.