Entry #7: Road Rage

A question I've always had up in my massive noggin; Why is it that the moment a person enters a car their entire personality changes? I've got solid evidence that this is the case. While leaving school one day I was talking to a friend, just having a causal conversation. We both reached our respective mode of transportation and bid our farewells. We both live in the same town so it must have been fate that we'd meet on the highway that leads to our town. Now, the moment our eyes met something fierce clicked in our brains. One moment we're cruising at a leisurely teenage pace of about 60 mph and the second our eyes meet we are flying anywhere between75-85 mph completely oblivious to any other vehicles. bIn that split second we enter a death race for no reason whatsoever. Now I don't mind some friendly competition so I never really questioned this bit of driving. However, I have always wondered why people are just 200% more pissed off when driving. Sometimes while I'm driving down the road I'll meet eyes with a person and just smile and wave because it's just a nice thing to do. But the moment I initiate this exchange of non ill intended niceness the opposite party just flips out as if I just punted their newborn child across a moat of pedophiles. Am I the only one who has notice this? It's like you can't be nice while driving because you run the risk of being followed home and then promptly beaten to death. Not only does waving at them or smiling piss people off for no reason but any form of acknowledgment will just about do it. You could just tilt your head slightly in their vehicles direction and the next thing you know some soccer mom starts going full circle on your ass and all you did was scratch your nose. Another thing Ive noticed while driving recently is that the sound of a horn pretty much just sets off a ticking time bomb. I noticed this when I came up to an intersection at the same time as another driver. I decided I'd tap my horn to let him go first, again I was being nice. But instead of accepting my nice gesture he proceeded to get out of his car, walked over to my window with his beer belly sticking out in his false attempt at puffing out his chest, and he shouted a lot of profanities split up with the occasional death threat. Man did that escalate quickly. Lucky for him my car won't unlock until it's in park. I could have taken him. After that experience I decided to perform a little psychological experiment. I began to venture onto the highway. Once I was comfortably situated in the right lane I found my first test subject. It was a slow moving grey mini van doing way under the posted speed suggestion so it didn't take long to catch up. As soon as my car was positioned behind him I ever so lightly tapped my horn. The response was almost immediate. The man's neck bulged to twice its original size and his right hand went automatically into the middle finger raising gesture. He then promptly exited the highway because he was either that pissed or perhaps I had invoked an aneurism. My hypothesis was so far correct; if you honk at people they will get extremely angry. It's the whole cause and effect theory. So I continued my experiment on a a few more cars. One woman in a powder blue love bug unrolled her window and shouted out at me but then she must've realized that she was a blonde so the road needed her full attention. Another woman who was applying mascara jabbed herself in the eye as a first response to my pleasant horn. One man actually decided to get in front of me and have his son throw loose napkins out the window in a sad attempt to blind me. His plan backfired when he realized my car was so aerodynamic that the napkins blew right over my car and into the cop behind me. I'm pretty sure he regretted that decision. The moral of the story here folks; don't get so pissed off when driving. I am a huge offender of this. However I try to ignore the small stuff like friendly nods and gestures and horn blaring. Instead I focus on getting pissed at the things that matter like ancient citizens driving in the left lane, stupid squirrels darting under my tires, and those damn development kids who think their impervious to my one ton vehicle.