Dealing with Road Rage
Ways to avoid giving in to road rage.
Amongst the millions of motorists roaming our highways and byways, you could identify hundreds of maniacs and psychopaths, but these are not road ragers. They would stick a bottle in your face in a pub or kick you to the ground at a football match, any day of the week. That is their modus operandi. Aggressive people with an aggressive life style,
Road ragers are predominantly ordinary folk who undergo extraordinary change when exposed to road rage situations. Benign figures like church ministers, M.P.'s , office workers, builders etc. have all succumbed to road rage.Road ragers are predominantly male and pose more of a problem, with behaviours that are not predictable. Three quarters of road ragers are male, with 12% unidentified, leaving only 13% females. The key is that these behaviours are reactive. They constitute a reaction to an event or series of events on the road, that generally culminate in a largely irrational, and frequently dangerous response.
It helps to appreciate that the underlying situation is an inherent frustration. An otherwise safe and considerate driver is minding his own business' looking in his mirrors, planning lane changes, maintaining a steady pace, generally driving competently. It starts to rain, he drops back from the vehicle in front, for safety, at which point another driver cuts in. Logic says that the first driver is driving sensibly. Now that competent driver has a mind set, that this is my space' and that space has been invaded.' To regain the safe braking distance, the competent driver has to drop back further. Psychologically, and in reality, losing ground to the incomer.
If Freud were still alive he would have much to say about cars being an extension of the male sexuality, and maybe the 13% of female road ragers would evidence high levels of testosterone. Clearly road rage conflicts are territorial, and primeval in origin. Taking the concept of our space', we then become compelled to defend it. Ordinarily, a car passes you at 70 mph in the outside lane of a motorway, and you hardly notice the occupants, and probably couldn't even identify them. But someone who has been tail gating your car at ridiculous distances, is going to leer across his passenger, and give the finger, which will probably be reciprocated. Like the slow motion in films, these events linger, with only robotic attention to the actual driving, in the wider context of the road ahead.
It's a bit like watching a Robin fight off the Sparrows and Blackbirds in the garden, we have sophisticated vehicles, with a sensor for every occasion, but driven by a man with sensations dating back to the dawn of time. The underlying on/off switch in human beings is fight or flight. Road rage incidents escalate because they trigger our 'fight' switch. The invasion of our space is a territorial challenge that has to be repulsed.
Having travelled over 100,000 miles on the roads, I have frequently been angered by other inconsiderate motorists, especially when trying to meet real or imagined deadlines. I also confess to full blown road rage, particularly when being passed by motorcyclists on the inside, where they are totally invisible. Passengers who try to deter you from action, then become part of the problem.
Ultimately, the reality is that you, your family and even the instigator could suffer death to fight an argument that would otherwise have receded to the back of your mind in 30 minutes. The clincher was the realisation that reacting' is a weakness in yourself. That inner karma that allows you to ignore and trivialise the events on the road, needs to be constantly massaged and replenished.
