Maybe once a month or so, I run into one of those bozos who decides that he wants to be in front of me, period. I change lanes and speed up, and he speeds up too. I’m behind him, he slows down. You know the kind.
And maybe once or twice a month, I get stuck behind one of those bozos who was in such a hurry to pull out in front of me from a side road or driveway that I had to slow down extra fast, but they didn’t feel like being in much of a hurry once they were in front of me.
A couple times a year, one or the other of these situations rises to the level of one of us giving the other a finger or something. It’s been years now since anything’s escalated as far as yelling. At least as a driver, I think I’m mellowing in my old age.
More than anything else, this has to be the most frustrating part of driving: that there is no widely shared ethic about how to appropriately use all that asphalt we call ‘roads.’ Beyond the actual laws (only partly including the speed limits that almost everybody violates to varying extents), everybody’s got their own set of rules in their head about how everyone should behave on the roads. And people’s sets of internal road rules conflict daily.
Agreed. It appears too many motorists are at conflict with the difference between a merge, as it applies to traffic control, and a common line, anywhere else. I always utilize a merge lane up until the merge point, unless it clearly makes more sense to merge earlier-- and if I merge early, I take that to mean I’ve already chosen my spot in the new lane, while anyone else is free to do the same, either in front or behind me, once it’s smooth. By design, merge lanes are meant to fit a greater volume of traffic across most areas, hence why the lane even exists.
The other problem is that many merge signs state that one lane is ending, which implies that the other lane should have right of way (in various cases it will). However, in areas where the roads are designed better, the signs simply say “lanes merge ahead”, which better communicates to drivers that they should employ the zipper technique, without getting needlessly territorial about someone invading their lane.
On a normal month I’d say this is about right. I don’t think I have “rage”. In most cases I feel fully justified. I know that the other person doesn’t realize the risk they are taking, but say someone passes me while I’m doing 50 in a 50 and they are doing 70, and they nearly crash into oncoming traffic. In a case like that my brain short circuits and I say some pretty nasty things. I might think/mutter something like “I hope that asshole hits a poll at that speed” because in my perception this asshole thinks that him getting to some location 5 minutes early is worth putting multiple lives at great risk of a terrible death. That is not something I can comprehend.
This past week, however, I drove from GA to RI and back, and when I hit my 15th bumper-to-bumper traffic jam, or when I found out last minute the George Washington Bridge was closed for repair, I was incredibly toxic.
If people zipped fairly & correctly, that might be a better way but if any started racing to get to the zipper point sooner, as you know people will, then it starts to break down and road rage wins again.
If people were zippering in correctly, with no racing at all, how would you be better off if the people are zippering correctly at the end of the line?
If you knew it was being done properly up ahead, would you refrain from going a bit faster or take to more aggressive driving so as to beat a few more people?
I would a, little bit at least, unless I was really mellow that day.
I think very few of the people who hate getting in line as it builds but think it is OK to zoom to the barrier and bull their way in, would not refrain from racing no matter which was going.
It’s very rare for me, certainly less than once a year. I had an incident a couple weeks ago where I was driving along at 70 in a 55 (perfectly normal on that road) and a work truck came speeding up from behind me, pulled up next to me, tailgating the person in front of him, then just started merging over. I honked, but he just kept going and it was clear from the rate that he was merging over that he knew I was there and was merging in a “chicken” way, just expecting me to slow down or run off the road. I had to slam on my breaks, since it was clear he didn’t care, his truck was already beat up probably from similar incidents, and I quite like my car. I ended up next to him at the next light maybe half a mile later and I flipped him off. Honestly, wasn’t even all that angry about it, but someone intentionally behaving in just a massively dickish and dangerous way should be shunned by those around him. The last case that was that kind of bad that I remember was at least 5-6 years ago.
That said, living in the Northern Virginia, asshole drivers, bad drivers, and just generally terrible traffic are just part of the way of life. If I got upset everytime someone didn’t let me merge or cut me off or swerved while texting or was driving really slow or recklessly, I’d have a stroke. When that happens, I’ll usually just sigh or maybe call them a prick and let it go, but I won’t start yelling and cursing or driving differently.
Basically never. I can’t really think of an example.
What sets me off is people tailgating me, or driving extremely irresponsibly. Unfortunately I’ve come to expect a certain amount of irresponsible driving.
It happens. I don’t tailgate, start my commute early to avoid the crazys and drive a performant car several miles an hour over the speed limit and still there’s assholes climbing up my butt because they didn’t set their alarm early enough or they’re just agressive drivers period. I live in a big city, so there’s going to be idiots and MFs.
When I approach a merge and am not in the lane that has already merged, I slow down to around 20 mph but do not stop or merge. The reason is twofold: 1, so that I will not get hit if someone who is stopped decides to swerve out into the moving lane, and 2, so people will not think I am trying to take advantage of the open lane too much. As a matter of fact, if the clogged lane is moving, I try to match its speed (unless it’s going realll slow) so people will know I am being a couteous merger. However, if it is stopped, I am not that guy who will also stop and cause two stopped lanes instead of one.
Maybe once every several months, but it really has to be a perfect storm of stress, panic attack, possibly a migraine, etc. This will set me off on the tiniest things. I think the only two times I ever got mad apropos nothing was once when I woman kept honking, flipped me off and screamed at me for not scooting forward so that she could change lanes (despite the fact that scooting forward would have literally been a collision in that traffic), and once when a van on the interstate pulled an insane series of completely illegal stunts that would have killed me and my passenger if they had been milliseconds earlier or later.
Yeah, I love it when a car pulls in front of me and gets pissed off that I don’t move to let it in despite the fact it would be on my insurance tab if I miscalculate. This one dude was halfway into my lane and gesticulating wildly but I still didnt move to let him in until the car behind me moved back a bit, so I knew I had at least that much leeway to also move back. I was tempted to not move back though out of spite.
Of course you can’t eliminate road rage, however, you can properly educate drivers on how to merge. At the very least you’re setting an expectation, even if it’s not followed to the ideal.
As to people racing, can’t do much about that. They’ll do it on yellow lights, they’ll do it while casually driving on the highway, and they’ll do it to get in front of that slow city bus.
If you have two 100 ft lanes (one being a merge), on the other side of an intersection, you can occupy about ~13-14 Camry sized sedans in the combined two lanes.
Should someone decide they’re going to merge just after that same intersection, and expect no one else to pass their imaginary wall, you now only have ~eight potential vehicles occupying those same lanes. For every person who decides they’re going to merge early, you now add an additional ~15 feet (approximate Camry size) to that unused 100 foot lane, until it becomes ridiculous and someone decides to just use it, anyway.
Occupying the lanes up until the merge point, where the road design/engineer/sign prompts you to merge, just makes the most sense, since it eliminates any of the guessing game and egos involved. This means you have a higher chance of getting across the intersection before the light goes red, as well as six-ish other cars behind you, for everyone who decides to merge properly.
I currently do refrain from racing to merges, since you can only go as fast as the car in front of you. If there is any question, I just go by a simple rule: if we’re entering the merge area and I’m about half-way ahead of the other car, I’ll proceed. If I’m about half-way behind the car next to me, I’ll let them take the lead. If they really MUST have that one car length, they can have it.
Maybe once or twice a year, but my commute to/from work is only about half a mile on only surface streets (no freeways). I think two factors play into this: geography (some cities are worse than others, based on my experience), and traffic density.
I experience road rage infrequently because I’m a careful driver, I find that signaling a turn or a lane change works wonders! Last time it happened to me I was on the receiving end. I guess I wasn’t driving fast enough so the guys moved around me and we ended up side by side at a stoplight. I rolled down my window and blew the two guys a kiss. They cracked up laughing and I think we all moved on in a calmer/safer frame of mind.
Road rage is a serious problem in Thailand. For example, a year ago the son of a major Central Thailand crime boss was killed by gunfire. Naturally, attention focused on his father’s enemies, but it turned out to be simple road rage. I do drive more politely and timidly since a scary encounter I had in the late 1990’s.
There is much to be road-enraged about here! :smack: The elite drive as though whoever has the most guns and gold always has the right-of-way. Poor rural drivers, OTOH, can exasperate because they have no clue about road rules. I could fill a dozen posts with the most amusing incidents.