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FEEL THE ANGER, TAME THE ROAD RAGE |
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Writing this ROAD RAGE website is the fruition of a commitment I made over five years ago. At that time traffic had seemed to double over night. Drivers, unused to constant distraction and competitors, fumed; they jockeyed for best position, raced to get ahead, only to be caught up at the end of a long line of slow-moving vehicles. Tempers flared. |
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Personally I began to succumb to the tension. I could not relax while driving. I began to look for every opportunity to snake out of a side road to get ahead of oncoming traffic that I would meet with in another block or speed up to beat the light; my driving became down-right inconsiderate, if not outright dangerous. The emotions I was feeling seemed to begin in fear and anxiety, a strange tension, and then to grow into anger. |
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It was obvious to me that driving had become more of a challenge than a pleasure; the roadway had become more of a threatening obstacle course than a desirable thoroughfare. One day I “came to my senses” and realized that I was embarrassed by my own lack of self-control, intense frustration, and anger.In no time at all there was so much anger and fear in knowing that I might not be able to stop the exploding feelings of raging hatred I felt toward unnecessary delays, slow drivers, daydreamers, road maintenance, people pulling out in front of me, unacknowledged appreciation for road kindnesses, reckless, out-of-control ragers, and more. I began to fear what I might do. I felt as though my head was going to explode. |
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I began to fight against the rising rage. Each day of driving became an add-on to the annoyances of the day before. It was easier to get angrier sooner; in fact, I began to anticipate the most hated issues an hour before I even got into the car. Getting onto the highway from the office parking lot involved the long process of waiting through 3 light changes and the long strings of bumper-to-bumper cars. | ||||||
| This needless delay and thankless waste of time was a real nemesis for me. After months and months, I realized there would be no solution to this problem. Certainly I knew that road rage driving would never be the answer. It became clear that there would be no salvation coming from outside; as I was to learn, the solution was within me. | |||||||
Along with infuriating road situations and the road rage that followed, I knew my self-respect would be shattered if people caught sight of me in an act of rage, face distorted, mouthing ugly expressions, fist raised. By now I had become terrified of the reckless, raging drivers who took incredible chances and seemed out of control in the thickest of traffic. |
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| Often, in a traffic jam, raging drivers threatened to leave their cars to attack what they thought of as an offending driver. Other drivers used their cars like tanks, threatening to ram you if you did not let them pull in line in front of you. Although it was easy to judge those individuals as terrible people, I knew that they could not feel any better about being out of control and in road rage than I did; they, too, had lost control of their angry feelings and moved into the rage or close-to rage level. That is when I decided to find the solution for myself and then find a way to help others. That was the beginning of a long pursuit to understand how and why anger leads to rage in some people, yet not in all people; why it leads to rage in one situation and not in another.
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