“If you’re on the wrong end of a disagreement or road rage, it can be frightening. It;s about swallowing your pride. Often, if you don’t engage an aggressive driver, the situation will diffuse.”
Road rage is the worst kind of counter productive street brawl perpetrated by short fused, stressed out and mentally distressed people behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. They go from zero to full blown hostile anger with their motor vehicle as their weapon of response and attack to perceived offense by other drivers.
The following is a ten point step strategy to prevent and avoid road rage.
Step Number Ten – Be aware of your personal responsibility for your own safety and safe operation while operating a motor vehicle. You can not be responsible for the behavioral road rage of other drivers. You can’t control them. You can only control yourself and your behavior.
Step Number Nine – Always allow yourself plenty of time to get to your destination. The later you leave to get where you are going, the more tense and stressed you will be if anything gets in your way or you engage any form of delay. Driving wile stressed makes you a candidate to demonstrate road rage
Step Number Eight – Do not engage in behavior while driving that distracts you. Do not hold food in your hands while driving. Use a hands free voice activated phone. Do not listen to music so loud or soothing that it takes away from your ability to concentrate. Doing these things can provoke road rage in other drivers.
Step Number Seven – Maintain a clear mind for the task at hand. The road before you and your destination are the objective. While operating a motor vehicle is not the time to worry about anything. You still have to stay onside the lines and not invade the space of other drivers. This is the fuse that lights the road rage bomb. Morticians report that victims of fatal car crashes primarily those involving one motor vehicle are the result of preoccupation with other things than the task of driving.
Step Number Six – Use your driving tools. Use all your visual instruments to enhance personal safety. You have three rear view mirrors for simultaneous observation while maintaining peripheral awareness of all other activity on the road you are traveling. A driver already in full blown road rage may not be able to pay attention to how close they are driving to you. You can.
Step Number Five – Drive within prescribed speed limits and pay attention to road signage above and on the road. Signs that say 55 miles per hour do not mean drive 64 miles per hour; one mile per hour short of 10 miles above the speed limit. Don’t drive too slow. Driving too slow can be prime prompt to road rage looking for a place to vent.
Step Number Four – Be emotionally prepared for driving. Know that somebody on the road is not going to drive at the level of your standard expectation. Somebody is going to pull onto the free way without yielding and appear they are going to crash into you. Your first reaction is to go into your four letter word laced “F” word lexicon. Don’t go there. If your do, you are no longer preventing road rage. You are road rage.
Step Number Three – Let go your ego. Mass transit and public transportation are excellent tools for preventing road rage. Use mass transit public transport as often as possible. It’s good for you. It’s good for the environment. It takes other individual drivers out of your transportation equation.
Step Number Two – Let the immature behavior of others acting out while driving represent a source of free humor and comedy. These are not bad people. Theses are people allowing their emotions to affect their behavior in ways that are not limited to only harming them. Think of the personalities of road rage, the road rage comedy hour. Blow it off. Don’t take it seriously.
If the behavior represents a perceived real and reasonable risk to others, call 911 and report your observation with as much detail as possible without putting others at further risk. Details should include make and model of car, color, license plate number and where on the road dangerous activity is taking place. Preventing road rage behavior’s disastrous affect must become the priority.
Step Number One – Know you can never fully get away from people. People are everywhere. Someone is always going to show up to volunteer to irritate you, frustrate you, and prompt you to feel anger. You feelings are yours. Your personal responsibility to prevent rage of any kind is to manage your emotional response to power charged human emotional responses of others. Stop the rage by active road rage prevention in yourself. The life you safe and save just might be your own.
