My Car, Myself

I watched a young man, several days ago, perpetuate abusive behavior towards an elderly person. He swore, cursed, was free and generous with his hand gestures, and he left the poor elderly man a quivering mess. I was distressed for the elderly man and felt a white-hot flash of fury towards the younger one who'd behaved so horrendously. In alternate circustances, the younger man could have been charged for simple assault. The abuse he heaped on the old man was, to my college-educated eye, grounds for at least a misdemeanor charge. Except for one thing: he was in his car, and the elderly man was in his own vehicle, and the abuse flung towards that poor elderly person defined our modern term, "road rage."

No matter what new laws command, road rage seems to be our haven for bad behavior. When we are in the safety of our ten-ton vehicles, surrounded by metal and plastic "fortresses," we seem to mutate, become our own personal entity which we think entitles us to protect our "castles" with words, gestures, and in the worst scenerios, brute force. We rush breathlessly from work to home, restaurant to soccer field, with our ears glued to cell phones while desperate to beat the "fortresses" to our right and left, anxious not to risk some sort of humiliating defeat.

Perfectly friendly types who utter "please" and "thank you" on a daily basis seem to find cursing at the car ahead of them acceptable on some strange, self-protective level. I've seen finger gestures from mild-mannered office workers and curse words blurted from the lipsticked mouths of mothers, who are known to use soap in the mouths of their children for those same words (of course wondering where they've heard them)! To use a tired cliche that just seems to fit: What's wrong with this picture?

I've thought long and hard about road rage since two of my own children have become new drivers, wondering when their own experiences on the road will mutate THEM into these craven, hedonistic beings bent on self-preservation and one-upmanship. I didn't have to wait long. I gasped the first time I heard my 16-yr-old utter venom-soaked phrases at the car to her left, which had attempted to enter her lane without seeing her. At the last minute the car swerved and a collision was avoided, but my daughter went on about it-in a self-righteous, indignant tone-for five minutes or more. I stopped her only when I reminded her of a similar occurance days before, the time she'd been the car on the left. She quieted, but not quickly. After that incident I sat my children down and decided to discuss this whole "road rage" phenomena and why they need to strive to rise above it. I reminded them that we ALL make mistakes when we drive, just like with every other aspect of our lives. When WE are the ones at fault, we wish for understanding, a wave of apology-accepted, a nod of forgiveness. We must GIVE what we wish to GET.

I'd love to say that I'm perfect and that road rage has never entered MY "fortress," but my nose would grow if this were a cartoon movie. A few years ago, however, I heard myself utter a profanity I'd blush to use at any other time, and I heard my youngest daughter's bark of laughter. I was ashamed of myself, promising then and there to let go of silly, petty rages on the road and simply deal with driving like I deal with everything else: heaving a deep breath and a promise to myself that I will TREAT as I want to be TREATED. When I feel myself tighten because an older person is driving forty mph in a fifty-five zone, I remember that someday I will be old, and I, too, will want to hang onto my independence for as long as I possibly can. When my teeth grind because I've been cut off yet again, I ask myself if I'm driving to brain surgery and whether an extra five minutes is really going to matter to me in the larger spectrum.

Do I STILL grumble and whine and complain? Sure. I'm trying, but I'm not perfect. I don't, however, consider driving a race or my journey any more important than the next guy's. And when I witness the sort of abuse that poor elderly man had to endure that day, I remember why it's important to behave IN your car the same way you'd behave OUT of it. Common decency--pass it on.