Road rager

 I hold my assumptions that he is a chemically augmented throbber with a short fuse

And your excuse?

And your excuse?

I’m a tubby, middle-class bloke who goes out in public wearing Lycra sometimes?

Eeek. I can see why he got angry!

On my commute there is a mile long piece of road with a 40mph limit which goes from two lanes to one and back to two a few times. When it is one lane a central reservation makes it dangerous for cars to overtake a bike (which seems to annoys many impatient drivers). I have had a few close passes and suffered some verbal abuse on that stretch of road over the years.

A while ago a car passed me just before the road went into one lane, honked their horn then slowed right down. The passenger wound down their window and started shouting and waving their hands at me. I thought here we go, but I couldn’t really see them properly or hear what they were saying from my position so ignored them. They sped up and slowed down a few times and continued to shout and wave. I thought WTFIGO, and after they slowed a third time I shouted a couple of syllables starting with F & O and gave them the gold blend fist shuffle. They quickly wound up their window and sped off.

I didn’t think too much of it until next morning when I received an unexpected email from an ex colleague which read something like…. sorry if we annoyed you yesterday I was trying to attract your attention to pull over for a chat as I haven’t seen you for a while, my husband said it probably wasn’t the best road to do that, and you didn’t seem in the mood to talk………..cue sudden realisation that I may have been the biggest throbber in the aforementioned scenario! It was all good with ex colleague after a slice of humble pie :-) Don’t really know why I posted that, but since then I have been better at not reacting (though the threat of pissing off the wrong person should probably be a bigger deterrent).

I had a driver beep their horn a lot, shout and complain loudly as I rode across Waterloo bridge yesterday. That I chose not to use the segregated busy cycle lane upset him. That I was doing 22 mph on my folder in the middle of a lane with large 20’s painted on the road seemed to shut him up when I pointed it out politely. Normally I catch the buses at the Waterloo roundabout and they’re left in a queue showing the futility of their moaning. Makes for a good workout before the train home!

Tomorrow I’ll get the same along more 20 mph zones as I ride all the way into town.

I didn’t think too much of it until next morning when I received an unexpected email from an ex colleague which read something like…. sorry if we annoyed you yesterday I was trying to attract your attention to pull over for a chat as I haven’t seen you for a while, my husband said it probably wasn’t the best road to do that, and you didn’t seem in the mood to talk………..cue sudden realisation that I may have been the biggest throbber in the aforementioned scenario!

Reminds me of a long road ride home from work years ago. There’s a horrific hill climb followed by some fast s-bends and then a great downhill where I would always be on the limit. There’s not much traffic, but at some point near the top a work-style Landcruiser (78 series) comes past me. It sounds like something is shouted, but I’m pinning it so ignore. Then when I’m getting to the flatter part of the road I see he’s pulled over on the left-hand verge. Bugger, what’s this going to be?

The driver is out of the car and walking back up the road. Older guy, in outdoor work clothes. I’m still in fast mode and pedalling like mad and realise now i’m probably going to need to swerve at the last minute, so I intentionally don’t make eye contact getting ready to make my move.

As I blast past he doesn’t make any attempt to get me at all. A few hundred metres further along I think … that guy looked familiar.

I get home and my off-road motorbike buddy Hamish (who lives at the top of the hill i’d just come down) has sent me a text saying something along the lines of “Good to see you tonight, you’re a mad bugger riding all that way home from work.”

I felt like a total idiot. Probably wouldn’t have stopped anyway as the downhill’s too much fun!

I stopped reacting to bad drivers because it affected me more than them.  If I got into a shouting match with someone I would be left wound up for the rest of the day. If I just ignored them it would be fine.  In all the arguments I have ever had only two of the drivers had ever apologized and with most it was clear nothing had changed

There was also a case earlier this year in Brussels where a cyclist was cut up by a merc driver who then stopped, got out of the car and cut them in the throat before driving off.  If someone is already angry I no longer want to wind them up further

I mean who buys an E-class, but doesn’t buy the estate version?

Do people still buy cars – or do they just lease something under a scheme that seems to provide access to a vehicle that they couldn’t otherwise afford, in what seems to be an unsustainable financial model (and, I predict, will be the next PPI style compensation scheme)?

Given the above, it becomes a little clearer where the irrational behaviour comes from

I predict, will be the next PPI style compensation scheme

Not much of a prediction, it is already happening with ads from compensation companies.

I will never understand the mentality of someone who is in such a tearing hurry that they can’t be delayed for several seconds by a cyclist, yet have the time for a ten minute argument about it at the roadside.  Schrodinger’s C**t.

It’s classic Chimp Paradox stuff isn’t it? The bit where, in the Steve Peters model, the primeval, basic, super-strong chimp has taken over and the rational human bit has been properly sidelined. Instinctively your road-rager is reacting as it he’s encountered a dangerous sabre-tooth tiger or is fighting for supremacy around the tribal camp fire with an upstart rival male etc.

Trying to make sense of road rage behaviour on a rational level – what’s in it for him really etc – is pretty much pointless, but we’re trying to make sense of something that\s essentially instinctive, purely emotional behaviour. It may be that the driver himself is sat at home thinking what the hell was I doing there. Or not. It doesn’t really matter.

You don’t have to particularly love the whole chimp model to understand that this is not rational behaviour, it’s purely emotionally driven. The rational response is to avoid antagonising other road users even if they’re essentially in the wrong for your own self preservation. Making gestures etc is understandable, but it’s chimp-like behaviour in itself.

Ive tried very hard not to react to bell-end driving because you never know which one is the total maniac in the house. If you must confront someone, try to be really calm and rational and non-confrontational, which has worked for me a couple of times. Just explain why they made you feel unsafe.

I still think his response was disproportionate,.The incident hints at deeper issues, thus I hold my assumptions that he is a chemically augmented throbber with a short fuse was fair.

Not rational behaviour, chimp stuff. He may, in human mode, look back and be ashamed, or not. You’ll never know, but the problem is partly that he’s probably not ‘a chemically augmented throbber with a short fuse’, just as likely to be someone, possibly with challenges in his life, who’s gone into an uncontrolled, emotional reaction which he may well not understand himself.

He could of course just be ‘a chemically augmented throbber with a short fuse’ but not necessarily.

What you can do is consciously make sure your own chimp doesn’t trigger other people, even if they do something wrong.

ps: use whatever model of behaviour works for you if you don’t like the whole chimp thing, but basically trying to frame this stuff rationally is a waste of time, even it it’s understandable.

ps: i get the irony in using a behavioural model from semi-popular culture to try and explain behaviour in rational terms, which I’m saying is inexplicable in rational terms. Then again when my ex-GP turned out to be a rampant serial killer of old ladies, the ‘rational’ explanation wasn’t that he had a logical motive, it was that he was simply a barking mad serial killer. Sometimes there simply is no ‘rational’ explanation even though we crave one.