Road Rage

Why isn’t there more road rage?

The roads are the place we are all forced to interact. A lot of your personality shows out there, whether you realize it or not.

Larger print on bumper stickers would go a long way to increase road rage. People could be more easily offended by the philosophies spread before them. Then again, small print probably contributes to a lot of annoying tailgating. I hate it when the light changes before I can finish reading the political or social commentary on the bumper of the car in front of me. But I hate tailgating more, so I always let the car ahead pull away.

I often wonder what travel was like before we turned the roads into race tracks. What was it like when riders on horseback, wagons, coaches and carriages shared the same track with trudgers on foot? Certainly we see movies depicting arrogant aristocracy and gentry riding brusquely past peasant pedestrians, but was it as routine as today, when armored vehicles claim the right of way by sheer ability to wound and kill?

Walking travelers might strike up a conversation, as might mounted riders traveling at the same pace. You don’t see that with motor vehicles, at least since the CB radio craze died out. And even then it involved an extra device not everyone had.

Driving often becomes adversarial. Beat that guy to the intersection. Beat this red light, Get that parking space. Get around that slower car or truck. Scrape this tailgater off your bumper. Even if you are peaceably inclined, others bring the fight to you. Sometimes you just have to be a little aggressive to get through a situation and out of it so you can mellow out again.

In crowded areas, aggression becomes the norm. Even a minority of aggressive drivers can push the level of tension up, especially if it is a sizable minority. The more crowded the roads the tighter the molecules are packed and the more unstable the compound becomes.

Gridlock brings a temporary peace, of course. The compound is not inert, but the pressure on it stills the reaction. Release the pressure a little and the activity resumes, often more violently than before, as volatile elements boil.

Move in from country lanes to organized highways and city streets and the system is a lot like plumbing. Speeded-up movies of urban freeway traffic look a lot like the animations in commercials for drain opener. Stuff flows, stops flowing, then flows again. Is it any wonder people in traffic act like such shits?

I can’t foresee it changing much. If we get car-to-car intercoms, so we can strike up a conversation and find out if that other driver is actually a nice person who has some annoying driving quirks we would just add the verbal element to the confrontations that already develop.

Driving involves a lot of emotion. We want to flow at our chosen pace. Anything that changes that pace causes stress.

I find that using a bicycle for transportation helps a lot, because I can maintain my pace almost regardless of motor vehicle activity. If I can keep up, my small vehicle flows more nimbly through the traffic, even without illegal and aggravating messenger antics. If I can’t keep up, the maniacs with motors flow on by me, even delivering a helpful flow of air to pull me along.

Whatever happens, I know by how I feel physically whether I am doing the best I can. I’m free to ride as hard as I can endure, and corner almost with complete freedom to enjoy the shape of the road. The benefits of health and fitness just tag along with phenomenal savings on gasoline and insurance.

Winter puts me back in the car, mixing it up with the motoring public. I slip into the same style, tempted constantly to push or impede as my flow is disrupted by other opinions crammed into the road we have to share. I drive like an idiot through my favorite set of curves and tool along like a relaxed hippie on the scenic straightaways, a parade of fuming drag racers ignored in my rear view mirror. Little do they know they wish I was on my bike as much as I do.