Split personality (Road Rage)

Member Name: aaaardvark

Product:	Road Rage
Date:	14/07/01 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Chill out!!

Its amazing how people's personalities change when they get behind the wheel of a car. When walking down the street, in the event of someone cutting across you, the chances are you apologise, even if its the other person's fault. Either that or you do nothing. You certainly do not curse and shout and then fume about it for the rest of your walk. Now in a car, a similar sort of event is often followed by flashing of lights, beeping, swearing, face pulling, gestures and very possibly tailgating, chasing and dangerous overtaking further down the road. After all, they could have caused an accident!!

So why the difference in behaviour? Why do perfectly polite people turn into raging psychopaths behind the wheel? Maybe its a territorial thing? Maybe its an anger that somebody has endangered them by doing something silly?

But this doesn't necessarily ring true. What about road rage as a result of people going too slow or being too careful?

I think road rage is all about demonstrating that anger which you can't usually do so without the protection of a metal box around you and the safety feature of an accelerator to get you out of trouble should things turn nasty. Road ragers are cowards. I don't really know the statistics, but I would imagine that big burly men with tattoos and shaved heads (no disrespect intended!!) are less likely to be victims of road rage.

I just think that people should just learn to be a little more tolerant of other people on the road. Maybe there's a reason the Fiesta in front is doing 30mph in (shock horror) a 30 mph limit. Maybe the person who just pulled out in front of you just misjudged the situation and is already looking sheepish and so on.

The test should be this. Would similar behaviour out of the car prompt you to stick two fingers up and wish the curse of Satan on the person - if not, just tale a deep breath and feel smug that you are a far superior dri
ver!!

Summary: