Regional Jet 900 (CRJ900)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Other / Unknown; Time Pressure
Conflict Ground Conflict; Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Company Policy; Human Factors
As we were pulling into the gate; the ground crew displayed the stop signal. I was going; honestly; too fast as I was anxious about the flight blocking-in on time and there was about 1 minute until we were going to be late. I was comfortable to at least cross the service road and then stop as our gate area appeared to be clear. There was a catering box truck to our left in the adjacent gate area. Suddenly; a [catering] car came around the front of the truck and was an immediate threat for a collision. I hit the brakes quite hard. I made an erroneous PA announcement to the passengers to please remain seated as the ramp agents weren't ready to accept the aircraft. What I should have said was that a car had pulled out in front of us; and was the reason for the abrupt stop. I was quite bothered by this and when we were marshalled to continue; I pushed the sole running engine's thrust lever up to the stop. First Officer immediately reached over and pulled the thrust lever back toward idle. No injuries or complaints were reported by the flight attendants or the gate agent after all of the passengers had de-planed. I suggest following the marshaller's instructions; limiting taxi speed; and not over-reacting to conflicts. Kudos to the First Officer for helping to keep things in check in a moment of frustration.
CRJ-900 Captain reports a near collision with a vehicle while taxiing rapidly to his gate for an on time arrival. Hard braking is required to avoid the vehicle and when cleared to taxi in by the marshall full thrust is used momentarily; but quickly retarded by the First Officer.