Here’s one that happened to me. What would you do?
Picture this: You are driving along a residential road, on your way to Macy’s on Black Friday. Some idiot cuts you off, nearly causing a crash. You lower the window, pass by him at the next opportunity, and say “FUCK YOU! LEARN TO FUCKING DRIVE!” and give him the finger.
Two minutes later, you’re almost at Macy’s, this incident still fresh in your mind. What an asshole that guy was, you think.
To your surprise, the parking lot is full at Macy’s, except for two spots, right next to each other. Lo and behold, the guy who ignited your rage pulls in right next to you. Assume he is not following you, you just happened to have both been going to the exact same spot. And by sheer luck, you arrive at the same time.
You both get out of the car at the same time. You are seething. Do you address this person, and say “What’s wrong with you?” etc. Do you not say anything? Remember, you are really mad at this guy. Do you apologize for yelling at him on the road?
How does the situation change if it’s someone you really, really respect, like a professional colleague, a role model, a teacher of some kind? When you flipped them off and cursed them out, you had no idea it would be someone you knew, let alone respected. How do you deal with them seeing you behaving at your worst?
I would not have yelled anything that I would not have told the guy face to face in the first place, but regardless, I definitely would address the dude and give him a chance to retort. I would rather have everything out in the open and have immediate responses, rather than worrying that some stranger is going to mess with my car in retaliation, or kicking myself for not admonishing the guy for reckless behavior that almost led to a crash.
Using your horn to get the other driver’s attention is sufficient. That’s what those things are for, after all. Why do you feel compelled to add verbal abuse? Is your horn one of those unmanly ‘bleat’ noisemakers, like on an old VW Beetle?
People take a lot of traffic incidents way too personally, IMO. Sure, maybe the other driver saw you coming and said to his- (or her-) self, “I think I’ll just dart out in front of this mook and make him slam on his brakes; that should be fun.” Much more likely, however, is that they simply weren’t paying enough attention. A blast of the horn (see 1) surely has brought this issue to their notice.
Have you never, ever done something in traffic that earned a horn blast for your good self? If so, did you feel like you hadn’t been properly chastised unless the other driver pulled up alongside and made a short speech regarding your mother’s sexual history as well?
I suspect that walking up to someone who you have just both bleated at and verbally abused, only to lead off by asking what’s wrong with them, is unlikely to engender a friendly conversation as to what, in fact, is wrong with them.
In conclusion, the best way to deal with the sort of awkward parking situation described by the OP is to not set it up for extreme awkwardness in the first place.
Of course. Say I was having a really reaally bad day and I just snapped. Happens to us all, right? I’m not a rage filled maniac by nature, but this was an extreme case that just spiraled out of control. The question remains, assuming shit happens and I do set it up for extreme awkwardness, is it smarter to pretend like nothing happened? Like the poster above said, maybe it’s good to at least open up a conversation, either to clear the air, or apologize, or at least allow them to tell their side of what happened.
Well, I think in those circumstances, an apology for flipping out is in order. If I’m still seething, however, there is a not-insubstantial chance I’d end up going all Walter Sobchak on their ass, and almost certainly would end up heartily regretting it. In all honesty I’d probably just look for another space to open up, even if it took a while.
I cannot for on instant picture that happening to me. I go out of my way to avoid that very situation. Not only because of other idiot drivers, but other idiot mall shoppers on the idiotest day of the year. I fear not Malls/department stores as much as I do leaving them a bloody mess in handcuffs or dead.
I may have at one time or another given a hand signal (hey, this is New Jersey!) but it is something I immediately regret. This may have happened once or twice in the past decade.
Regardless of the situation, I feel that a face to face confrontation could go quite badly, so if I were to be in such a situation I would go around to the other side of the mall and park. The guy might have any kind of weapon with him.
A couple of years ago I had a road rage incident where a jacked-up 4x4 pickup truck tried to run me and my family off the road on a highway onramp. I was so furious that such a jerk could endanger our lives that I felt a very strong urge to chase him down, but within seconds my rational side took over and I slowed down, watching the pickup truck fade in the distance. Nothing good would have happened had we met face to face.
The kids still remind me of that crazy guy who gave us the Jersey Salute.
It’s funny how much of a role that anonymity plays in road rage events.
One time I had parked illegally in someone’s private spot when I was in a hurry to pick up my kid from daycare (yes, completely my fault), and when I came back, the owner was there with a few choice words for me. Even though it was my fault, my reaction to being taken to task was to give a few choice words of my own.
Anyway, it was a week later and I was in a local camera shop in my small town being helped by the owner, when I realised that the owner was the guy from the parking lot. When I had the exchange with the guy I recall thinking that he looked a bit familiar, and now I knew why. I have been to this store a handful of times over the years, and he was always nice to me.
Once he and I realised that we already ‘knew’ each other prior to the parking lot incident, we were both quite embarrassed and apologised profusely. We ended things with a handshake and since then we have been especially friendly toward each other.
Road rage is stupid. Whatever the infraction, I’m hard pressed to identify any situation in which giving someone the finger and swearing at them will lead to a desirable outcome. On the contrary, I can readily imagine many situations - such as the one you describe - where it could lead to undesirable ones.
Learn to deal with your reactions/emotions. Most of us live in a crowded society. When you go out into society, you are going to encounter people who will do stupid, inconsiderate things. And you might do things other people consider stupid and inconsiderate.
If someone pisses you off, figure some way to process your anger by yourself. If you are still seething minutes later as you describe, you have to develop some perspective.
You cannot control how other people act. But you can work at controlling how you react to them.
At this point I’d figure I had pretty much said all there was to say. I certainly wouldn’t apologize for it. If you’re going to go for Extra, you need to be sure you’re 100% in the right. You don’t want to start talking shit to some dude who just watched you drift over the median four times because you were dicking on your phone or whatever.
Heh. This is certainly not me behaving at my worst. I can do waaaaaaay better. Anyway, this wouldn’t change much anything for me, to be honest, although if I knew the person it would most likely lead to an additional sarcastic comment or two. Then we’d move on with our lives and go have margaritas or something.
Accepting the hypothetical…I’d drive away. I would not park next to the guy, or even the guy’s car. If he’s there, there’s too great a chance of emotional escalation. If he’s not there, he might come back, recognize my car, and give the paint a nasty scratch.
I would hate to be the one that made the idiot move. Nothing shames like having someone roll their eyes and shake their head at you. And you feel like you are “that asshole.”. The one you always thought you were better than.
It’s a lesson in realizing our equality, that we are all capable of making the same mistakes.
I forget who said it, but I love this quote (paraphrased)
The surest sign we are all the same is that everyone thinks the same thing: that they’re better than everyone else.
I would go see a therapist about my anger issues. This is not normal behavior for an adult.
If some idiot cuts you off, I find a properly applied horn is sufficient to both warn the driver and imply that he should fuck off.
Well…I assume I’m so embarrassed from my previous behavior that I just stare straight ahead and hope he goes away.
But if he says something to me, I would say that if he nearly caused an accident with his driving and if he doesn’t want people yelling at him, he should be more careful.
I generally don’t flip off people I respect and tell them to fuck off.
Honestly, the entire premise of the OP is silly and amounts to “what is the ‘etiquette’ for throwing a temper tantrum.”
The correct answer is "be happy he didn’t push your car off the road with a PIT maneuver, drag you out of the car and beat you to death.
I wouldn’t have said or done anything when it happened. If we pulled in next to each other I would say something then, to his/her face. Something like “Didn’t you see me back there?” It wouldn’t make any difference who it was, I would still ask them.
My version of the OP. I was waiting to board a flight from Dubai to Washington DC, it was midnight on New Year’s Eve and we could see the city’s fireworks from the terminal. This one guy was trying to push his way up to the front of the group and I said, “relax, we’re all Group 1 here, you’ll get on the plane.” He said, “go ahead hotshot, get in front of me,” and I said, “wow, 2015 is only 5 minutes old and you’re already a douche.”
We got on the plane and his seat was right next to mine, for a 14 hour flight. I read my magazine.
So, either learn not to mouth off, or find another place to park.