About Road Rage

I spent a fair amount of time recently driving the interstate highways of New England and I have developed an entirely new view of road rage. It's not something I've thought much about before, except as an anthropological meme occasionally coming up in the news. I had heard experts telling me people too much in a hurry were shooting at one another on the freeways. It seemed bizarre, a California thing, not something I would likely ever encounter, much less participate in.

My daughter was with me in the car on this trip, and my little grandson. We had been visiting friends and were on the way home. We were in no great rush, stopping often in rest areas to let the boy out to run around a bit, get his diaper changed, and so forth. On the road, we were keeping up with traffic, but certainly not pushing it.

We were approaching a small city about the time one would expect rush hour. The highway was busy, three lanes in each direction pretty much bumper to bumper, with the usual assortment of clowns and cowboys, but one could cope with some confidence.

Then up on the left came one of those flat, expensive little cars, weaving in and out of lanes, pushing hard, causing others to brake to avoid hitting it. It got about three hundred yards up, and then I saw brake lights coming on hard up ahead, like a wave rolling toward us. I looked in the rear view mirror to see what was behind, and all I could see was the grill of a humongous truck scarcely two feet back.

I don't know exactly how much room those things need to stop, but I do know it takes a fair bit more than two feet. I had visions of us being crushed between the SUV in front and the 16 wheel monster behind.

A tiny bit of space opened up in the right lane and I pushed into it. Better to be hit by a passenger car than a 100 ton behemoth. Horns went off, understandably. We slipped into the traffic stream successfully, even though I was shaking. I was terrified and also very, very angry.

It's not being in a hurry that causes road rage. It's being threatened by trivial things, carelessness, stupidity, some idiot's need to show off, and being helpless to counter the threat. It's facing the possibility of having one's whole family wiped out in a moment.

I'm Canadian. I don't come from a violent culture. I don't own a gun, and never wanted to. Still don't. But it wasn't hard at the time to imagine the satisfaction could have been had from putting one shotgun blast in the grill of the truck, and one more into the back of the little smartass up ahead.