Want to stop road rage? Talk to yourself

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I’ve never been a really serious road rager but I’ve come pretty darn close. There were times that I was so close to ramming someone in the rear end that I could feel it. Taste it. Would have loved to do it. Was gritting my teeth to do it.

On other occasions, I’d spit out my favorite curses and hope the person heard it. Or I’d flip a finger long and hard and shake my head and curl a lip, all with the intention of showing someone what I thought of him or her, and—understatement—it wasn’t nice.

I even dreamed up a little communication device for cars so I could tell people exactly what I was thinking. One press of a button on my console and the message would light up in a little screen on the roof of my car: jerk was a mild option. F-words and a synonym for a male donkey were additional choices among others. I’d also include more positive comments like Thanks! whenever someone was kind enough to let me into traffic.

I hope my offensive language references don’t offend anyone. And I hope that wasn’t you in the light blue Taurus. If it was, and if I were still that way, I’d say you deserved it.

But I’m not like that any more.

I’m going back at least fifteen years with this story, back to the time when I moved to the Philadelphia suburbs and had to deal with fast, heavy traffic every day, several times a day. I wasn’t used to it, I didn’t know my way around, and I had never dealt much with aggressive drivers for a long period of time. Plus, I had a lot of challenges in my life back then. I was–plain and simple–stressed out.

At some point, I just got tired of reacting as I did. I was tired of getting upset. There was no point to it, no satisfaction, no resolution. I was alone in my car, mad as hell, and probably late for work or an appointment or something myself, and I was getting more upset than the situation really called for on many occasions. And even if the other driver  was the most obnoxious and rude person ever  (and we know there are plenty of those), why get worked up over it?

What stopped me from smashing my car into someone’s else’s car is just that I’m essentially a peaceful person, and I could never do that. But I came close. And I didn’t like how I was reacting.

I finally decided that what these other drivers were doing really had nothing to do with me.

Of course not. It wasn’t anything done to me personally—I was just an anonymous driver in the way—though it felt like it at times. And I tried to see things from their point of view: why were they driving like maniacs?

I came up with a few theories:

Maybe he’s late for work and just stressed out about the lecture he knows his boss will give him. Maybe she’s got serious problems at home and she’s upset with her husband. Maybe she’s got a rough life and is about to lose her house or her kids or who-knows-what. Maybe that guy has a wife in labor in the back seat, for all I know, and she’s screaming in pain as he battles traffic. The last thing on his mind is being a courteous driver even if that’s how he normally is.

The image of an earnest young husband with a wife about to give birth for the first time tugged on strings of compassion in my heart.

I also wondered why I was reacting as I was. I realized that I was much more tolerant when things in my own life were going well. When they weren’t, well, that’s when I was likely to fly off the handle too.

Here’s what I did to get my blossoming road rager under control.

Any time another driver cut me off, zoomed in front of me and made me jump in my seat, or blasted the horn because I was one-sixteenth of a second late to move forward after the light turned green, I would say to myself:

His wife is in labor. He’s taking her to the hospital. This guy is freaking out, poor thing. Wish I could help.

And even though my heart was thumping from the startle, even though I might have felt angry or upset, I would tell myself the story anyway. And I’d force myself to smile and just breathe in deeply. Calm, I would say to myself. As I exhaled, I would say, Let it go, Leah. Just let it go. He has his journey and you have yours and it’s OK. It’s not worth it. Just let it go.

Sometimes I felt calm right away. Other times, irritation lingered for some time but, by repeating some version of the words above to myself and taking a few deep breaths, sooner or later I forgot about it and calm returned.

As months and years went by, the amount of time I spent feeling angry or upset in traffic decreased slowly but steadily. Once in awhile I’d get upset at something really outrageous, but I’d just let it go and remind myself that the guy has a wife in the back seat screaming in pain or some other reason for behaving as he did, and that’s where he’s at. There’s no reason for me to join his party.

These days, it’s rare that I get upset in traffic.

Just today, in fact, I dawdled as the light turned green. I was daydreaming as I listened to some really good music. Suddenly a big, noisy car was zooming past me on the left—illegally in fact—as he flew through the intersection. Oh well, I thought. Not much traffic around anyway.

And you know what? Now that I’m remembering this, I realize that I wasn’t even smug as I pulled up next to him at the next light. I mean, around here, it’s pretty hard to get anywhere fast because of the lights.

Ten or fifteen years ago, though, I would have been thinking something like Neener, neener, you jerk, look at all that energy you wasted rushing past me and we get to the next light at the same time anyway. HAH.

Who was really wasting energy? Takes one to know one, as the saying goes.

If you get upset in traffic like I used to and you’d really rather not, try talking to yourself. Pick a story or excuse for the other driver—even call it a mantra—and use it whenever you feel like swearing or worse in traffic. Get in the habit of repeating it to yourself to help you let go of the anger and irritation. It might take awhile but, in time, you’ll find that you enjoy driving much more and just shrug at drivers who used to annoy the hell out of you.

And instead of a message on your roof that tells people where to get off, you’ll have one that says, “I’m sorry I was in your way. I hope you get to your destination safely and as quickly as possible.”

Well, maybe that’s a bit much, but at least you’ll have a more pleasant and safe journey yourself.

Do you get upset in traffic? Know someone who does? Comments are always welcome.