Reasons for road rage

Even if you are an angel yourself when it comes to driving on the road, you are sure to have at least been on the other end of someone’s road rage. Why is it though that such extreme acts of anger take place in a car? Surely some of those people who gesticulate and scream at others from their vehicle would not do it face to face? Are they just cowards or does driving a car do something else to us psychologically?

In new study hundreds of people were given tests to establish their personality, attitudes, and values. They were also tested for their perception of time pressure, impulsivity, and attraction to risk. All of this was correlated against their behaviour when driving, and some interesting findings emerged.

For a start, people who see their car as a reflection of their identity are more likely behave aggressively in the car and to break the law. People are also more likely to experience road rage if they are materialistic. Time pressure also leads to aggressive driving.

People who are in the early stages of forming their identity might also feel the need to show off their car and driving skills more recklessly and therefore be more likely to show aggression on the road.

This all supports in a way, an old Freudian notion of why people behave as they do in cars. The Freudian thought is that the car symbolically and psychologically becomes a manifestation of the individual’s “superego. So when you cut across a person in traffic, you are cutting across the person, it is a personal affront. Yet the car gives a safety and distance to express the anger that would not be felt if people were face to face and somehow contravening the others’ self-concept. People see the road space they occupy as personal space and defend it by whatever means are necessary

That might all just be so much psychobabble but the fact of road rage remains. It certainly does you no good and it increases your chance of having an accident.

So rather than getting caught up in the thoughtless behaviour and aggression of others on the roads, just let them go. If they see themselves as their exhaust pipe or their pistons or even their paint job, then they have enough problems.