It all started one morning on my way to work. I was sitting at an intersection, waiting for the crossing traffic to pass. A car approached rapidly from behind, and after a few seconds of impatient waiting, pulled around me and into the middle of the intersection — where the driver was forced to slam on her brakes to avoid hitting the very same cars for which I had been waiting.
After the traffic had passed, the car sat in the middle of the street for another 30 seconds or so (though I’m not sure whether it was from shock or revenge) before continuing on its journey.
As I drove to work, I tried to imagine what mental processes led my fellow travelers to act in such a reckless manner. Or to put it in other words: What were they thinking?!?!?
Why were they in so much of a hurry that they couldn’t wait what would have been — at most — a few seconds? (In fact, the driver’s impatience actually cost both of us more time than it would have taken just by waiting for the traffic to pass.) Why was the driver so angry?
I realized very quickly, of course, that it wasn’t an issue of thought, but of psychological reaction. And I noticed (almost as quickly) my own unreasoning reactions while driving — that I, too, suffered from what the media calls “road rage.”
So I decided to start thinking rather than reacting, and to use this forum to share my thought processes with others.
