Frustrations on the Road

Road Rage on the Road

It is becoming more and more frequent that we encounter road rage reporting when we look at our newspapers headlines today. Traffic is getting worst and more chaotic with reports of ever increasing vehicle sales year on year.

What we see today is that people are taking their cars more to the road than taking public transport. Many reasons contributed to this, the poor state of affairs of the public transport systems, the inadequate planning and provision of public transports as new surburb, towns and cities are emerging.

Traffic jams are inadvertent, and this is not much help by the worsening attitude of the drivers on the road today. Today, we see many blatant disregard of the law, and I just hope the authorities can put all their heads together to work with the all the relevant authority to clamp on this. I still couldn't help reminiscing those moments when I rented a car at a foreign countries where the traffic was not so heavy, where it is the driver have the courtesy to stop and let the pedestrian cross.

How I hope that the school system can incorporate part of this road courtesy campaign as part of the curriculum. Simple concept of good road manners to inculcate from young is important;

a) Never hog a lane. This is probably one of the worst habits on the road that can drives people nut, and probably one big causes of big fights on the road. How stupid is it that one keeps hogging the road, and not switch to inner lane to make way. Some smart Alec argue that since he is driving within speed limit, it is fine. Need to knock some sense into such heads.

b) Give in to others to switch into your lane, especially those that have their indicator light turned on. Today's road traffic is chaotic, and many places, we see multiple lanes squeezing into few. In many instances, it is such situation that force the driver to come into your lane. How frequent I witness that the driver would not bulge but keeping close to prevent the car from coming in. In my years of driving, I have witness a case when both parties tried to move, and ended up scratching the incoming car. What happened next was 2 young men got down the car, brandishing a stick to hit the other car driver. Road bully as the newspaper would report such thing. If you do not want this to happen to you, be courteous.

c) Swerving abruptly into another lane is one act that will make the other driver very angry. This will definitely get the driver screaming and cursing the incoming car. A worst scenario is that the driver behind will then flashes the light and tail gate the car to show his displeasure.

d) Tail gating is sure one act that is very dangerous and many a times get both drivers into arguments and fights. While most driver will switch lane to give in, the younger ones may then try to slow down, to block the cars behind. I have personally witness again another incident where both the drivers came out and fight it over. Worst of all, I can see the wife and kid were in one of the car. What madness?

e) Enjoy the radio and the air-condition and ride, while you are stuck in the jam. Many of my friends told me that they will be very stress up during the morning and evening traffic jam. And this traffic jam also gets onto my wife's nerve. But for me, I would always say to them that working is tough and there isn't much time that I can sit back, relax and listen to the music, and with the other half. How frequent do we have the time to really sit down and have long talk. It is during such long hours of traffic jam that we can make use of to enjoy the music and to engage in your talk with the other half. It will actuall make a lot of goodness out of this so called traffic nightmare, that you are stuck with however in your car.

So the next time, you are stuck in the middle of this massive traffic jam, give this a Try, and see how you like it.

Posted by: Ivan