Tell me about it folks… we’ve all been there, we’ve all felt it. What was it that just knocked you over the edge?
Could dredge up old nastiness, but I’d rather promote the defusing of road rage. These are the rules I drive by:
- When in doubt, the other person has right-of-way.
- Drive the speed limit…or just a wee bit over.
- Always use turn signals.
- The first second of a yellow light means speed up; after that, it means stop.
- Obey all traffic laws 90% of the time. 10% of the time, common sense must prevail.
- Always respond to a rude hand gesture with a wave and a smile.
- Never carry firearms.
- Drive defensively, not offensively.
- The only use for a horn is to scare children or animals off the roadway.
- The idiot is always right.
I dredge up old nastiness. I promote the fusing of road rage. These are the rules I drive by:
- When in doubt, fuck em.
- Drive just a wee bit over anyone.
- Never use turn signal unless you can hit someone
- The yellow light means speed up.
- Obey all traffic laws 10% of the time. The rest, again, fuck em.
- Always respond to a rude hand gesture with another.
- Always carry firearms.
- Drive offensively, not defensively.
- The only use for a horn is to bring children or animals on to the roadway. So you can hit them.
- The bigot is always right.
- Drive as slow as you can in the ultra fast lane. Why? Because it fucks with someone you don’t know. Why? Why not?
- Don’t like it? Kiss my pucker!
As always, this is just IMHO! If you don’t like it, write your own topic!
For more fun traffic ideas come and drive in Utah, a pretty, great state. We’ve got it all! And if you don’t like it… well, what can I say…
The moon looks on many flowers, the flowers on but one moon.
TennHippie, I disagree with your statement #9. Vehemently, and until the day I die. The horn is there to attract attention; use it to alert other drivers to the existence and location of your car.
For instance, I recall one time when I was leaving a McDonald’s parking lot, here in St. Louis. The lot was U-shaped, with big signs saying “Entrance” on one end and “Exit” on the other. It was obviously one-way-only, and the painted arrows on the road served to reinforce this.
So here I was in this one-way parking lot lane, which was about 1.1 car widths wide. To my left was the line of cars waiting at the drive-thru, and to my right were all the parked cars.
While I was in this situation, some girl entered the lot through the Exit, and proceeded to drive the wrong way down the lane. She had her neck craned around-- apparently to read the drive thru menu-- and thus was not looking at me.
I stopped my car, and watched her drive straight toward me. After a second or so it was quite apparent that she did not know that I was in her way, and that she would shortly drive head-on into me; to prevent this, I sounded my horn. The girl immediately braked, then saw me, and realized that she was going the wrong way.
The kicker here is that a friend of mine, who was in the car at the time, thinks that it was rude to blow the horn. He’s a native Midwesterner, which means that he never, ever uses the horn in any situation. When I asked whether I should have let the girl smash her car into mine, he shrugged and says something like, “You New Yorkers just like to make noise.”
I felt like smacking him-- which I guess is the closest I’ve ever come to a Road Rage incident.
Okay, okay. That’s one of those obvious situations. What I object to is the use of the horn for any reason or no reason at all.
People use horns to call riders; say “hi”; express anger, joy, confusion, frustration, sexual attraction, self-satisfaction; for the need to hear a noise; because they are in a tunnel; to let you know that the light changed to green .1 second ago; and for any whim that pops into their tiny reptilian brains. Thus, the folks that need to hear horns don’t even notice one more amid the blaring of many. Other folks, like me, look for the emergency in each of the honks he hears 1000 times a day.
And Knoxville is not nearly as bad as some places I’ve been.
I think road rage has less to do with provocation and more to do with the state of mind of the rager.
Over the past few years, I’ve been involved in three accidents after which other drivers who were not involved became enraged, rolled down their windows, and yelled obscenities as they passed by, evidently because the damaged cars were partially blocking the normal flow of traffic.
In one case, a man slid on a wet road and rear-ended my car at a stop light. The guy was going about 45 mph, and I was at a dead stop. My car was totalled. A passenger in his car had to be taken to the hospital. While we were trying to sort the mess out, one road-raged driver rolled down his window and swore at us as he drove by.
Sometimes I’m guilty of road rage, especially when someone cuts me off and forces me to brake to avoid a collision. I’ll honk the horn in anger. Sometimes I’ll give the finger if someone deliberately does something illegal (like passing in the parking lane) and then honks at me because I’m inadvertantly in his way. But when I do this, I feel guilty afterward. I don’t blame the other driver for pushing me over the edge. I blame myself for getting so upset over something as relatively minor as traffic.
On one occasion, I stopped my car in the middle of the road because fire trucks were pulling out of a fire station right in front of me, with their sirens blaring. The guy behind me honked at me. Stupidly, I gave him the finger. This enraged him. After the fire trucks passed, this guy followed me for 20 miles into a different county and confronted me in the parking lot of the office where I worked. He implied that he had a gun. I had to call the police, who were not sympathetic. They said I should not have given the guy the finger. And they were right. (Out of fairness, the cops also told the freako that he should not have followed me for 20 miles, said he had a gun, etc.)
I think what “knocks people over the edge” is our occasional (or maybe not so occasional) inability to deal with stress in an adult manner.
Oh, I don’t know. I like road rage. I like it when people yell at me, give me the finger and yell obscenities. Makes me feel ALIVE! I mean, if someone’s not yelling at me it’s like a tree falling in the forest when no one’s there. How do you know it fell? How do you know you’re on the road unless someone is SCREAMING at you and giving you the finger and other great obscenities. I don’t know about you, but I’m not driving unless… someone is giving me hand signals. How do I know which way to go, unless these people direct me with their hand signals? I consider it a personal favor.
I mean that one day I didn’t know where the airport was and this woman gave me a straight finger in the air! I knew she was telling me the road was straight ahead. GOSH! If it wasn’t for her I would’ve just gone down the road on my merry way. So I say, “YES! Give people hand signals! Give them a clue!” Or you’ll be like me, wandering around on the highway… not knowing where you’re going.
So please give each other the finger as a “straight ahead” gesture. It’s the touch that means sooooo much.
The moon looks on many flowers, the flowers on but one moon.
My carpool drives 40 miles to work and then 40 miles back home through freeway construction (Reason #846 I wish Utah didn’t win the 2002 Olympics).
I have never seen such a group of stupid, retarded, assholes in my entire life. I feel it is my civic duty to bring it to their attention.
I don’t have a problem with “road rage.” I guess I’m just pretty good at keeping it together when I’m behind the wheel. I’ll tell you what, though, driving in Flint is ANARCHY and if I DID have a problem with road rage, there would be some DEAD %$$#&**(&^$%&^^%% out there. Freaking MORONS who shouldn’t even be getting up off the couch, let alone climbing behind the wheel. Or on bikes, for that matter, riding down the CENTER of my little neighborhood road, and then get pissed at ME for having the audacity to drive in my car in the direction of my house. And the people that turn in front of me without looking…oooooooh, if my insurance wasn’t so high already, I’d nail ya. Just nail ya.
Okay, so maybe I do have just a touch of road rage.
Item: More people have been killed in automobile collisions since the first car rolled off the production line 100 years ago, than in * all * of the wars this country has been involved in, World War II, the Revolution, Vietnam, and the Civil War included.
With this in mind, I am loath to aggravate the situation. My parents taught me not to scream at other people or use crude gestures. (I used to keep company with a woman who had the constant compulsion to do these things; I broke up with her because of her attitude–and I sense that someday road rage may get her killed. 
I seem to have seen some popular lore, not urban legends, about driving:
- Never drive within the speed limit–the politicians who wrote those laws are drunkards and powerbrokers anyway.
- Ditto for stop signs and turn-signal laws.
- If a cop writes you a ticket for illegal/overtime parking, call him a horse’s ass. Never muster the courage to fight it in court–and for God’s sake, never park in a legal manner at all if you can get away with parking as you damn please.
- If a pedestrian wants to cross in front of you–right-of-way or no–never mind him. Your goal is to get where you’re going. What’s a life more or less?
- If a pedestrian or another driver politely corrects you, tell him, Kiss my ass. (I have suppressed the impulse to say, “Why not? Anything is prettier than your face.”)
Road Rage, Air Rage and now Desk Rage (people taking fits at work) are all caused by deep anger over a perceived loss of control in our lives… We’re just fed up and there are too many of us on the road, too many lights and too little time to get there - what ever happened to Zen and the art of driving?
People in Canada seem to honk much less than people in Europe - in Europe there’s always been more road rage - some people even use their horn to insult each other - In Spain - tut tut tuuut tu means Y tu ma-dre - And your mother…
My previous post was more of a joke than anything…I get angry at other drivers, but I really do try to keep it under control. I see my car as a vehicle to get me from place to place…I don’t need to be getting angry, and running the risk of an accident.
The lack of turn signal usage, though, really does bug me. I see more people up here who just turn without signalling, or even slowing down, that it makes me wonder if maybe there’s something I don’t know…like using a turn signal is illegal here. I learned how & when to use a turn signal in high school driver’s ed, so I assume that everyone else did too. What’s the deal here?
I do something a bit more effective (and perhaps a bit more dangerous) than giving some unjustifiably pissed-off moron the finger–I laugh at them.
For example, once I did a completely legal U-turn at an intersection. I had my turn signal on, I had the green signal light, and I started to turn–nearly broadsiding an unmindful van turning right (against the red) onto the same street. The large woman driving it waved her arms furiously at me(can’t tell if she was flipping me off), was obviously yelling, and overall was an animated sight to behold. She just looked so foolish. I burst out laughing when I caught her eye, which of course only yanked her chain more. Fortunately, nothing came of it.
I really, really think I need to find a more subtle reaction.
“Me fail English? That’s unpossible!”
“English? Who needs that? I’m never going to England.”
Road rage? Me? Naahh…
So what if some moron cuts me off when I’m driving 55 miles an hour and then suddenly hits his brakes? So what if that self-absorbed bitch in front of me can’t stop preening long enough to realize that the light has turned green? Who cares if I and a million drivers behind me are driving 40 mph and the guy in front of me decides to come to a full and sudden stop before completing his turn…without the forewarning of turn signals, at that. Does anyone really care about the imbecile who blares his shitty rap music at top volume? Or the SOB who can’t talk on his cell phone and drive simultaneously? What about the Honda packed with bouncing teenagers?
AM I THE ONLY PERSON IN THIS DAMN CITY WHO ACTUALLY HAD TO TAKE A TEST TO GET MY LICENSE??? YOU STUPID, FXXKING, SXXT-EATING, MOTHER-WHORING, FLAMING, FXXKBRAIN!! I HOPE YOU CRASH! I HOPE YOU DRIVE YOUR STUPID CAR RIGHT OFF THE OVERPASS! I HOPE ALL THE RADIO STATIONS SIMULTANEOUSLY START PLAYING YOUR LEAST FAVOURITE SONG ON A LOOP AND THAT YOU CAN’T GET YOUR RADIO TO DO ANYTHING MORE THAN INCREASE IN VOLUME!! I HOPE THAT CELL PHONE GETS STUCK TO YOUR HEAD! I HOPE YOU POKE YOUR EYE OUT WITH YOUR EYELINER, YOU STUPID LITTLE CHEERLEADER! DO YOUR MAKE-UP AT HOME!
I don’t have a problem with road rage.
Veni, Vidi, Visa … I came, I saw, I bought.
You people have some issues. I drive much like TennHippie. Except that I’ve never once used my horn on the road. Never. I think I’ve only used it once in my life, and that was in a parking lot, when someone was about to back into me.
I always drive the limit, or maybe 5-8 miles over the speed limit, depending on the flow of traffic. And when somebody is tailing me, I get in the other lane, so they can pass me.
I may sound like a granny, but I’ve also never had anybody honk their horn at me either, and I’ve never had a ticket.
And like Tennhippie said, the idiot, is always right.
“Life is hard…but God is good”
Finally! I’ve always wanted to know WHO has been giving me such a hard time on my commute to work!
So, Byzantine, it seems that you have been visiting my country, huh?
The way you drive, you’d be making millions in driving lessons over here. 
Wanna talk business?
LauraRae, in my state (Illinois), U-turns near an intersection are illegal. I’m curious about which states it’s legal in.
I know U-Turns are legal in Myrtle Beach, SC. The main roads are set up so that in many cases, in order to get to where you’re going, it’s almost necessary to make a U-turn. This is especially interesting during tourist season, for obvious reasons.
My favorite past-time on the freeway gives other’s road rage.
I’m driving along and I notice a car coming behind me going about 90, swerving between cars sans signal.
I adjust my speed until I’m alongside a slower car. Then I just box him in. Once in a while, I might speed up, giving him a soon-to-be slight gap, then re-adjust my speed. Other times, I slow down so he gets in the other lane, and then re-adjust my speed. Ad nauseum (for him).
For me, it amuses me to no end. The look on their faces makes it worth it. Besides, there’s not a whole lot else to do on I-80 in Nebraska.
“It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument” - William McAdoo