After appalling myself with a bout of road rage, I decided to do a little looking into the matter to find out what I could have done differently and how I can stay calm in the future. I did a quick search in the MINI2 forums, but couldn't really find anything close. So I searched a few other places and, for the benefit of others who might unwittingly fall into the trap of road rage, here is an account of my own personal failures and some resources (from which I have drawn heavily) that you may also find helpful (just click on the links).
So, what is road rage?
Road rage is a simply described as a state of anger experienced by drivers following irritable interactions with other drivers. Most drivers, new or experienced, will have encountered road rage in one form or another - whether they have succumbed themselves, or have yet to experienced it but seen it in others.
Professor Leon James (Road Rage Expert, University of Hawaii) was interviewed in
Road rage - what makes us do it?:
"The road is like a war zone," says Professor James. "Behind the wheel you assume another personality that is much more geared towards warfare."
What triggers road rage?
Road rage can be triggered by relatively innocent events like impatience at slow drivers, or lack of tolerance for the simple mistakes of others. Sometimes, road rage occurs when usually well-balanced people react with blind fury to the unacceptable behavior of other road users.
Again, in another excerpt from
Road rage - what makes us do it?, Professor James is eloquent at expressing the problem:
"We all have anger and if we do not manage our emotions in the car then we can be subject to extreme road rage. People can switch from a rational human being to a lower mode - a state I sometimes refer to as reptilian thinking. If we perceive that we have been attacked by another driver then we flick into that mode and that's the beginning of a duel."
In particular, I should pay attention to the line highlighted in red. I myself have recently (in the last couple of hours, actually) experienced a rather disagreeable event with a rather poorly driven black M3 convertible. I've nothing against M3 drivers - in fact, my parents used to drive a silver one. For many years this was one of my favorite cars and to own one myself was something I had aspired to. A nice car certainly, but the one I encountered today was poorly driven.
My own experience:
Approaching a set of traffic lights, there were two lanes. The left lane was for traffic heading straight on, the right lane was for turning only. The light is green and I'm more than halfway across the junction doing about 25-30mph in a 30 zone. The black M3 zips up the turning lane and then heads straight on. They come from behind me just as the junction ends and draw level. This was, by anyone's definition, an extremely arrogant and anti-social maneuver. Logically, I should have taken the safer option by yielding to let the b**ch on her way, and was actually about to do so, but the gloating smirk on the face of her boyfriend leering at me from the front passenger seat changed my mind.
Instead of yielding way, I completely lost my temper and instead held my car on line - the sporty juggernaut coming within inches of my precious Mini. I blared my horn and the passenger in the M3 grinned maliciously at me. I twitched the steering wheel in the direction of the M3 coming quite close in a deliberate attempt to unnerve the M3 driver, and I accelerated to cut them off.
Yes, the couple in the M3 were behaving in an anti-social manner, but equally that should have been water off a duck's back for me and I completely failed to stay calm. Critically, I had felt at the time, I had emerged in front - but in truth, by losing my head I'd really lost the battle.
Psychologists and red mist:
Sometimes even the best of people - who are usually calm in most provocative situations - find it difficult to remain composed during traffic events. Psychologists, who even suffer from it themselves, term this as the "red mist" and it arises when a driver's attention is so focused on achieving an immediate objective that they completely lose the ability to calculate risk.
How to avoid red mist:
Ever heard the phrase "The first step to solving your problem is admitting you have one"? Well, as cliché as it is, it's also true.
Another excerpt from
Road rage - what makes us do it?:
Prof James agrees that half the difficulty is the awareness gap between what people consider aggressive driving in themselves and what they recognise in others. He conducted a survey and found that, on average, people say that 85 per cent of drivers are aggressive, but only admit to being aggressive themselves three per cent of the time.
In fact, emergency service personnel (such as police officers) are trained to recognize the onset of red mist in themselves and being aware of this enables them to detach themselves from the situation long enough to regain their objectivity.
Calming measures:
There's been an incident and the red mist is working its way into either you or into another driver. Here's what to do (referring heavily to
Road Rage - Dealing with Road Rage):
- It's difficult, but if you feel you are in the wrong, acknowledge your mistake by putting your hand up in apology - this will diffuse the other driver's anger very quickly.
- Make a concerted effort to detach yourself from the situation. If you're getting angry, try to describe the situation to yourself in objective tones: "ok the driver in front has pulled out too soon, failing to judge my speed which means I now have to brake allowing him time to speed up” – this can be very hard to do if you have had a stressful day but trying to remove any kind of emotion linked to the situation is good.
- Don’t take it personally. If someone is driving too close to you, perhaps forgets to indicate or cuts you up try to not take it as a personal insult or challenge. Remember like you that person probably has a family; he/she is probably someone’s father/mother or husband/wife. It’s just that for that moment in time (probably the first and last time you will ever see him/her) they happen to be running late, does not know the road or car very well, or maybe even just got confused.
"Remember: If anyone does anything to annoy you on the road, it is usually very unlikely that they set out to upset you - chances are, you would have already done that yourself."
In my case, it wasn't so much the other driver that really provoked me, it was her passenger. This was perhaps something that the other driver had no control over - even if they did use a few maneuvers that are recommended against in the highway code.
If you have any more soothing measures, do post them down below!!
Instances that would have benefited from calming measures:
- Road rage possible motive in Melbourne shooting
- Couple Injured In 'Road Rage'
- Road Rage Victim Talks
References:
- Road rage - what makes us do it?
- Road Rage - Dealing with Road Rage
- 'Road Rage...'
All the best,
Andrew.
