If you drive everyday and at least once each time you end up shaking your head at the antics you see from other drivers then you can relate to this story. If, as a driver, you have a significant number of instances where drivers are honking their horns at you, shaking their heads or fists at your actions, or flicking their headlights into your rear view mirror in an attempt to blind you…this article is definitely for you. Finally, if you have — on at least one occasion — stepped out of your vehicle and to confront another driver in anger, hopefully you can glean some wisdom from these words.

The mix of drivers and attitudes are as diverse as the faces you see as you stroll down any street in North America. And while no two persons are truly the same, their behaviour can be grouped into general categories. Having said this, please don’t be offended by what is written here, the intention is to amplify and enlighten areas that should be improved upon and is nothing to be considered personally derogatory.

Okay! Let’s kick this off with my personal and most frequently seen irritant.

The Surprise Signaller

‘Ahh,Yes,’ some of you are saying to yourselves for you know this driver well. This is the person who travels along at a good clip and with little warning brakes sharply, slaps on the signals and turns the corner; during this whole time you are standing on the brake pedal with your heart in your throat! If I could sit with this person the question I really need to ask them is, “Do you really think I care where you’re going?” I mean, really? What need is there to cloak your intentions in such a way, unless you are trying to shake off an enemy agent. The entire vehicle you are driving is designed for communication, did you know that? Sure is, the headlights illuminate your path as well as warn everyone ahead of your approach, the inverse is true of the tail and brake lights. Hence the name, signal lights or more commonly used term, Turn Signals. Do everyone a favour, put your signals on well ahead to time to signal the drivers around you of your intention to turn. The first thing you will notice is that truck that seems to be attached to your rear bumper will back off as you come to make your move, the second thing you will notice is a sharp reductions in the number of honking, angry drivers that you leave behind. See? Wasn’t that easy?

Intersection Insurrections

Man, I could write a book on this topic alone. First of all, of any piece of real estate in existence out there in the world, the intersection is the least respected and single most lethal property this side of Three Mile Island. Why anyone would put on make-up, tune their car stereo, or accelerate out of impatience on approach of an intersection can only be considered asinine in my humble opinion. This is one place where my ‘Trouble Radar’ is blasting out a full strength. Don’t actively brake when coming to one, irritating the following traffic, simply cover your brake pedal with your foot and be prepared for trouble. I follow a steadfast set of rules when I come to cross traffic; SLOW–KNOW–SHOW–GO. Slow means as described above, for gosh sakes, why rush into trouble? Know where you’re going upon approach; In the intersection is NOT the correct time to figure this out. Show, by use of proper signals your intent ahead of time so everyone gathered can see what you are doing. Go, if safe to do so! A green light is not carte blanche that you can obliviously charge through. Read your local traffic laws, except perhaps in Beijing, it should say, ‘Proceed if safe to do so.’

The above is critical to understand because invariably during rush hour traffic I see the most frustrating infraction of all. Traffic in their direction of travel is so congested that it has backed up to the far side of the intersection leaving the next motorist no room. The light is stale green and the driver decides to chance zipping across and stops in the intersection as it goes yellow and ultimately red. Now at least one full lane of cross traffic is blocked. This driver is assaulted by a hail of blaring horns and insults, all the while the driver pretends to have blinders on and stares intently on the car ahead — praying it will move to give them room. Lord above, if I was ever tempted to violence — this is the time. Simply folks, this is the single most selfish act one can perform not to mention being a direct contributor to grid lock. You don’t have to love your fellow driver, just be a little altruistic and say to yourself: “I can’t go at this moment, so I’ll let others go instead.” Then stay at the stop line even though it’s a green light. YES! You heard me correctly, wait until there is room for your vehicle on the far side before attempting to cross and you will have the silent, emphatic thanks of many of your fellow motorists.

My next rush hour beef is the Amber light misconception. Despite what many may espouse as a truth, the yellow light is not, ’speed up, the light is gonna change!’ Your local traffic regulation should read: ‘Stop unless it is unsafe to do so.’ Another problem associated with this light is left turning traffic abruptly cut off by motorists entering and crossing the intersection in an attempt to beat the red light. Again, upon examination of your local traffic regulations regarding amber lights dictates that a driver shall not enter the intersection if another vehicle is present. This means, quite bluntly, a vehicle in the intersection at the onset of a yellow light owns the intersection and has the right of way! ‘Whoaa, Dude! No way!’ Well I’m here to tell you, “Way, Dude!” Translated for those outside of the state of California as: Yes, it is true.

Coming Together: The Merge

You can tell a whole lot about a person by their actions, this being said, when observing the actions of many drivers performing a lane merge I can only believe there are a lot of people out there who feel anxious when it comes to being excepted by others. Easily 40 percent of drivers out there, when presented with a gap in traffic will cross painted solid lines to insert themselves into traffic flow…and no, it’s not only the males that are premature! Sorry, I couldn’t resist. A merge, when performed correctly, will present no significant delay to the flow of traffic; one straight ahead, one merges, one straight ahead and the next merges…you get it. Or do you?

Why then the rush to cross in at a gap? Do you see a pile of rejected vehicles strewn across the landscape at the point of merge? No. Everyone gets in. ‘So,’ you ask, ‘What’s the big deal if I dive in early?’ Gaps are usually left by large vehicles so they may perform a safe quick-stop should the need arise, cutting off that distance endangers yourself. The really annoying reason is, in the traffic stream I want to let in ONE vehicle, then I have done my part and we all move along in an orderly fashion. Whereas, you dive in and at the point of merge YOU let in one car, and unless I want to be a jerk about it, I let in another car. That makes three cars ahead of me to slow down my progress instead of the prescribed one, multiply that by all the traffic and the flow all bogs down, and an otherwise efficient system grinds to a near halt.

What to do? Wait till the end to merge, and don’t be a hurry to move in, hold back the traffic behind from aggressively zipping around and ahead of you where they dive in and everyone behind them is bathed in angry brake lights. By slowly advancing until the lane diminishes into traffic flow, you enforce — to the best of your ability — proper merge etiquette.

Passive Competitor

If you wonder what variety of driver this is, this is the one who proceeds along in their own little world, happily cruising along at 10 kilometres (or miles) per hour below the speed limit. You, being only human, have followed closely behind in an attempt to return them to reality and motivate them to speed up. Your patience runs out because this variety of motorist rarely looks into the rear view mirror and remains oblivious to your reality, and presence. As a last resort, you decide it has come time to pass for your fuse is burning short and you know how this will end should you keep on his tail.
With reserve that would make your significant other proud, you safely nudge into the lane alongside good ol’ Oblivious and proceed to accelerate ahead. Oblivious almost jumps out of their skin at your sudden presence alongside and gives you that “And just what do you think you’re doing?” withering glare and accelerates, effectively blocking you out of the lane and in some cases leaving you in sudden jeopardy. Is it any wonder you grind your teeth at night? To the oblivious driver I say, read above about being altruistic and simply yield. Meaning, maintain a constant speed, allow the motorist to pass, then accelerate to the proper posted speed.

Road Rage more frequently ensues with this one behaviour than most others for in some instances Mr/Ms Oblivious DOES see your grill filling their rear view mirror and decide that the follower needs a lesson, performing an abrupt braking manoeuvre or simply continuing to slow down to become your worst nightmare. These are both escalating tactics leading to the follower seeking to reciprocate with his own angry tactic by staying on the tail and honking and spraying your mirrors with high beams…sometimes at a pause in traffic, it can even lead to confrontation and violence. To the follower, just back off and take 3 significant deep breaths and start thinking of all the things you must get done this particular day, in short, get yourself out of the cycle of anger. To the followed, first look down at your speedometer and then speed up to the posted speed and that should improve your day greatly.

If you will allow me this quick moment on my soapbox. Anger is a choice that we can avoid. Anger isn’t wrong, in fact, where would we be as a species without anger — probably extinct. Anger is an emotion, like grief, joy or fear, it’s not right or wrong simply an emotion. What you do with that emotion is what is right or wrong.

In a moment of anger and stress, your prefrontal cortex — where the brain’s reasoning skills reside — shuts down and some really foolish choices are made. The first great wrong we do as humans is dehumanize another. What an idiot; What a dummy; What a loser. But what if the driver you are angry at just got news that their parent or child is dying and they GOT to get to the hospital quickly or forever lose the chance to properly say goodbye. Of course this isn’t always the case, but assuming it is…doesn’t it make that other driver more…human? As you open the car door in anger and put your worn shoe to the asphalt to confront the other driver, just remember them trying desperately to get to the hospital…and how you want to spend the remainder of your day. Please.

The Big Guy

This heading is for all the instances where heavy equipment is involved, being truck and trailer, or a bus, or a large cube van. First never perform a lane change before the big fella in wet weather, only to get surprised and then slam on your brakes. Remember the merge thing, with the space for a quick-stop. The average passenger car weighs in between 2000 and 6000 pounds. A Big boy can be on the low side 25,000 up to an astounding 100,000 pounds. You slam on the brakes and takes you six feet to stop (or 2 meters), multiply that by ten for a large vehicle and you get my point.

In my experience a Honda Civic with four passengers belted safely in, ran head on into a city bus at approximately 35 miles per hour. The driver died instantly, the three passengers all had their backs broken. The bus drove away from the scene with a twisted bumper. As a bus driver, I don’t want to make contact with your car, sometimes the choice just isn’t mine.
On a lighter note, why do we straddle lanes? To perform a safe turn we need 3 lanes of space. Either I stay in one lane and take up 2 lanes on the road I’m turning on, or inversely take two lanes to turn down a single lane road which leaves the hazard of an impatient motorist, or biker, thinking I’m going straight and inserting themselves into a crush danger. The best compromise is one and one half lane into one and one half lanes. Not doing so causes our back wheels to travel over the sidewalk endangering pedestrians. When the turn signal comes on, do the big guy a favour, hang back and block other traffic from squeezing into danger!

The last, is plain ol’ magnetic attraction. Well, so it can sometimes seem to us. Driving along everything is fine, we come alongside a smaller car and then it seems to be drawn into the side of our rig, as if some big magnet took a hold of it and pulled it over. The basic principle of driving is where you look; want to stop weaving in the lane? Keep your eyes high and look as far ahead as you can to some distant imaginary point, you’ll go straighter. When those big wheels come alongside — Don’t look at them! You automatically steer where you look, look straight ahead and keep your eyes high, and trust your relative positions in the lanes. If you are in your own lane and the big rig is in his, never the two shall meet.

Be mindful of what you’re doing, reduce speed and keep distance in foul weather, and always remember you have a home to get back to. Stay safe.