< PREVIOUS ] [ 1997 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
My shock was considerable the other night when I turned on the TV and saw a state trooper explaining how to flash the two-finger peace sign. Has our state patrol, I wondered, become yet another solid American institution subverted by the permissive values of authority-questioning war-protester baby boomers, providing more fodder for Newt Gingrich speeches and Robert Bork jeremiads?
Fortunately, the trooper was just part of a media assault on Road Rage, and he was merely encouraging us driver dudes to stay mellow.
As a good citizen, I began to meditate upon my own highway conduct, and I must confess that I often get enraged while driving. But usually I channel my anger into words.
So when some halfwit in a hurry (these can be quickly
identified because they're in sport-utility vehicles topped
by bicycles) passes me on a blind curve in a snowstorm, I
decelerate, look for an escape route, and mutter Go
ahead, you worthless yupscale scum. Hell's only half
full.
When someone pulls out in front of me from a side road,
even though there's nothing behind me for miles, I'll say
something like Martha, did you see anything about Denver
hosting the National Convention for Jerks and Halfwits? I
missed it, but this fellow is sure in a hurry to get
there.
She often replies that I'm a sexist with my assumption that Type-A drivers are male, when women are just as capable as men when it comes to endangering other motorists.
After sober contemplation, though, I realize that I probably provoke Road Rage more often than I succumb to it.
That's not because I'm an aggressive driver. I'm defensive and paranoid, operating under the sociopathic assumption that everybody out there is out to get me.
Even so, I can instigate Road Rage quite easily. For instance, if I take our battered 1965 Dodge Dart for a spin, I discover that nobody wants to be passed by a clunker. The much newer car ahead might have been poking along at 40 mph for miles across South Park, but as soon as the old Dart starts to come around, he puts the pedal to the metal.
I see their expressions turn from amazement, that such a
rusted and dented machine is even on the road, to a
heartless sneer that indicates their thoughts: If that
$300 junkheap passes me, it means that I'm wasting that
much or more very month on car payments, and I can't ignore
this affront to American values.
My old pickup, a 3/4-ton 1967 Chevy which I sold four years ago, inspired similar reactions. Not that I cared. It weighed nearly four tons and had more dents than an artillery target. Other motorists could see a clear duty to stay out of my way.
But it did anger cops along the way. I could never take it out of town without getting pulled over on some pretext: a brakelight that wasn't working when a deputy tailgated through Leadville (though it worked fine when we chatted at the roadside), or speeding east of Gunnison (I graciously offered to let the trooper drive it at the 72 mph he said he'd clocked me at, since the truck's front end was in such sad condition that I couldn't hold it between the barrow ditches at 50 mph, let alone 72).
Something about that truck inspired Roadside-cop Rage.
Maybe it was the gun rack, but that's a good place to carry
jumper cables. Or the color -- bright orange, befitting its
first owner, the Routt County Road & Bridge Department.
Or the bad-attitude bumper stickers, among them one that
said Ch*ng* el ingles oficial,
thereby expressing my
opinion of Official English in a non-official language.
However, most of my talent at inspiring Road Rage appears when I visit civilization. Living in a small town, I'm used to slowing down well in advance of a destination and then leisurely scanning the mailboxes or street numbers until I reach the right place.
Try that in Denver, though, and I get a chorus of horns amid a forest of upraised middle fingers. So I find myself zipping past the destination, and when I try to go around the block for another try, I can end up on one-way streets, or in limited-access areas, or just plain lost.
These situations do not make me a confident driver, either. So I get even more poky, inspiring more anger from people who know where they're going and how to get there.
In the interest of Highway Harmony, I offer this plea to metro motorists. If you see some hayseed (if the car hasn't been washed since the Reagan days, that's a reliable indicator of its hick status) proceeding at a velocity somewhat under the speed limit, he's just trying to navigate in unfamiliar terrain. He's not doing it to make you late for your vital appointment at the tanning salon, and all your honking will just make things worse.
I hope you'll heed this supplication, because I don't want to have to get another 12-mpg beater pickup with a gun rack. I'd rather flash the peace sign.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1997 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >