Cherisse Moe

Road rage is plagu­ing Trinida­di­an dri­vers at an alarm­ing rate. The dis­re­spect­ful and dis­cour­te­ous man­ner in which some mo­torists dri­ve could have some­thing to do with it. And while it's be­com­ing an all too fa­mil­iar sight on the na­tion's roads, ex­perts warn that it's no laugh­ing mat­ter. Those who re­search ag­gres­sive dri­ving de­scribe it as any un­friend­ly or threat­en­ing ac­tions, in­clud­ing curs­ing or forc­ing an­oth­er dri­ver from the road, or, in more ex­treme in­stances, shoot­ing at the car of an­oth­er dri­ver. Road rage can lead to al­ter­ca­tions, as­saults, and col­li­sions, which re­sult in in­juries and even deaths. Ar­rive Alive Pres­i­dent, Brent Bat­son, said in T&T ag­gres­sive dri­ving had re­sult­ed in nu­mer­ous re­cent ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dents, four of which were fa­tal­i­ties.

"Ear­li­er this year, PH dri­ver Ter­rence Wal­dron was run over and killed by an­oth­er PH dri­ver dur­ing an ar­gu­ment over an il­le­gal park­ing spot at Busy Cor­ner, Ch­agua­nas," said Bat­son. And while Bat­son stat­ed that most in­ci­dents of road rage are not re­port­ed, if they were, they would be clas­si­fied un­der "Of­fences Against the Per­son." He added, "Once the sit­u­a­tion moves from words to dam­ag­ing an­oth­er per­son's ve­hi­cle or phys­i­cal as­sault, the in­ci­dent has es­ca­lat­ed to that of a Crim­i­nal Of­fence. Many peo­ple car­ry knives and cut­lass­es in their ve­hi­cles which in road rage con­fronta­tions are usu­al­ly the first things wield­ed by of­fend­ers." In­ter­na­tion­al sta­tis­tics re­in­force the dan­gers of road rage.

Ac­cord­ing to the US Na­tion­al High­way Traf­fic Safe­ty Ad­min­is­tra­tion, 66 per cent of all an­nu­al traf­fic fa­tal­i­ties are caused by ag­gres­sive dri­ving ac­tions, such as run­ning red lights and tail­gat­ing. Bat­son, the Op­er­a­tions Man­ag­er of Train­ing and Lo­gis­tics Ltd, not­ed that traf­fic con­ges­tion, a lack of pa­tience, tol­er­ance and con­sis­tent en­force­ment of Traf­fic Reg­u­la­tions, all play a part in ex­as­per­at­ing the prob­lem.

"It's al­so caused by stress­ful home and work­ing con­di­tions, a lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion of con­struc­tion lane clo­sures, al­co­hol and sub­stance abuse," he said.

As with all prob­lems, the first step to ad­dress­ing it is ad­mit­ting that you have one in the first place. Al­though women are more like­ly to con­fess to an­gry dri­ving, ex­perts re­veal that men are more like­ly to be the re­al cul­prits. Bat­son ad­vised that to reach the goal of safer, more re­laxed dri­ving be­hav­iour, peo­ple must check their own dri­ving, rather than con­stant­ly blame oth­er mo­torists. "If you're diplo­mat­ic, you will be able to move through traf­fic with amaz­ing ease. Some­times dri­vers will go out of their way to help you," he as­sert­ed. "Re­mem­ber Mur­phy's Law of the Roads: When you are late you will get every sin­gle Red Traf­fic Light! So Leave Ear­ly, Dri­ve De­fen­sive­ly and Ar­rive Alive."

Tips

If you are an ag­gres­sive dri­ver, Brent Bat­son says these tips can help you to pull the brakes on road rage:

• Don't take traf­fic prob­lems per­son­al­ly. It will cause more stress and anx­i­ety to you and none to the oth­er dri­ver!

• Avoid eye con­tact with an ag­gres­sive dri­ver.

• Don't make ob­scene ges­tures.

• Don't tail­gate.

• Use your horn to alert not ir­ri­tate.

• Don't block the over­tak­ing lane.

• Don't block the Left turn lanes to pro­ceed straight or vice ver­sa.

• Don't speed up to cut off an­oth­er dri­ver. Such acts could be in­ter­pret­ed as at­tempts to en­dan­ger some­one and es­ca­late the sit­u­a­tion.

• Leave work and home stress out of dri­ving.

• Leave ear­ly to cater for un­planned in­ci­dents on the road which may set you back. This will pre­vent you from speed­ing and be­ing stressed out by oth­er dri­vers.

• Keep­ing weapons in your car such as knives or cut­lass­es are very tempt­ing.

• Cre­ate a re­lax­ing and com­fort­able en­vi­ron­ment in your car by play­ing re­lax­ing mu­sic.

• Traf­fic is a co-op­er­a­tive ac­tiv­i­ty. When you be­have co­op­er­a­tive­ly, you get re­paid in kind. If you're ag­gres­sive, you trig­ger in oth­ers a nat­ur­al in­stinct to fight back and dri­vers will of­ten try to thwart your progress.