The Sure Cure for Road Rage

Personal confession: Fifteen years ago, I was given to road rage. Today, I am a different person, having come to the self-realization, that anger on the road is not worth it. The reason why I write this is to share my discovery on how you can overcome road rage yourself. If this article helps even a single person or a few people, it would mean fewer accidents on the road and the saving of lives, whose futures could have changed for the worse. I will not take credit for those lives, but you sure can, if you apply these personal lessons to your own life, and become a better driver, starting today.

Road Rage is curable if the individual wants to be cured. It’s simply a matter of attitude adjustment and gaining respect for your fellow driver on the road. Safe Motorist attributes 66% of the road accidents are caused due to aggressive driving caused by road rage. Romeo Vitelli, Ph.D., from Media Spotlight, writes for Psychology Today, stating that road rage is “any kind of aggressive or angry behaviour (sic) by a driver towards people in other vehicles.” No one has a clear number of how many road rage cases happen each year. However, each year there has been an average of 1200 cases reported, with a 7% increase seen, year after year.

Roadrage is real, the death and damage to families are irreparable. Credit: Methodshop, by Pixabay

AAA states that road rage happens in many forms, the extreme of them being: “Extreme cases of aggressive driving can escalate to road rage. Examples of road rage are:

• Cursing and rude or obscene gestures
• Throwing objects
• Ramming cars
• Sideswiping another vehicle
• Forcing a driver off the road.”

All these acts put another family, innocent people, even children in great danger of getting seriously injured, maimed for life, or killed. Their family members will miss them for life. Just think about this if you are one of the drivers who are given to road rage.

The reason you clicked to read this article is perhaps you want to:

1. Learn about Road Rage and its impact on society.
2. Know how to control your own road rage behavior.
3. Find out a way to cure your extreme road rage.

Drivers who are given to such road rage behavior often want to teach the other driver a lesson. They feel that somehow the busy road is the place to teach them a valuable lesson. These drivers are given to uncontrollable anger and a driving need to appease their own egos, which are so large, that they do not see the irreparable harm they are doing to other innocent families. True life goes on, after an accident, or death of a family member. But what pains me is that life “WILL NEVER BE THE SAME” again. That is the hard part to reconcile with, simply because one driver could not keep a cool head.

AAA has collected a series of unacceptable and immature behaviors that drivers display while on the road, only worried about themselves, and not about their fellow drivers, categorizing them as “Unsafe Driving Behaviors,” caused due to the aggressive nature of adults.

Once life is lost, no amount of pleading or crying will set things right. Credit: fsHH/Pixabay

“Any unsafe driving behavior performed deliberately and with ill intention or disregard for safety, can constitute aggressive driving. Examples of such rude behaviors include:

• Speeding in heavy traffic
• Tailgating
• Cutting in front of another driver and then slowing down
• Running red lights
• Weaving in and out of traffic
• Changing lanes without signaling
• Blocking cars attempting to pass or change lanes

AAA Foundation’s Annual Traffic Safety Culture Index aggregates millions of drivers expressing rude, immature, and obscene behaviors, constituting unsafe conditions on the road for fellow passengers. Who would be the unsuspecting victims of such behaviors, is unpredictable and the damages, incalculable.

AAA’s survey studying drivers includes these behaviors:

• Aggressive driving by switching lanes quickly/or very close behind another car: 26 % (57 million drivers)
• Making rude gestures or honking at other drivers: 32 % (71 million drivers)
• Driven 15 mph over the speed limit on a freeway: 48 % (106 million drivers)
• Driving through a red light: 31 % (68 million drivers)
• Passing in front of a vehicle at less than a car length: 22 % (49 million drivers)
• Speeding up when another vehicle tried to overtake you: 25 % (55 million drivers)
• Following a vehicle in front of you closely to prevent another vehicle from merging in front of you: 34 % (75 million drivers)
• Merging into traffic even when another driver tries to close the gap between vehicles: 28 % (62 million drivers)

How many of us are guilty of any of these behaviors, myself included? Well, it’s easy to change, develop a sense of friendliness on the road for your neighbor who shares the road with you. I assume that both your cars are registered with the state, both of you have license plates, driver’s insurance, a driver’s license, and pay taxes. So who then has command over the road? Neither one of you. The most responsible thing to do would be to share the road equally. No one is King of the Road. No one has to teach the other party a lesson, certainly when they have not requested a lesson from the other driver. Unwanted accidents, hurt, pain, loss of limb, and loss of life can be avoided at all costs if we take things in a more cool and calmer fashion, not allowing our rage to bubble and froth, take over our emotions, seethe and rage with uncontrollable anger, which may cost the lives of innocent children, aging seniors, parents, and youth.

So how can we get cured of road rage?

See them as a loved one, a family member, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your dad, your mom, your granddad, your grandmom, your son or daughter, whom you love, cherish, and respect the most. If that person who you love the most cut in front of you, would you lose your cool and get angry? Certainly not! Why? Because you love them much as you love yourself. Love drives out all forms of hate. It gives you a new perspective, deep respect for the driver in front of you.

So if we will not get angry at our family members or friends who cut us off in traffic just because we love them a lot, what makes us get angry and lose our cool when a stranger cuts us off? We must reprogram our minds to think it’s just a family member who’s ahead of us.

Drivers who share the road with us may be impatient for a number of reasons. Pick any reason, they may be rushing to a hospital to take care of a loved one. They may be rushing home because someone has injured themself. Or they may be rushing to their work because their alarm failed to ring. Whatever the reason may be, you may never meet this person again, ever in your life. Then why lose your cool over 5 seconds of rashness caused by another stranger? Is it worth it?

Please share this article if it will help others.

If you come across another driver who is given to road rage, do the following:

1. Be polite, allow them the right of way. Let them go first.
2. Remember that the road is not the place to teach or educate other drivers.
3. You don’t have to make eye contact.
4. If you do make eye contact, offer a friendly smile and signal for them to go ahead.
5. If they brake in front of you and do not let you move, do not lose your cool. Stay in your car and listen to music, and keep your calm.
6. Do not get out of your car to confront a stranger or argue with them.
7. Resist the temptation to lower your window and call them names.
8. Believe that this stranger could be your long-lost relative who is going to give you a hundred million dollars! (Did that cure your road rage?)

Just be done with road rage and be nice to everyone on the road. Thank you!