Road rage

[UltraBudgie]

I do the same thing in public, no looking at my phone, I actually scan my surroundings...maybe it's an oldtimer thing. ha ha

Another old-timer thing I've noticed is what I heard someone call "The Gen-X Wave".

It's when you have a street with cars both parked on the side, and only one lane in the middle, and you have to pay chicken with oncoming traffic. But hey, they are nice and pull in to a gap on their side and let you go first! How pleasant! So you drive on through and give them a little wave. The Gen-X Wave. Boomers do it too, if they're not all wrapped up thinking about their 401K's or whatever.

I hadn't noticed until someone mentioned it, but Millenials and Gen-Z don't seem to do that! Maybe some do. I wonder why?

[quintessentone]

Another old-timer thing I've noticed is what I heard someone call "The Gen-X Wave".

It's when you have a street with cars both parked on the side, and only one lane in the middle, and you have to pay chicken with oncoming traffic. But hey, they are nice and pull in to a gap on their side and let you go first! How pleasant! So you drive on through and give them a little wave. The Gen-X Wave. Boomers do it too, if they're not all wrapped up thinking about their 401K's or whatever.

I hadn't noticed until someone mentioned it, but Millenials and Gen-Z don't seem to do that! Maybe some do. I wonder why?

I also drive through amber lights (when safe to do so - clear) and I mostly always make it through before it turns red. ha ha

Always thinking about how to financially manage retirement living because after a great deal of one's life spent on working one wants to keep enjoying those few luxuries one has become accustomed to enjoying.

I don't play chicken, I let everyone have the right of way because I'm not in any hurry to go anywhere and it's their bad luck when they end up being a part of the 'clump' of cars where the real trouble exists. That was also a lesson in my defense driving classes - keep away from the 'clumps' - hang back in isolation.
---------

ETA: And there's a joke for everything.

[xpert11]

Well I think it's obvious that it's an opportunity to practice not letting one's emotions spiral unproductively.

That is a fair point. However, people with that level of awareness don't commit acts of road rage. I should have been more specific concerning how such behaviour reveals a person's true character. Some people advertise who they are in public and obvious ways. For instance, in unrelated incidents, these points come to the forefront when someone's neighbours commit domestic violence and anti-social behaviour.

[UltraBudgie]

That is a fair point about revealing @xpert11! I am not sure there is a "true character" so much as layers and layers of masks with people. Not that that is bad, just the way it is.

For example, even though it is one thing to not be in an always-frustrated hurry, where everything is an obstacle that can frustrate, there is another level! Sometimes I'm putting along on a two-lane road for example, slowly passing someone in the left lane, and someone in a rushrush hurry will zoom up behind and tailgate. Oooh no! I think, you are in a hurry! Oh deary me it sucks to be you haha. Then I will slooowwly pass at one or two miles an hour faster. Oh look, I've passed the car on the right, but gee, I don't want to cut them off just to get out of your way, do I? So I need to leave a gap. Putt putt putt.... then, just when I can tell they're starting to swerve in and 'thread the needle' to pass me on the right, I will put on my blinker and pull out of the left lane. Sometimes I can get them halfway into the junt into the right lane. They are double-frustrated then, haha.

Now, that is not good behaviour, I know. Even though it is not road-rage per se, it is somewhat passive agressive and it is surely not a great thing to take glee in someone else's frustrations. But sometimes it happens anyway, and I don't care. That is what I mean about another layer of mask. I'm sure if I was always even more zen and didn't let that little schadenfreude happen, there would be another thing to pick at. Not sure if there's a true character platonic ideal for any of us that can exist in this world, just Xeno's paradox of inadequacy and endless approximations of who we want to be.

The town I am in now is a college town! There are many young kids on the road, and it is fun to see how you can tell from how someone drives! The other day I was doing a left turn across traffic and the car behind me thought I was being too slow so they actually made their left turn from behind me and almost got sideswiped. I was like "haha, dumass" and felt old like that cranky guy from that 70s show.

[argentus]

Another old-timer thing I've noticed is what I heard someone call "The Gen-X Wave".

It's when you have a street with cars both parked on the side, and only one lane in the middle, and you have to pay chicken with oncoming traffic. But hey, they are nice and pull in to a gap on their side and let you go first! How pleasant! So you drive on through and give them a little wave. The Gen-X Wave. Boomers do it too, if they're not all wrapped up thinking about their 401K's or whatever.

I hadn't noticed until someone mentioned it, but Millenials and Gen-Z don't seem to do that! Maybe some do. I wonder why?

You touch on a very good point, which I have also seen in the last decade or so:   Where I live, people seem less likely to be helpful with each other when in a car. It used to be much more common that if somebody is trying to back out into traffic, people would stop, flash their lights to indicate "go ahead", or taking turns when there is a construction or any other obstruction in one lane.  Little things....  a truck with trailer is going to be making a large turn.  You know their turning circle is huge, so you give them the space and they use it.  Costs you nothing, and augments the traffic flow.   When merging with a major roadway, if you have to fight your way on, it slows down both the merger and the mergee.  But hey, some people have places to be and no time for that nonsense; perhaps they, too, had to fight their way onto the roadway.  

Also -- and this is one of my personal peeves -- trailgating, seems far more common with people significantly younger than myself.    I feel that if I'm going the speed limit, they should go around if they want to drive faster.   What I have discovered is that many of them aren't trying to irritate or intimidate, and in fact routinely follow too close;  they don't mind when others do it and they don't recognize that it is irritating!  On the rare occasion when I have mentioned it, the young men were surprised, and said they were sorry.  They grew up driving close, it is normal for them.  Thus, I try to not take it personally, as I have in the past.  

In the same way that some people of previous generations sometimes were socialized into having a more courteous manner about them in pesonal interactions (thank you, ma'am, yes sir, etc.), and likewise with driving.

[DBCowboy]

I heard someone today say "if you still experience road rage, you haven't finished the work".

Do you think that is true?

During COVID I drove like I didn't care, because I didn't. But after that, I've noticed that I'm now almost always driving the speed limit, leaving gaps in front and not tailgating when in traffic, stopping at lights at a distance where the wheels of the car in front of me are still visible, etc. And I don't get annoyed if someone is impatient or cuts me off hardly at all. I usually just think 'gee they're in a hurry; i hope they get where they're going!'

It is weird. I see other drivers so stressed out on the road. And I've noticed that the less I let things stress me, the less things that stress me happen.

Of course sometimes on rare occasion I still get angry and want every one to die sooner rather than later, haha. But I guess that's normal?

Do you get road rage and if so how do you deal with it?

Sometimes I think traffic lights in some parts of town are deliberately timed to provoke people. Is this reality a cruel cruel test or some kind of obstacle course?

When my youngest was small he was in the car with me when I encountered a rude driver.

I just said that he had diarrhea and he had to get home quickly.

Since then, every rude driver HE encounters, he laughs and says, "Oh no, he's got the shits!"