Therapy for Road Rage

*Climbs on Soapbox*

How unusual of me to get on my soapbox about something that aggrieves me.  In this case, blogging as a form of therapy is cheaper, smarter and far more legal than road rage.  Because road rage is generally a VBI, that is, a Very Bad Idea.

I was driving along a highway in Canberra today - minding my own business, as much as I ever mind my own business - when a young hooligan in a dumb purple glitter V8 flew up behind me and decided to go around me only at the last minute, and then cut back right in front of me, narrowly avoiding transferring some of his purple glitter dust onto my front bumper.

After cramming my entire swear word vocabulary into a single sentence, I calmly let the whole episode pass over me, even though I am generally a boiling cauldron when bogan meatheads piss me off on the road.

While I didn't want to do him any harm in a moment of road rage madness, I absolutely hoped that he would take care of it all by himself.  It may not happen straight away, but it'll happen eventually.  This is my logic, and the road fatality statistics seem to agree with me.    

As I watched this idiot speed off into the distance, I hoped - as I often do - that I will find his vehicle wrapped around a tree further up the road, thus giving me the opportunity to mock him as he lay trapped in his crumpled sparkly car.  I know that's not very Christian of me, but I have a serious grudge against drink drivers, speeders and other road hooligans for various reasons.

I have held an argument with various people for years about my seemingly nonchalant attitude as to whether I would bother calling an ambulance or the police at this point - I would, because it's the law - and whether I would try and make things more comfortable for the idiot in his final minutes.  I'd like to think that I would, but I would understand if I didn't. 

Psychologists will tell you that boys behave like douches on the road because their brains - particularly the area responsible for judgement - are not fully formed until they are around 25.  Well it looks like we have a friggin' problem then, doesn't it?  Rather than banning them from driving altogether, why don't we play hardball and give some really tough love to the kids who have been caught speeding time and again. 

The only way to get through to these teens is on an emotional level - they have to feel and experience some pain and shock - so what better way to get across the seriousness of the problem than have a staged intervention as a court imposed punishment.  It goes like this.  The police call the hooligan in the middle of the night and tell them that a family member has been killed in a car accident.

Once their shock has subsided, the police can produce the very much alive family member and maybe the hooligan has learnt his lesson.  In reality, it's either going to be them or their parents who get that phone call.  Obviously this solution is rather stupid and not much of a plan, but I don't see any other ideas being produced by the people who get paid to come up with solutions to these things.

You know those people who flash their lights to warn you of a police presence up ahead?  Well the only time I flash my lights at cars is when there are definitely no police cars up ahead, but I just want people to slow down.  I pretty much do this every time I drive at night.

I will never, ever warn drivers that the police are up ahead, because if they are speeding, they will be caught, and thus will not run over your grandmother in a hit and run further down the track.  It perplexes and angers me why people side with other drivers rather than siding with the law.  I really don't get it. 

And then there are the people - from all walks of life - who race through the suburbs like they were Michael Schumacher, except without the talent, money and hot looking ferrari.  If these people want to break the speed limit then they can go for their life, but I hope when they do eventually kill someone it is one of their own family, rather than destroy someone else's, and I hope they are ready to deal with the consequences of their actions.  But of course they aren't, because these people don't think.

God writing is the best therapy...

*Gets off soapbox*