If you need proof we are no longer living in a 24/7 world but more like a 72/7 world, look around the highway as you drive to and from home, work, or school. The current pace of life finds many of your fellow drivers with eyes locked hard on to their phones and their feet stomped heavy on their gas pedals. These days, it’s hard not to feel like the drivers to your left and right have become more territorial, more aggressive, and just plain meaner when they get behind the wheel. Is the affliction known as “road rage” a larger symptom of a general anger problem?
You see it every day on our roads: people speeding past; changing lanes with no signal; weaving dangerously across three and four lanes; passing too closely on either side of your car; speeding up to block you out; not allowing you to change lanes or merge on or off the highway; racing other drivers (i.e., two maniacs who think car-handling skills are better than they actually are); roaring up behind as if they might intentionally rear-end you; constant tailgating; horn honking; flashing high beams at your mirror when you are in “their” fast lane; finger flipping; screaming out the window; causing or creating accidents; pulling over to fight; or worse, kill the other driver.
What used to be a largely male problem has crossed gender lines. Women may not get into roadside fistfights or point guns at each other like men, but they can drive just as aggressively, rudely, and even dangerously. It’s the rare time when male and female aggression is on display in near-equal amounts. For many men, aggression is supposed to be overt; for women it is more covert. But put them both behind the wheel, late for something, angry about something else, and in no mood for courtesy, and their behaviors will compare.
What factors cause a usually mild-mannered person to see red? Some people who are ordinarily even-tempered admit that they have an easy tendency to lose control of their emotions when they get behind the wheel. Their fuses get lit when they put their keys into their ignitions.
For some road ragers, it’s a need for control, to counter to other drivers who they feel violate their proxemic space, or their need for possession of their lane or their part of the road. For others, it’s unchecked anger and aggression. It’s hormone-based, primitive, small-brain thinking, bringing a lack of emotional intelligence or the need to dominate someone else and their unsharable space. Add in unchecked egos, the need for superiority, narcissistic pride, and male genital one-upmanship: my vehicle is bigger than yours.
Mental health professionals define certain behaviors as problematic when they have consequences. Road rage, and especially those acts which lead to confrontations, can have significant consequences, including getting cited by the police; getting arrested for reckless driving (three or more moving violations in a row); having your licensed suspended or revoked; losing or tripling your auto insurance policy; damaging your car or the other driver’s car; getting sued; or injuring or killing someone in the other car or someone in your car, including your spouse or children. Road rage victims and perpetrators have been pepper sprayed, stabbed, beaten, run down, and shot by each other.
The minor consequences are that you continue to let one isolated event on the road ruin your whole day or get you a traffic ticket. And don’t discount the not-insignificant matter of embarrassing your family as you act like a spitting, cursing, raving lunatic. If you show that side to your kids too often, they could learn to see that behavior as somehow “appropriate” when they get old enough to drive. Or just as bad, they think mom or dad is an immature ass.
Solutions are easy to say and often hard to follow. Some people don’t have the will or wherewithal to try to cure themselves, even under the threat of an injury, a crash, a citation, an arrest, or a lawsuit. They suffer from the “It’s the other driver’s fault” syndrome. But one simple answer to road rage is to simply concentrate fully and intently on your own driving, and not make eye contact or care about the people around you, even when their own skills leave a lot to be desired.
Another easy tool is to practice stress breathing: inhale for a count of four, hold for count of four, exhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four, and repeat the cycle as many times as necessary to bring your pulse rate and blood pressure back to normal levels.
Perspective is an important part of road rage prevention too. You are you. The other driver is the other driver. Only you can let someone ruin your day or worse, or push your hot buttons. Focus on being “relentlessly positive” and realize you can’t control, coerce, or fix other people. You can only manage you. Practice kindness, starting with you first.
WWDLD? What Would the Dalai Lama Do? Go forth down the road and be yourself, with compassion towards others. Stop caring about your “space.” Tint your windows. Get a subscription to satellite radio and enjoy your music without commercials. Realize road rage is ridiculous, life-threatening, and not something you have to participate in, ever.
Dr. Steve Albrecht is a San Diego-based speaker, trainer, and author on high-risk HR and security issues. In 1994, he co-wrote Ticking Bombs, one of the first books on workplace violence prevention. He holds a doctorate in Business Administration; an M.A. in Security Management; a B.S. in Psychology; and a B.A. in English. He worked for the San Diego Police Department for 15 years and has written 15 books on business, HR, and criminal justice subjects. He can be reached at drsteve@drstevealbrecht.com