Road rage – It’s not personal.

Being vacuum-packed into miles of coned roadwork’s – with never a worker in sight - forced to crawl along until even the speedo needle dozes off and having to endure the farty-catalytic -fumes that have you eying your passengers for offending bottoms - it’s a small wonder that that we’re swapping driving gloves for boxing gloves and the soft leather of the BM for the hard shoulder of the M1. Road rage is a killer, in more ways than one. As well as swapping leather with other drivers over motor-misdemeanors, we are also giving our internals a toxic bath of hormonal caustics when anxiety becomes the prerequisite of getting to work on time.

Road rage is big news pre-millenium with assault, battery and even carriageway murder making the headlines. So what’s it all about? What is it that’s causing office workers and business executives to duck and dive through traffic in order to bob and weave through fist-fights with other irate motorists? The psychologists are getting a lot of ‘mileage’ out of the probable causes; is it that our personal space has been invaded, maybe it’s a territorial thing, perhaps it’s the result of abusive post-nappy-potty training. Or has Freud’s displacement hypotheses finally found its way from textbook to tarmac. Probably all of the above. One thing is for sure, we’re collecting stress at home and at work and displacing it from the window of our Ford Cortina.

People commit the most heinous acts of violence over little or nothing – you only have to be on the road, or near the road, to qualify as a victim. Failure to indicate, tail-gating, slow driving, even owning a smart motor is enough it would appear to get the blood of a brain-shy boiling to the point bursting. More important than the cause of road rage is the effect when huge build-ups of aggression, accrued daily by life stressors, explode uncontrollably and wreak havoc on our lives. Whilst our social guard is busy driving the car a beeped horn or a shook fist is often all it takes to trigger a displaced rage that can turn the road red.

One driver, recently reported in the national press, was so tense after a week of ‘tremendous stress’ at work, that he vacated his car and hit an elderly pedestrian over the head with a hammer because he was a little slow in crossing the road. In another incident a male motorcycle courier in London’s West End, salivating with anger, dragged a fellow motorcyclist off her Honda, ripped her helmet off and punched her in the face until it was puréed. In court he told the judge in rehearsed tones of remorse that he’d been highly stressed and 'just blew my top' when the woman driver cut in front of him.Then of course there are the numerous killings, occurring at a frightening rate when tempers flare and aggression manifests. The majority of all confrontational situations on the road can be avoided if we understand the causes and don’t take it all so personal. In my younger days I often fell foul of the road rage trap and displaced my self onto other drivers, it became a daily occurrence to get ‘red-in-the-head’ when others made mistakes – ironically, mistakes I’d made a million times myself. I’d shake my fist and use words that started with F and B to admonish bad drivers. If needs be I’d even get out of the car and have a bit of ‘hard shoulder’ to make my point. I was a weak specimen, controlled puppet-like by just about anyone who fancied a pull at my rather sensitive strings. If some one gave me the finger or even nodding-dogged their head I’d retaliate with the challenge of a dog-fight between the cats eyes. Pushed, I might even get out of the car and initiate the affray by booting in a side door or a taillight. Then one day I caught a glimpse of myself, mid-rage as it were, in the rear view mirror and thought ‘who is this head-the-ball, this bully?’ How I never lost my liberty or life is more to do with providence than skill.

People die in road rage incidents you know.As a man who has ‘raged’ and survived to tell the tail there are a few pointers I can offer to all who’d like to see their teeth in the mirror tomorrow morning and not in a blood-puddle on the side of the road tonight.

1. Stop judging other drivers. We all make mistakes – even Monkeys fall out of trees; be patient, I bet my pants you’ve made the same mistake more than once.

2. Slow down. Fast driving courts error. There’s no race to the graveyard and if you are already late what’s the point in rushing.

3. Don’t make aggressive eye contact with other drivers, don’t nod or shake your head judgmentally, don’t mouth comments on their driving ability. Avoid arguments. If you’re a victim don’t get caught up in a verbal gunfight. Drive on, it takes self-control but there can be no contention if you’re not there to contend with.

4. Don’t take it personally. You are just a faceless trigger to someone’s pent-up aggression, the final straw on the back of a very stressed and angry Camel! If you don’t take it personally you won’t make it personal.

5. People are sitting in prison cells because of thoughtless behaviour. Others – not so fortunate - end up in an iron mortuary drawer with a toe tag and an entourage of wailing relatives. Don’t court contention unless you’re prepared for worst-case scenario. Ask yourself; ‘is my opinion going to change the way others drive?’ You know it isn’t so why waste your energy.

6. If you have a genuine complaint take down the number plate of the offending vehicle and report it to the police. It’s their job after all.The consequence of impulsive, aggressive behaviour can be dire. I know, loads of my mates are in the big house, and a couple are brown bread because of it. Have a little more respect for your self and for others. Don’t lose your life or liberty over a space on the slip road.

Leave your ego in your other suit and enjoy your driving, give radio a bit more volume ‘on one’ and contemplate the better ways you can spend your energy. You’ll be a better man for it, and you might even get home to see the wife and kids.