The roads have always been a scary place to be; we must adapt to the predatory food chain that is swarmed by accidents, gargantuan SUVs driven by soccer moms and sedans piloted by fanatic old men at obscene speeds. Then, there are those drivers to whom anger management is an exotic self-control technique. A man once followed me for six miles to a Target store and proceeded to yell at my face for 20 minutes because I braked too abruptly on the red light (which I can assure you I didn’t), with profanity and racial slur tastefully laced in there as well. And with millions of people on the roads today with thousands joining in the crowd every day, the risks of running into ill-tempered maniacs like that gentleman, or this woman, are ever greater. Road rages get so bad sometimes, that people have ended up in hospitals, or worse. It truly is a new yet still frightening risk to motorists that whoever’s driving next to them might be an angry psychopath.
Statistically speaking, road rage is pretty common, since anything from you swearing, horn-blaring, tailgating and giving the finger to that douchebag driver is classified as a road rage. And let’s be honest here, we’re all guilty of that. However, the ones that unnerve all of us are violent fits of road rage that can pose serious danger, like the 37% of road rage incidents that involve firearms. Between 2004 and 2013, death from road rage-related crimes increased by 9.5 times, and between 2010 and 2013, drivers in D.C who said they experienced uncontrollable anger towards other drivers have also doubled. Now I hear you ask, “Is there a sign that I can use to tell that the person I’m cutting off might be a murderous lunatic?” Well…not really.
According to statistics, males under 19 years of age are most susceptible to road rage, so if you see a car that is emitting an unmistakable trail of vape smoke, don’t bother them. Weirdly, those who are fashioning Bernie or Hillary bumper stickers are least likely to shoot you for honking at them, while independents are most likely to go Jason Bourne on your a**. Also, daily commuters are more fire-breathing than those who are fortunate enough to not have to commute. Thanks, Captain Obvious. As you can see, these figures are fantastically vague, since it describes at least about half of American population. So there is really no way of telling who is the person that’s going to explode because you tailgated them.
As vague is trying to find out who is going to be the lunatic who follows you and get out and bang on your window threatening to kill you, the solution to road rage is equally vague. The best practice would be to be a courteous driver, yield to others, don’t cut people off (always indicate), don’t tailgate and just be a more relaxed, chill driver. Remember that getting to your destination is the most important thing, rather than get worked up by someone’s bad driving and feel like you have to teach that person a lesson. And when you do get into potentially dangerous situations from a hostile driver, the best thing to do is to not to interact with that driver; always get yourself out of the situation, and maintain your regular safe driving habit. Do not try to handle the situation yourself when you are confronted with a hostile, even violent, person, always contact the police first.
Road rage is an ugly facet of our driving society that will probably never go away. But the truly sad part is that most road rages occur due to hazardous driving from you, who feel like you are the victim. Cutting lanes, speeding aggressively, tailgating, weaving through traffic, erratic behavior are all dangerous behaviors that everyone almost has the right to be angry about, because it puts them into danger as well as you. So please, for the sake of everybody's safety and preventing meeting someone like this, next time you are on the road, remind yourself or whoever it is on the driver’s seat to be courteous and give other drivers some extra room to relax about. After all, we’re all trying to go home at the end of the day.
