It takes two... (Road Rage)

Member Name: davemar

Product:	Road Rage
Date:	10/04/01 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can make you notice your own errors.

Disadvantages: Needless aggression, danger, spitefulness and selfishness.

I've known a couple of people who have complained of being on
the receiving end of road rage on a regular basis. On wondered why until
I was a passenger in their cars and witnessed their driving. Quite simply
they were awful drivers, very rarely indicating, dawldling along well below
the typical speed for the road, drifting between lanes without any reason
or convicting, ignoring other road users, stopping in yellow boxes. And they wondered why they getting loads of one-fingered salutes, and worse?
The only time I've been on the end of anything was when a royal mail
pulled out of a sideroad, ignoring a giveway, forcing me to stop and
blocking my path. Despite him being 100% at fault, he was the one
who jumped out of his car to hurl abuse at me. So occasionally you do
get nutcases who don't know how to drive and are in such a bad mood,
they'd rip anyone's head off who happens to be in their way. I was the
one who should have been dishing out the abuse, but I was so shocked
by his response I was speechless.
The only time I lost my rag at someone, was when another driver nearly
killed me. It was only down to some amazing manouvre I pulled off that
I avoid a collision. I was leaving a motorway on the sliproad, I had just
about reached the point where the fencing had started. Suddenly someone
in 2nd lane of the motorway, pulled a handbrake turn, and blasted right
across me at 90 degrees to the direction of travel to join the sliproad. I someone managed to avoid him by flooring it and steering around him.
He was just sitting there across the sliproad, with other cars trying to miss
him. When I finally reached the roundabout, he had caught up in the queue.
I was so insensed at him that I did wind my wind down and hurl some
constructive abuse at him. The sad thing was, he had his wife and son in the car (a Volvo of course!), and they just pointed and laughed at m
e like their actions were so trivial. That just wound me up even more. But I just had to bite my tongue as there was nothing I could do. If it wasn't for my move,
I would have been seriously injured, and I probably would have pureed
their son to a pulp, and all they could was laugh it off.
I think I had some justification for a little road rage then.

So the next time someone gets nasty at you, think about what you could
have done to avoid it in the first place. Did you forget to indicate, have
had a convey a cars stuck behind you for the last 10 miles? If you are
totally confident that you had no way of avoiding that abuse then you
are a rather unlucky victim of a nutcase, otherwise it is worth considering
your own actions and driving too.
Driving is about give as much as take.

Summary: