GRRRR – WTF is Road Rage!

Let's start by blaming the usual suspect … Amy G Dala (bitch)! Yep, that shady little troublemaker living rent-free inside your skull. Technically she’s your amygdala, but doesn’t “Amy” sound like the name of the girl who’d cut you off at the lights and then flip you the bird? Anyway, road rage is less about bad drivers and more about your brain going full caveman. Your amygdala shouts “SABRE-TOOTH TIGER ATTACKING!” when in reality Steve from Bunbury just forgot to indicate. Meanwhile, your prefrontal cortex (the “rational grown-up” part of your brain) is like, “Please calm down, Amy, nobody’s being eaten today.” But Amy ignores him, grabs the steering wheel, and suddenly you’re yelling at strangers through your windscreen like it’s karaoke night.

But wait there's more, as META AI kindly explains: The prefrontal cortex, is responsible for rational thought and self-control. When the amygdala is overactivated, it can override the prefrontal cortex's ability to regulate emotions and behaviours, leading to "blind rage". The temporal lobes and hypothalamus are also involved, with the former affecting mood and emotional stability and the latter playing a role in rage expression.

Ok so there is an actual and recognised physiological human response to those minor, or let’s concede, the sometimes even serious incidents whilst we are driving. We know that our own response relates back to primitive survival instincts, say when a sabre-tooth tiger looked at us sideways. So even a minor act by the other driver can in itself activate and drive our response in turn. The anger (read rage) of such response by us, scaring our passengers and at times even ourselves should perhaps after the act in calmer reflection raise the question as to why we, as rational law abiding citizens suddenly wanted to slam our car into the other’s just because “he/she cut me off, or beeped his/her horn at me.”

META continues as to the recognised cause of road rage in a soothing tone so as to explain the process of a road rage incident:

1. Perceived Threat: A driver sees something they perceive as a threat or provocation on the road. You think you’ve been wronged. Translation: “That beep was basically a death threat.”
2. Amygdala Activation: The perceived threat activates the amygdala. Amy grabs her megaphone: “FIGHT OR FLIGHT! Mostly fight!”
3. Overriding Rational Thought: The strong, emotion-driven signals from the amygdala can overwhelm the prefrontal cortex, hindering rational decision-making and impulse control. Your poor prefrontal cortex is duct-taped to a chair, muttering “We’re better than this…”
4. Reactive Behaviour: This leads to impulsive and aggressive reactions, with the driver acting on emotion rather than thinking through their response. Congratulations. You’ve now invented the Olympic sport of swearing at 120 decibels.

Lovely calm META AI also offers us (somewhat naively I suggest) a more rational answer to the actual road rage inducing response.

How to regain control: 

• Practicing the Pause: Calm neuroscience folk suggest “practicing the pause” and taking a breath before reacting. Which sounds lovely, unless you’re the type to scream “I’LL SHOW YOU A PAUSE, MATE!” while white-knuckling the horn.
• Awareness: They also recommend awareness. But if awareness worked, you wouldn’t already be yelling, “You stupid old/young bastard/bitch did you get your f*&ing licence out of a cornflake packet!” every morning on your way to your job as a librarian.

Here comes the crunch. It is recorded that sufferers of ADHD (and full disclosure my GP reckons just on interacting with me that I am such) carry those personality traits into the driver’s seat and might well be prone to that behaviour manifesting as the dreaded road rage.

Further NIH.gov report that “Intermittent explosive disorder involves repeated, sudden bouts of impulsive, aggressive, violent behaviour or angry verbal outbursts. The reactions are too extreme for the situation. Road rage, domestic abuse, throwing or breaking objects, or other temper tantrums may be symptoms of intermittent explosive disorder. 6 Jan 2024”

The world renown Mayo Clinic reports that gender is a major contributing factor in most road rage cases, with males more likely to exhibit road rage than females. While around half of males and females were likely to tailgate another driver, more severe actions skew male.

From this I think we can agree that the man who acts up in a brothel exploding with anger when one of the ladies for example won’t kiss him, (or worse) is the same man who responds with road rage.

The point I would like to make in this blog is if you are about to beep at a dented old sedan “Do you know who your picking?” because gangsters, hit men and even serial murderers drive cars.

Octo Telematics ask “Is road rage a form of anxiety? Stress, anxiety, and anger are common triggers. People who are dealing with these emotions may be more likely to lash out when they feel threatened or frustrated on the road. But it's important to note that these are not the root causes of road rage. They are symptoms of underlying mental health conditions.14 Jan 2023”

The other day, while quietly admiring my latest Picasso purchase (funded, of course, by blogger earnings), I came across the term disinhibition effect. The article related to social media bullying and the scourge of those dreadful cowardly keyboard warriors. Those who hide in anonymity afforded by the damn smartphones or PCs that allows you to be hidden in your home or at Maccas. All whilst using a pseudonym as you torture or abuse some poor soul for their looks, weight or other perceived personal flaw, and at times famously even driving the target to self-harm.

AI Overview explains “The online disinhibition effect is the tendency for people to lower their usual self-restraints and act differently online than they would face-to-face, often becoming more honest, passionate, or even more aggressive. This effect is driven by factors like anonymity, where people feel less accountable, and the lack of social cues in online interactions, which can lead to both positive (benign disinhibition) or negative (toxic disinhibition) behaviours.” 

It is my suggestion that the same disinhibition effect can be applied to the road-rager as well as a keyboard warrior. Ms Amy G Dala is to blame again because you see, road rage drivers are ensconced within their lockable protective steel chariots. Knowing that they can’t be seen as to their physical size, muscularity, fitness etc when they sit on the horn and give the naughty finger to another road user. In my past as a big rugby playing lad if the opportunity presented after such an aggressive display (and say the traffic stopped at a traffic light) I would politely wander back to the driver’s window of the aggressor and if they even dared to open it, I would again politely enquire what he was up to. Luckily for me each time I did that the driver shrunk in their seat and apologised profusely embarrassed in front of their wife and kids. But I wouldn’t recommend doing that. Because if you do strike the wrong type of road rager all hell could, and as we have all seen regularly on TV news, does break out. Weapons used and even deaths occurring, all over a beep of the horn. Sad.

So, the takeaway here is simple: be careful out there. Save your horn for real hazards or a friendly “gidday,” because you never truly know who’s behind the wheel. To wrap things up, let’s finish with a couple of sobering examples of poor choices on the road, courtesy of META AI.

The Torres Case (2015): In 2015, a minor driving incident in Albuquerque, New Mexico, escalated into a fatal shooting due to road rage. Alan Garcia made a hand gesture of exasperation after another driver forced him out of his lane on Interstate 40. The other driver, Tony Torres, responded by chasing Garcia's car and firing multiple shots, one of which hit Garcia's four-year-old daughter, Lilliana, killing her. The incident is a tragic example of how a small act of anger on the road can lead to devastating, irreversible consequences.

Florida, 2015: This case defies belief, because both drivers called the cops as they pursued each other through the streets. In 2015, Robert Doyle called the police in Florida and informed them another driver had attempted to ram him clean off the road. At the same time, Candelerio Gonzalez's wife Cathy was on the phone with the police to tell them about a driver that was out of control. She told police they intended to follow him home.  The whole incident played out on the police radio, as Doyle, weapon in hand, pulled into his driveway. Gonzalez blocked his car in and Doyle opened fire as soon as he exited the car.  Gonzalez was killed by four separate gunshots and Doyle held his family at gunpoint until the police arrived. He was charged with second-degree murder, but the charges were later dropped. It just goes to show, though, that perspective is everything in a road rage incident and both drivers felt they were in the right.  

Sad alright.

Regards Magnum
Pause Practitioner
For: Langtrees.com

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