Road rage and driving safety
Did you know that every day that you take a drive you are also taking a risk of running into a road rage incident or similar? According to the Institute for National Highway Safety road rage and related incidents resulting in accidents and injury are on the rise. Maybe its due to our time constrained society where everyone seems to be rushing and or late to wherever they have to go, maybe its an increase in psychosis and mental illnesses, maybe its health issue related or genetics, whatever the cause, it’s a serious problem in every city and town throughout America and I’m sure overseas too.
Just today, I was leaving my house taking my son to his karate practice when I was tailgated – literally this driver was inches from my bumper for several miles in their Ford Expedition. What amazed me was it was one of my neighbors from only 2 houses away. They tailgated me almost to the highway 3 miles from my home. Then when they turned off and I thought all was clear I heard someone honking their horn right behind me. I was in the right lane on I-85 in Charlotte, NC and this impatient lady in what appeared to be a Nissan was right on my bumper. I was doing 69 in a 65 mph speed limit and was in the right lane. She could have easily moved into one of the three other southbound lanes that were basically empty. What completely amazed me was that I merged over 1 lane and she drove on, went past the next exit and disappeared. I wasn’t blocking her or anything. It was obvious that she was determined that that was her lane and she was too lazy to move out of it. This is classic road rage. I told a friend of mine whom is a Charlotte Police officer about it and he said it happens all the time – he then told me about some lady that has over 5 DUI’s and they just caught her again (in her case she has a lot of money and big lawyers that get her back her license everytime). My question here is why? Why does this and similar occurrences happen everyday all over the world?
There was absolutely no need for either of these drivers to do what they did. Did it get them to work that much faster or court (to fight a speeding ticket) or whatever they had to do that day? Probably not as there are many red lights and also police whom are more than happy to dole out speeding tickets and similar. There is no need for this aggressive driving these drivers displayed and that all occurred within 10 minutes in one day. It gets worse. I have even seen someone get their car shot up just for cutting someone off. Is life so cheap that it has become worthless? Maybe the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) and DOT (Department of Transportation) need to make defensive driving courses more mainline, rather than just an option to lower a speeding fine. There are anger management courses for the workplace, why not for driving or road rage? Many licensed professions like the medical field, regardless of level (doctor, nurse, esthetician, etc…) require yearly training classes and recertification. Maybe driving which needs to be taken more seriously by many people should have similar requirements.
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I wouldn’t mind the added requirements and similar if I knew the roads were going to be much safer as a result. According to the National Institute for Highway Safety, Aggressive driving causes as many serious accidents as drunk driving and is only second to driving at night with bad or ineffective headlights. I live in a big city (Charlotte, NC has around a million residents if you include the surrounding suburbs), and every day you can listen to the numerous car accidents, injuries and unnecessary deaths caused by this aggressive driving or road rage. Just in the last year a teenager or young adult that was a promising senior at UNCC (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) as killed by an illegal immigrant that has been deported at least twice prior for the same thing. There have been shootings over driving habits, etc… Just like DUI, road rage has become a serious problem. Basically, many people have serious anger management issues to say the least and they need to get help for it.
Sometimes we all get hurried and stressed and we temporarily become aggressive drivers to various degrees. Sometimes it is minimal and sometimes some people lose complete control like Michael Richards did with his uncalled for racial slurs. I saw a sight a few years back that really got to me, I was driving through some highway in Kentucky when traffic came to a crawl. When I got almost through the traffic I could see why, there were cars and police vehicles parked on the side of the road and the police were assisting this lady and her family with placing a flower wreath or memorial on the side of the road. The lady was completely overcome with sadness and apparently had lost a loved one very dear to her. I to this day do not know what caused this – road rage, a drunk driver, I don’t really know, but in any case loss of life is a tragedy. The morale of this story and article is to make you and others aware that life is valuable and should be cherished. Road rage, just like drunk driving and driving with bad headlights is a killer. Learn to drive defensively and if you have a problem please seek help. The life you save may be your own. Article provided by MDWholesale.com headlight cleaner, headlight restoration and headlight repair.
