Road rage from a newbie.

[Dan gate master]

Hi,

Just a general thing I have been pondering, what is it with people such terrible driving ( no indication,lack of attention) and road rage, I do a lot of miles in various vehicles and have noticed people actually blatantly breaking the law (wrong way round roundabouts, driving on the wrong side of the road!) and being stupid yet they get aggressive and want to fight you when something is said to them.

It seams to be worse in the autum month's too, anyone else have any idea's why this is happening?

[Eighteeteewhy]

I think inbreeding has a lot to do with it.

[Dan gate master]

Could be..lol

[5705]

Dan gate master said:

Hi,

Just a general thing I have been pondering, what is it with people such terrible driving ( no indication,lack of attention) and road rage, I do a lot of miles in various vehicles and have noticed people actually blatantly breaking the law (wrong way round roundabouts, driving on the wrong side of the road!) and being stupid yet they get aggressive and want to fight you when something is said to them.

It seams to be worse in the autum month's too, anyone else have any idea's why this is happening?

Out of interest, how recently did you leave full-time education?

[Dan gate master]

Well at 35 years old a fair time ago, and I know my spelling is not the best.

Edited by Dan gate master on Thursday 4th October 21:17

[DuncanM]

5705 said:

Dan gate master said:

Hi,

Just a general thing I have been pondering, what is it with people such terrible driving ( no indication,lack of attention) and road rage, I do a lot of miles in various vehicles and have noticed people actually blatantly breaking the law (wrong way round roundabouts, driving on the wrong side of the road!) and being stupid yet they get aggressive and want to fight you when something is said to them.

It seams to be worse in the autum month's too, anyone else have any idea's why this is happening?

Out of interest, how recently did you leave full-time education?

This makes you look like a massive prat and is a large part of what's wrong with PH these days.

Welcome OP, Just drive defensively would be my advice, you can usually spot the dodgy drivers quite early then stay clear from them

[Steve vRS]

I used to get angry and my driving suffered for it.

Now, I give everyone room, especially idiots, and let them get on to their next accident.

Steve

[Dan gate master]

Thank you duncanm for the non sarcastic reply,

I just find it more peculiar these days, I used to get the odd aggressive car driver get upset when over taking stationary traffic on my motorcycle, but I have noticed that people's driving is so aggressive now that they are causing the problem's ......is it stupidity ,ignorance or just arrogance ?

[Dan gate master]

Steve vRS said:

I used to get angry and my driving suffered for it.

Now, I give everyone room, especially idiots, and let them get on to their next accident.

Steve

Steve, why did you get angry? Frustration or pressure from work or something like?

Danny

[Steve vRS]

Sorry, I meant angry at the other road users that either impeded my progress or wanted to climb into my boot.

I'm normally so mellow...

Steve

[TheD]

DuncanM said:

5705 said:

Dan gate master said:

Hi,

Just a general thing I have been pondering, what is it with people such terrible driving ( no indication,lack of attention) and road rage, I do a lot of miles in various vehicles and have noticed people actually blatantly breaking the law (wrong way round roundabouts, driving on the wrong side of the road!) and being stupid yet they get aggressive and want to fight you when something is said to them.

It seams to be worse in the autum month's too, anyone else have any idea's why this is happening?

Out of interest, how recently did you leave full-time education?

This makes you look like a massive prat and is a large part of what's wrong with PH these days.

Welcome OP, Just drive defensively would be my advice, you can usually spot the dodgy drivers quite early then stay clear from them

Well said that man.

I used to get mad all the time when I came across idiots in their car but now I just look at them with sadness. In the words of George Carlin. Half the people you will ever meet are fkin stupid and half of them are even more stupid than that.
Take pride in the fact they are a few sandwiches short, and you know that, and keep out their way.

[Dan gate master]

Steve vRS said:

Sorry, I meant angry at the other road users that either impeded my progress or wanted to climb into my boot.

I'm normally so mellow...

Steve

I see, I too used to get wound up till I had a accident ( not my fault at all) and the other person involved was seriously hurt. The damage to her Honda civic was immense and I was surprised she survived.

[Dan gate master]

TheD said:

Well said that man.

I used to get mad all the time when I came across idiots in their car but now I just look at them with sadness. In the words of George Carlin. Half the people you will ever meet are fkin stupid and half of them are even more stupid than that.
Take pride in the fact they are a few sandwiches short, and you know that, and keep out their way.

I like that saying,

[Spragnut]

Firstly sorry for the long post..

I'm finding myself getting more and more fed up of bad drivers and had 3 instances happen yesterday alone, the third clearly tipping me over the edge. There are a few questions I'd like some response on so don't get bored of all the waffle to quick, and I apologise to the OP if I'm hijacking, this thread seemed quite relevant.

Anyways....

The first was a women purposefully blocking a turning off a main road that leads to a keep clear parking area. Not much of an issue but why not just wait 5 seconds and let that person turn, thus in turn freeing the road up for anyone else wishing to turn into it? Is this selfishness and the fact they think your pushing in? I wasn't angry or annoyed at this point more confused that people feel the need to be this petty, or is it me?

The second was reversing out of the same keep clear area into the main road. There's a bend probably 2-300 meters up the road so you can see that far, nothing coming so I proceed to reverse into the road, while I'm reversing a car comes round the bend and approaches just as I'm selecting first and about to set off, I see he's not slowing down enough so pause for a second, instead of waiting, they pull out into the oncoming lane to go round me and pull sharply in front of me at the junction that is no more than 3-4 meters away from where I stopped reversing, was this necessary? A quick blip on the horn returns nothing, no holding up of hand, no flashing of hazards so I come to the conclusion he felt justified in what he did. Was this impatience again or was I in the wrong to think he should have stopped?

The third was the clincher, driving along a main road again, I wanted to turn right and there's a lane dedicated to going right so approaching this lane I start indicating, I pulled over slightly earlier into the hatched area as I noticed a van trying to pull out from the junction to the right, it's a pain because you have to cross an oncoming lane and the filter lane which people tend to block, (my partner has to negotiate it every day has been sat there for 10 minutes before now) so I check my mirrors move over and flash the van driver who slowly pulls out all this time I'm rolling, and am now in the actual lane to turn right, just as the vans about to pull out a car comes down my left hand side, indicates and moves in front of me. There was only just enough room for him to pull in as he realised the van was pulling out so had to stop short, the van driver pauses and then once he's realised this other guys stopped he carries on. I give the guy a bib because even after all my checking he has still put a few people at risk by being a bit of a dk, no response what so ever, no hand up no bib back, nothing..

So as we're both travelling along this road, I have to admit at this point I was getting angry because twice in one day I've seen other people have a complete disregard for other road users, by the way I'm not saying I'm perfect by any means but if I make a mistake I try to learn from it and apologise.

The guy pulls up and I pull up along side and ask what he was thinking, I was clearly turning right and he said I was in the wrong for pulling into the right hand lane too early (I understand I shouldn't technically have been there but even if I was does that automatically mean he should do something even more stupid and cut in front?) even though by the time he pulled in I was in the actual lane and a van was exiting the junction..

Anyway he said he thought I was pulling in early to a repair garage on this junction, even though I was past this EXIT and the garage was obviously closed, again is this justified from him to cut in front on the assumption I know where I'm going, I did as I live there but he didn't know that, what if I hadn't noticed and had carried on without seeing him? So I asked him to be a bit more thoughtful next time and think through a manoeuvre before committing to it. I said it was obvious the van was leaving the junction as it was already in the road so that was two people who were at risk anyway after all this his only response was to sort my own driving out and it was all my fault... I did get a bit too angry and there was some name calling and to be honest I'm a little embarrassed admitting it as I'm normally quite a calm thoughtful nice guy!

To the question - was it my fault, was I in the wrong on all these occasions?

I understand it's difficult as I'm describing a road but if any of you are from Cuxton area the road in question is Sundridge Hill leading away from the M2 to Snodland if that makes sense.

Any I think the point of this post was to firstly getting it off my chest, after telling my partner what happened I felt like a bit of a dk and actually wanted to apologise to the guy for getting angry and confronting him..

The next question is - If I was in the right and my manoeuvres where justified and correct why do these people feel that they can't take responsibility for there actions, it's always "it's not my fault" is that just the culture we have now and it pays to stay away and forget about things. My dad raised me to respect people and I feel he taught me manors and respect but most of all he taught me to man up and take responsibility for my actions and the consequences.

I've probably bored you enough now but there are a few disclaimers as these things are always raised:

I apologise for any spelling or grammar mistakes, I'm not perfect....
I'm not a company director, I don't have a goatee or any facial hair for that matter, apart from eyebrows!
I'm don't posses any red bull at this present time and didn't yesterday so no launching cans of red bull..
I also apologise if there isn't enough swearing..

I think that's it.

Cheers

PS. If the guy who was involved happens to be on Pistonheads, let me take this opportunity to apologise for my actions. As said I don't normally behave that way and just had a thoroughly st day. Also I hope I described it all accurately.

[Captain Muppet]

DuncanM said:

5705 said:

Out of interest, how recently did you leave full-time education?

This makes you look like a massive prat and is a large part of what's wrong with PH these days.

Pedantic dickism has been going on on PH for as long as I've been here. So over ten years.

Take that any way you like

[crofty1984]

You need an ancient Peugeot non-turbo diesel. I've never been so calm. Stuck behind a lorry? Doesn't matter. Even if it wasn't there it'd still take a fking age to get where you're going. Gettring frustrated and accelerating and braking harder than you should? Not in this car mate. No guts and less brakes.

It's all very Zen.

[LotusOmega375D]

When spoken to by a complete stranger, the instant response from most people these days is defense followed by aggression.

In the past if you politely asked someone to move their badly parked car, they'd mostly smile back, apologise and move it along. If you ask the same question nowadays, the best you can expect is to get snarled at and the vehicle moved, but the chances are you'll be greeted by a barrel of expletives or worse and the vehicle will remain exactly where it is (and probably many times in the future as well).

[falkster]

It's definitely about their upbringing, they would have seen their double 'ard dad threaten to rip someone's arms off because he got to a parking space before him or wouldn't let him out of a side road.
It's getting worse too, the normal meek and mild people ranting at you for god knows what, flashing their lights and calling you something to do with Nescafé??
I find the best course of action is to have an ML that you don't really care about (I do still look after it though - please don't break) and a big smile. Works everytime for me.

[PUA]

I've been driving for 10 years now and am still not fully desensitized to some of the idiots on the roads. It was hard work at first watching constantly expecting others to make errors but you get used used to it. It's true we all make small driving errors from time to time but there are some right jokers out there!

The saddest part is that a small minority of idiots actually seem to want you to struggle and have an accident and they are prepared to drive dangerously to cause this! I just sigh and think "poor buggers" - what else can you do I suppose

[Timbola]

There are entire tomes dedicated to the psychology of driving, much of it quite interesting.

Boils down to several simple elements:


- Sense of personal space.
The vehicle around you is an extension of yourself and your personal space. Other cars infringe on that space all too easily in the course of driving, which is interpreted by the self as an invasion. Just as a person who stands too close to you in an elevator or on the train makes you feel completely uncomfortable.


- Lack of face-to-face.
Natural social interactivity for us is face-to-face. We talk to people, listen, observe body language throughout the course of a day. There are a multitude of both conscious and subconscious signals given off by others and intepreted by us during social discourse. A slight smile or frown or change in bodily stance conveys so very much, and much of it so subtle it only registers in our subconscience. Such things give us the cues we require to form our responses. A serious comment delivered with a wry smile might convey a joke, for example - without the visual cue the joke is missed/misconstrued. Which is what gave rise to smilies and emoticons - to add visual cues to the written word. But that's another entire psychology for another day.

Being in a car removes that natural social interactivity almost entirely. We cannot see the face and therefore the expression of others. The cues we rely on for our natural responses are missing. The driver of a car which barges in front of us may subsequently wear a sheepish, apologetic expression on their face, but that facial cue is missed by us in our own car. Our response to their action is therefore utterly skewed. Irrational even. Anger is often the result. Were we to see their expression, the initial feeling of anger is immediately curtailed. As it is, without the visual cue, the anger remains and drives us to act.


- Driving is often tense!
It's a tense situation. With the mass of cars on our roads, we are now constantly dealing with very unnatural situations which require a great deal of neural processing for our overworked brains. Our awareness is greatly heightened, our concentration is near peak, our heartbeats are raised, our responses enhanced.

Given this tense foundation, any perceived slight from other drivers, no matter how innocuous, is met with an exaggerated reply. It becomes a natural fight/flight response to an unnatural situation. Immediate Anger/fear is the natural result.


Given the above, normally mellow, pleasant, placid people are transformed into mouth-frothing apoplectic lunatics at the drop of a hat.


Understanding these elements has helped me enormously in my driving:
- I am now very quick to apologise on the odd occasion I do make a mistake.
- I give a ton of room to other drivers in all situations. Space space space.
- I make all my gestures to other drivers very obvious. A big flash of the lights and an obvious wait if I'm allowing someone to pull out of junction, or to allow oncoming traffic to pass on a congested road. I make my driving positive, not hesitant.


Whoops, apologies, that was quite a long post.

Edited by Timbola on Thursday 25th October 11:05