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“I wasn’t going to let him pass me”. I have noticed this type of mentality by many drivers, both men and women. I don’t know what it is?

I read an article on road rage a few years back that claimed root causes of road rage have to do with detachment from reality.

A petite woman climbs into an SUV. Now she's bigger than many other vehicles, can control the sounds of her environment (radio), the temperature of her environment (heating/AC) and to a degree, other vehicles on the road.

A guy gets off work after being berated by his boss, or talked down to by customers for 8 hours, and when he climbs into his car, he's his own man again. He can determine exactly where he goes, and can influence other drivers around him.

The author (a psychologist) claimed that road rage occurs when the illusion of control and self-determination is threatened or broken. A motorcycle passing your under-powered compact Ford would shatter such an illusion of control held by an immature or irrational driver.

I'm not sure how accurate all the author's claims were, but it gave me something to think about.

“... it gave me something to think about”.

It certainly does. I truly believe the majority of people IF confronted by someone face to face after an altercation would be scared to death. The “bravado” would be gone (male or female). I also think it tends to say a lot more about our civility as a society now. You didn’t really hear or remember this stuff years ago. In fact, if you had a car problem and were parked on the side of the road, it was almost a guarantee that someone would stop to offer help. If someone was going under the limit, you passed the car when and if it was safe. You wouldn’t flip them the bird or any such nonsense. I wonder if the motto of today isn’t “lie, cheat, steal, take, grab... whatever it takes to get one step a head”. It shows on the roads IMHO.

So next time somebody in a kiddie car tries to crowd me in my Yukon, I should enact “Cody’s Rule” and just squash them against a guard rail?