Rage on the Road

This will teach you to honk -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I'm not usually violence-prone, but there is nothing that enrages me more than somebody blaring their horn at me in traffic. I was looking at new cars on Sunday and parked my Toyota in the drive of the dealership -- they had a gate to prevent me from driving into the parking area. When finished, I looked cautiously to see if anyone was coming and began to back my car into the empty, right-most lane. Along came a red SUV, in the next lane. She didn't merely toot her horn; she leaned into it and blared it really loud. I don't normally make big mistakes in my driving, but will take my lumps if I do make a mistake. On the other hand, if I know what I'm doing and some sanctimonious person decides to correct me with a rude honk, it makes me really mad. In this case, my car wasn't going anywhere near her lane -- she overreacted in an almost neurotic way. Car honks are mostly jarring -- there's hardly one that says "pardon me" or "watch out". In this case, I had to suppress my urge to kill.

This calls to mind another horn-honking story. About a year ago I was sitting at an outside table at Starbucks on Lemon & Knight Street here in Dallas. A car was turning right from Knight on to Lemon. At the same time, a north-bound Honda was doing a U-turn at roughly the same spot. It was clear that the two cars might have a conflict (though they didn't need to). The Honda veered into the path of the other car. In the few seconds where hand-eye coordination is critical for control, guess what? The Honda driver decided to blare his horn. It was more important for him to express his indignation than it was to steer or apply the brakes to prevent an accident. In this case, Mr. Honda crunched his fender and lost a bumper. It served him right, but the other driver didn't need to suffer so much grief.

I have actually spoken to two acquaintances (both high-testosterone males) who admit to having a fender crunch to prove they were in the right. I don't like stand-offs or matches like that of any kind -- if someone wants to force a point and is willing to wreck their car for it, I'll probably yield. Who knows what you're up against? In north Dallas a year ago, a British tourist was shot dead in a road rage incident. It's suspected that his only "crime" was going too slow in the left lane of a construction zone. You never know what frame of mind the other guy is in, or what weapons he might carry. When I was a young lad of 25, an older model pickup truck cut in front of me on MOPAC in Austin; I blared my horn to express my outrage. What made this awkward is that it was on an empty stretch of highway and it looked like three Banditos in the cab. My clothes were drenched with sweat by the time I was able to pull off -- fortunately they didn't seek revenge.

Bottom line? "Drive Friendly". Also drive defensively and use the greatest of commodities -- common sense. Be as nice to someone in a car as you would be to them on foot -- on a promenade or in a hallway. It's a person in the other car after all. It's not worth the loss of property, and certainly not life, to make a gesture of unctuous outrage.

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