Road rage is something we have all experienced or witnessed at one time, whether we are driving or a passenger. You could be cruising along with your sunroof open, enjoying the sun beating down on you, and as soon as someone cuts you off, you might have a totally different attitude. But what exactly makes us put a death grip on our steering wheel as we yell from our car in a fit of rage?
Anne Soltysiak, a psychology professor at Sinclair, helps weigh in on the details of road rage.
“While anyone can get angry at the actions of other drivers, some people are more prone to road rage than others, Soltysiak said. Jerry Deffenbacher of Colorado State University has found that personality traits have a big influence on whether a person tends to have road rage,” Soltysiak said.
Predictably, the majority of people who engage in road rage are already more anger-prone individuals. People who are enraged will engage in behaviors like tailgating, obscene gestures, screaming, or cutting off or blocking another driver’s vehicle. But anyone who is feeling threatened or aggressive will react with these kinds of responses.
Though some of our personality traits are just something we are born with, road rage typically is not one of them. One cannot have road rage unless they have already learned to drive. However, it is not like we can’t pick up any traits from our parents or anyone else we have been raised with.
“It’s also true that children learn a lot from their parents about social behavior,” Soltysiak said. “We could be getting conditioned by our childhood experiences of driving around with our parents.
Another thing is when most of us picture road rage, we might picture a male driver, who is screaming and hollering. Soltysiak throws a curveball to that idea though.
“The research is surprising on this; it looks like road rage is one area of social behavior in which women are just as aggressive as men,” Soltysiak said.
She goes on to explain that people can become territorial about their car and lane. They might often refer to their car as “me”. For example, “they cut me off”. This would explain why people could get territorial about their car. The driver will feel as if someone is invading his or her own personal space.
“They respond to a perceived incursion into that area as an insult or physical threat, and then feel justified to respond in kind,” Soltysiak said.
Luckily though, the solution to help your own case of road rage is not as hard as one might imagine.
Basically, one just needs to take a deep breath, slowly exhale, and repeat while thinking calming thoughts. While none of us enjoy being cut off or being tailgated, it just is not worth getting worked up over. If one decides to be brave and try to get into an altercation with the other driver, the results might not be all that pleasant.
According to msn.com, a mother of four was shot dead after a night of giving her 15-year-old daughter driving lessons. The driver honked at a car that she felt was speeding, and ended up in a confrontation that would leave the mother dead. While it appears the details of that night are still fuzzy, somewhere along the line road rage was involved.
While road rage is something we will all experience, if we haven’t already, it is important to remember that taking a short amount of time to breathe and calm down is a lot safer than trying to pick a fight.
Matt Summers
Reporter