I’m a nice person. I really am. More than that, I’m a good person.
Yes, I have my faults – I’m impatient and a little too self-absorbed… among other things. But still, I really do consider myself a decent human being.
Yet, as soon as I sit down behind the steering wheel in my car, all that changes.
I confess. I have road rage.
My route to work involves one horrible intersection where I have to make a left turn onto the service road of an expressway. It’s always the longest part of the drive, waiting to make that turn.
There’s a flashing green on that corner that lasts about 10 seconds after the solid green light. It’s the small window of opportunity to get across. I was fortunate enough to be the last car through, and some asshole pedestrian starts crossing against the flashing light.
I’m in the middle of my turn, and he stops and throws up his hands at me, like, “What the hell are you doing? The light’s yellow!”
And yes, he’s a pedestrian, and yes, my first instinct was to call him an asshole, and yes, I’m a horrible person all of a sudden because all I want to do is roll down the window, give him the finger and start swearing at him.
I go from zero to 10 on the scale of blinding rage in 2 seconds flat. There’s absolutely no progression. The very first offense elicits my worst reaction.
What is up with that?
One night, during the summer, we came home late after dinner from my mother-in-law’s house. My husband signaled and slowed down as we got near our house. A car speeding up the road behind us honked as he swerved around and roared past.
“Like you’re going to turn in the middle of the street,” he yelled out his window.
“No,” I hissed under my breath. “Like we’re signalling because we’re going to park, jackass.”
I think I might have given him the finger.
I know, I know, the kids were in the back seat but I was just furious. Instantly. That asshole made me feel so aggressive I just couldn’t help it.
And then, while my husband was parking, this woman across the street yelled at us, saying we were too close to her Mercedes.
My husband was parking. Of course we were close to her car.
She threw a fit, we exchanged some words and it ended with my husband telling her to, uh, simulate a vacuum around a certain body part.
She flew off the handle.
“IN FRONT OF YOUR CHILDREN?” she screeched.
Like a mad woman she came tearing across the street, raised the tennis racket she was holding over her head and brought it down hard on the hood of our car. It was insane. Insane.
She raced back around the road, and while my husband called the police I jumped out of the car, crossed the street and tried to reason with her.
There was no reasoning with her.
I went back to the car, collected the children and took them to the house. Once they were inside, I turned back and gave my husband a camera, so he could take pictures of both the dent and the back of her car, which she claimed we hit.
We didn’t hit it.
“You left your children ALONE in the house?” she screamed at me.
I turned and walked away. I just didn’t trust myself to open my mouth.
She tried to leave, but my husband reminded her the police were on their way. She didn’t give a damn.
“Are you a Jew?” she asked him.
“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked.
“Not too popular, you Jews.”
It pays to mention here that in my 40 years on this earth, it was the first time I’d come face to face with blatant antisemitism.
The cops showed up, my husband told me later, right before she was able to drive away. They questioned both of them.
One of the cops conceded to my husband that she wasn’t… um… calm. He said he could press charges, but she swears that he hit her car, and her friend was backing her up.
My husband contemplated it for about 5 seconds before, being my husband, he realized that he’d never renewed his driver’s license.
“You know, Officer, I’m going to let it go.”
The cop called a little later to remind him to go get his license renewed. The fact that he didn’t give him a ticket was really all the validation that we’d needed that this lady was nuts.
And I’m sure anyone would agree that a little road rage (not pedestrian rage, mind you) was warranted in this situation.
But why? Why do I react the same way in this situation as I did with the poor fucker trying to cross the street? Or that idiot who keeps stopping at every intersection, even though there are no stop signs. When, in fact, the lack of stop signs is the very reason I take that route.
Grrrrr.
Even thinking about it drives me insane.
I’ve come to accept that this is something I just can’t change. So I drive as little as possible these days. I walk my son to school and take public transportation to and from work. When we go out as a family, I let my husband drive.
It’s nice. It’s far less stressful this way.
And it allows me to continue believing I’m a decent human being.
Preaching to the choir, you are! Just reading your post was getting me riled up about a certain intersection where if the bleeping pedestrians would just follow the rules, everyone would be happy! I, too, try to avoid driving as much as possible.
Laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. By the way, have any idea who that idiot is that stops even when there are no stop signs? It’s not me, as your daughter says.
Ok. I am totally your twin in this respect. It has even rubbed off on Brian a bit. I look at him in amazement when he gets pissed and flips someone off. One day here on campus we were going into campus to pick up a neighbor from work to take her home since her car was broken down and we were car pooling some. We were crossing an intersection and WE HAD THE GREEN LIGHT! However, a group of shirtless young male joggers which were probably a part of some sports team just jogged out right in front of us in the cross walk against their light. We slammed to a stop with our front bumper at the cross walk. I was instantly FURIOUS. I rolled down the window and just started yelling at them as to what total idiots they were and how their parents were wasting their money because apparently they didn’t have the intellegence to be attending the University if they can’t determine the correct time to cross the street or they were so freaking egotistical that they think the whole campus just belongs to them and the rules don’t apply to them. Of course they flipped me off telling me I was the bitch. In the States it is only illegal to hit someone in a cross walk if they are there legally which means when it is their turn. IF I was the bitch they said I was and I was driving my foot would have missed the brake and his the gas…but I am not that mean. But I totally understand.
I consider myself a pretty calm person, but like you I go nuts when dumb-ass people do stupid things on the roads and then try to blame you for it. I told a cyclist that cycled through a red and then had the audacity to give me shit for sounding the horn at him to go fuck himself….only for my son to ask 5 seconds later what “fuck” meant….
But of course…
I am exactly the same – but it’s the turn signals that make me crazy. HOW HARD IS IT TO SIGNAL, MORONS?
But I have made a huge, huge effort to be zen on the road because of the kids. It’s just a drag to drive with someone who is angry so I use a lot of energy breathing away the rage on the road. I make a point of being courteous (often while gritting my teeth) in the hope that it will spread
Kind of a reluctant pay it forward move but with more under-the-breath swearing.
You are not insane, driving in Montreal is insane. And that lady with the tennis racket is certifiable. How did you explain that one to the kiddos?
We told them she was a very angry lady, and that we didn’t know why she was so angry. We also told them that Daddy made a horrible mistake, saying something not very nice to her, but luckily for us, the kids didn’t hear that exchange. They do, however, always want to see the dent on the hood. They’re fascinated by it.
Dunno if this helps but worth a read: http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/top-10/top-10-tips-to-prevent-road-rage.html
the thing is here in State College PA is everyone knows everyone so you do kinda have to be careful when you flip someone off. One day a red SUV was driving aggressively and tailgating me. When it passed I flipped the driver off and it turned out to be my podiatrist. Of course I stood behind my convictions and the next time I went in I told her she was driving like and ass and she laughed and said she knew.
Ha. There’s a small town living post for Brian.
Ah, pedestrians…such a joyous group of people. I’m a pedestrian, too, at times-but I follow the rules and fend for myself. I don’t assume the cars see me, I don’t assume the cars are going to stop for the stop sign. And one time I stopped at a stop sign, but had to inch forward in order to see if cars were coming, so I had to be in the crosswalk. I had NO choice-if I stayed behind the crosswalk I could’ve been hit…and this old man walks in front of my car, looks at me, gets angry and starts waving his hands for me to back up. I seriously thought he was going to start smashing my car with his cane, and I wasn’t even taking up half of the crosswalk. Then there was the time my mom parked in front of somebody’s house, about a foot from the driveway, and the owner of the house stuck her head out the window and told my mom she was too close to the driveway. My mom explained that there was clearly a foot of space, but she screamed and threatened to call the police and have the car towed. Ridiculous. My mom didn’t care if she called the police because there would be no reason to tow the car, but she moved anyway because the lady probably would have keyed her car. This comment almost turned into a blog post of its own, sorry!