Baltimore News and Traffic Examiner

Fiery Crash Kills One, Injures Five—Altercation May Be Cause

People, for the most part, are decent drivers. Barring the cell-phone syndrome, where the driver has surgically attached her phone to her ear and can’t turn her head, the mistakes drivers make are mostly unintentional. People don’t go out of their way to annoy or inconvenience other drivers on purpose. They make mistakes. Everyone does. But some forget that when they feel imposed upon or wronged in some way. When that happens, they get angry. And when they get angry, their high-beams become weapons, and their cars Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

Dr. Leon James, Professor of Psychology, University of Hawaii did a study on aggressive driving and presented it as testimony to Congress in 1997. In it, he outlined an example of the sequence of events leading to road rage, an excerpt of which follows:

“Just before the on-ramp entrance, I let a car go in front of me. I thought I had saved this person a great deal of trouble and that he would be thankful.... But instead of getting the wave, I got nothing. I didn't even see a quick gesture of thanks. I scanned my memory back to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Regardless of how hard I looked for a sign of gratitude, I found none. Immediately, I became infuriated.

“Physiologically, anger is a momentary flare-up that quickly dies down. Up to this point, she was simply angry. Now she started to fan the flames with righteous indignation:

“I don't understand why some people are so rude. I feel like tailgating this person to let him know how I feel... I should've just made him wait for his turn. How hard is it to wave anyway? Any civilized person would do it. But this person is hardly civilized. I didn't have to do this person a favor, and I felt as if that rebuff ruined my whole day. I felt hurt and insulted as well as angry. All I could think about was revenge.

“Her anger quickly turned into uninhibited road rage:
 
“I wanted to teach that person a lesson. I wanted that person to crash ... or get pulled over by the police.... I knew the chances were pretty small that he would be plagued by any of my curses. So I decided not to leave it to other forces to teach him a lesson. I had to be the punisher.

“Her road rage developed into a classic confrontation that might have had very serious consequences for all concerned:

“By this time we were both on the freeway. I tailgated him in the fast lane going 60 mph. I must have been no more than a few feet away from his car. I was aware how dangerous it was in the stop-and-go traffic of rush hour. Then as I passed him, I revved my V8 engine and gave him the meanest glare I could muster.

“She accused the "uncivilized" driver of rebuffing her and ruining her day. Because she felt hurt by him, she wanted to retaliate, to avenge the injury. She chose to be driven by her angry emotions, which she attributed self-righteously to the man's rudeness. She didn't perceive the self-fulfilling prophecy of her road rage. She did not question the legitimacy of her anger. She never considered that the other driver might simply have been oblivious to her initial gesture of generosity. She never gave a thought to how he might respond to her provocation.”

Sound like someone you know? You, maybe? It sounds like me ... before I stopped expecting other people to drive the way I thought they should. I quickly found that if you have no expectations, you won’t get angry and it’s easier to let things go.

A few years back, Maryland passed an “aggressive driving law” to combat road rage. According to washingtonpost.com, it states: “... aggressive driving occurs when a motorist commits at least three of these traffic offenses in close proximity: speeding, disregarding a traffic sign or light, passing another vehicle unsafely, passing another vehicle on the right, driving improperly on a laned road, following another vehicle too closely, failing to yield the right of way. Penalty: $355 fine.”

To that, I say “so what?” It’s just another useless, unenforceable law our legislators passed to give us the impression they’re actually doing something down in Annapolis. If they meant any of what dribbles from either side of their mouths, they’d put some cops out on the road. Then they could make some real money just by sending a handful of patrol cars to haunt that piece of Route 100 between Ritchie Highway and Telegraph Road around 6a.m. With their cool unmarked Mustangs and pickups and SUVs, they could make a killing and maybe slow some people down. Yes, I drive that stretch of road at that time of day, every day. And there’s plenty of road rage potential there every morning. But I never see a cop. Never! But if this POs the right people, maybe I will.

Someone asked the famous bank robber, Willie Sutton, “Why do you rob banks?” His answer? “Because, that’s where the money is.” Our officials could learn a little something from Willie, so why don’t we try this: Since a car doing 15 MPH over the limit on an empty three lane highway in the middle of a bright Sunday afternoon isn’t nearly as dangerous as seventy cars doing 85 on a crowded three lane highway just before dawn, why don’t we take the cops off of those “for appearances sake” radar set-ups on those very busy, very dangerous Sunday afternoons and put ‘em where the real traffic is? What a freakin’ concept!

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