'People's Convoy' Trucker Furious That DC Drivers Have Been Giving Him The Middle Finger

A member of the "People's Convoy" of truckers that has blocked the Washington, D.C. Beltway to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions complained in a video that other drivers along the Beltway have been giving him the middle finger as they drive by.

In the video, which was first shared to social media by Zachary Petrizzo, a media reporter for The Daily Beast, complains that D.C. is a "different world" because "birds are flying, birds are flying everywhere!"

You can hear the convoy member's remarks in the video below.

He said:

"Not one time did I see anyone flipping us the bird [when driving across the country]. Not once. You go around the Beltway, birds are flying, birds are flying everywhere!"

"That's the kind of people that live up there, you know? It's a different world, D.C. is a different world."

"We're trying to straighten it out. We're trying to clean it up. That's what this is all about, trying to get it cleaned up."

Bird flipping is apparently such a problem that Brian Brase, the convoy's lead organizer, has suggested that truckers “flood 911” with calls as tensions between the convoy's members and D.C. commuters continue to rise.

A Maryland State Police communications official who spoke to The Daily Beast said that calls to 911 should be reserved for emergencies, stressing that a driver flipping a trucker off is not an emergency.

Many have criticized the driver's righteous behavior, pointing out that the convoy has disrupted the lives of D.C. residents, to say nothing of others who rely on the Beltway.

The D.C. protest was inspired by Canada's "Freedom Convoy," a protest led by Canadian truckers who've pushed back against COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

The convoy, comprised of a minority of the country's truckers who've retaliated after the United States and Canada agreed to COVID-19 vaccine requirements for truckers to re-enter the country by land, for weeks garnered headlines amid concerns that organizers and groups have been involved with white nationalist contingents, QAnon, and other far-right groups.

Last month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau evoked the country's Emergencies Act for the first time since its passing in 1988, kicking off a large-scale operation that ultimately cleared the majority of protesters and dismantled much of the movement.

Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, was criticized after complaining about rising gas prices only to then attempt to seek an audience with truckers engaged in a driving protest that has for days burned expensive diesel.