There is an interesting article in today’s Tacoma (WA) News Tribune (2/9/10, www.thenewstribune.com) about a guy found guilty of third-degree felony assault in a road rage case a year ago. Turns out he’d followed some schlep across the bridge and at some point, dragged him out of his car and beat the tar out of him.
Here’s the kicker: the assailant is a neurosurgeon.
Yeah. A really short fuse is pretty much what we’re all looking for in a neurosurgeon.
We had a local road rage incident and one of the participants is a anesthesiologist. Doctors are just as human as the rest of us. Any one of us could snap at any moment.
We all have to start coaching ourselves to remain calm in all driving situations. Try not to get too excited when school age people are driving. They do some things that get older people wound up. I stopped getting mad when I realized what time it was. Oops, it’s fifteen minutes before classes start. Time for me to be polite, they’re armed.
I was involved in one some 15 years ago. Some idiot ran a stop sign and I almost hit him…I laid on the horn as he went through the intersection doing about 40. When I laid on my horn…he slammed on his brakes and turned around and chased me down…almost running me off the road. I had enough…I pulled over…got out of my truck just as the cop (who saw the whole thing was pulling up). The guy was arrested on the spot.
Seems to me that too much attention is centered on the “rager” rather than the idiot that caused them to lose it in the first place…
A year or two ago, a woman was in bad traffic, I think in VA where they have stretches of highway that are posted as zero tolerance of any aggression. She was piqued by another driver and tossed a paper cup of pop/ice at the other car, and ended up in prison on a felony rap. Her intention to become an RN went down the tubes for that cup toss.
I have been an unexpected person of road rage. It was a snowy icy night and some nimrod decides to pass me on the icy roads as I was going the speed limit, only to slam on his brakes to make a right hand turn making me come to a near stop for this guy. I flashed my brights in annoyance at his brake lights and turn signal, I saw gesticulations worthy of our fair city, and was so tempted to follow this guy and and beat the brains back into him, I did not, but was surprised how angry I felt.
I have nothing against “zero tolerance”, it’s just that when people say “zero tolerance” today, what they really mean is “draconian punishment”.
If you can so easily blame someone else for your anger, you might need anger management classes.
It’s called “emotional intelligence.” Work on it.
Me too…I had a guy pass me at an intersection and cut me off as I prepared to make a turn while heading for home. I tooted at him. He immediately slammed on his brakes, did a U turn and followed me a mile and a half into my driveway. When he stopped, he started yelling at me. I stepped out of my car with my .357(no 9mm, that dates me) on my belt but still in civilian cloths, showed him my badge and asked for his registration and license.
What a real nice and apologetic young man he suddenly turned out to be.
You ever notice that almost nobody gets angry when it’s a deer that they have to suddenly brake for or it’s fog or ice that they have to slow down for? You don’t have to get mad at other drivers.
Agressive law enforcement using aircraft and unmarked cars does wonders to reduce road rage and aggresive driving. People are a lot less likely to be jerks when there’s a good chance that the car they are tailgating and blowing their horns at might be undercover cops.
If you see a “homeless man” talking into his sleeve at an intersection in my hometown, you might want to not run that red light or go around a long line of cars to make an illegal left turn from the center lane.
I have to agree with those that suggest that the moment an incident of road rage occurs 100% of the blame is shifted to the angry party and not the idiot that caused the anger. I’d have to add that that alone is reason to control the anger.
If someone does something stupid, every one thinks “look at that idiot, he almost caused an accident”.
If someone who was almost involved in an accident from that stupidity becomes enraged and acts on it, everyone thinks “Oh my God, an out of control enraged idiot”.
Unfortunately, the spotlight shifts. Out of control rage can be more dangerous than stupidity.
Some have theorized that road rage comes from a sense of entitlement. It’s a “It’s my road, get out of the way” mentality. Strangely, some of the same folks with this sense of entitlement speak out against other instances of entitlement.
When a road rager points a finger at someone else, three of his fingers point back at himself.
Do I detect a little political animosity. …are we referring to the same road rage guy who also says our fed. govt. should only be for national defense when national defense doesn’t include not letting 30K people die a year. What good is “national defense” anyway if it’s not to prevent people from dying ? You know, all enemies foreign and domestic…I guess we forget the domestic “road rage” kind.
But I digress.
Clearly.
But we all digress occasionally too, so we’ll forgive ya.
I admit to being confused about your point, however.
Probably reading too much into Whitey’s comment.
Your sensing political animosity is pretty accurate. I was thinking of how ironic and hypocritical it is that some people rage against government entitlements, and attribute a sense of entitlement to liberal ideology, but when these same people get behind the wheel of a car, some of them have a different sense of entitlement; one that justifies aggressive driving and road rage.
Please don’t get me wrong. People from all over the political spectrum are capable of road rage. I just couldn’t ignore the irony. This particular vehicular sense of entitlement is uniquely American. Other countries may have incidents of road rage, but they have far fewer incidents in very densely populated areas.
“Other countries may have incidents of road rage, but they have far fewer incidents in very densely populated areas.”
Yeah, my sister-in-law lived in Italy for several years. She said Italian men routinely yell and scream at each other in traffic, but it’s no big deal cause they usually get it out of their system without coming to blows. We seem to not be able to do that.
One good way to stay calm is to get in the habit of thinking in terms of seconds per mile instead of miles per hour.
If you think of 60 miles per hour as 60 seconds per mile, and 70 miles per hour as 51.43 seconds per mile, it becomes obvious that being forced to slow down from 70 to 60 for an entire mile only adds about 8.57 seconds to your trip. Your next red light should be so short.
“political entitlements” ,those guys think it’s a gift when we JUST WANT OUR TAX MONEY BACK. We should be the enraged ones; Some of us loosing 80% of our social security contribution because of WEP (a Ronald Reagan era idea), and 50 % in real value of our expected retirement supplement in the stock market in the last 9 years.
All the while listening to “the conservative” solutions, private health accounts and lets let the remaining SS funds be absorbed into into the market. Ya, a couple of great ideas…let’s just move all the money into the top 10% who may pay 40% of the taxes but have well over 90% of the wealth already.
Does the average guy facing retirement feel a little upset before he even gets behind the wheel ? Probably not as they well shouldn’t. But for many, that’s sadly their “entitlement”.
That’s what I meant to say in response to Whitey, same mountainbike.