Road Rage - Karma

I've always known that I CAN get aggressive on the road. My best friend.. and all my friends (for that matters) seems to think that I have a road rage issue. My normal reaction is to shrug it off and say "its call technique". Denial? Hell yeah, its beyond denial, I am replacing something bad, giving it a good name to make me sound cool.

The road rage issue wasn't as significant when I was driving the smaller sedan I had before, I was aggressive, but because the car was small and it has fairly rigid handling, I was able to accelerate and merge between traffic at will, so it wasn't that much of an issue. But since switching to this giant SUV, the aggression seems to have gotten worse.I think a lot (most) of us have the same mentality - I hate it if the other drivers are doing it, but its perfectly fine if I am the one committing these "driving crime".

My aggression comes in two form: Physical and Mental. Lets look at the physical aspect. With the SUV, I can't just simply merge in and out of traffic, its just too damn big, and the acceleration is sub-par with the vehicle, so slamming on the gas cutting people out without signal in just half a car length is no longer an option. Instead, what I do is I accelerate really fast, I am literally touching the other car's bumper. One of two things can occur when you tailgate people: You either piss them off, and they MAY slam on the brake thinking that its a warning for you to back off. Another scenario is that MOST people who see a 3 tones SUV climbing up their @$$ would normally just move out of the way. I usually do the first, the same psychology works both ways. If you choose to "scare" an SUV away by tailgating it, think again, because I am not scared of no mini cars come ramming up my behind.

The mental rage is evil, yet fascinating. Years ago, I watched a sci-fi spy/cops and robbers type flick. Don't exactly remember the name of the movie, there is no real plot to it, but the effect was cool with robotic spiders and such. One of the thing that was really cool, was a homing RC car, so how does this work: You are following your subject, you decide to destroy them. You press this button on your steering wheel, the center console of the car will open up and drop a small RC car on the ground, this thing, will chase your subject, crawl underneath it, and BOOOM... Its kinda childish for a 30 years old man thinking of something like this, but DAMN, don't I wish I have that button on my steering wheel! But wait, what happened after it blew up? I am right behind this burning trash of what was left of a slow junk, oh thats it, its a 3 tones SUV.. I will just climb over it.

There is actually a hybrid version of this "rage". It usually happen when I see slow SMALL cars. What annoys me is that, many of these slow cars are capable of achieving god speed, but the idiot between the seat and the steering wheel decide to drive really slow to piss everyone off. The mental kicks in: I want to just accelerate up your bumper, and push you out, yes, "big powers brings big responsibilities", with big torque, I clean out slow cars for others on the highway who knows how to drive. Foot on gas pedal, gun it, almost touch the guy, slam on the brake to slow down, piss off the guy behind me, heard a loud horn and squealing tires from extreme braking. Great, I pissed off both the guys in front AND behind me.

I remember an incident that happened a while back. I was waiting for a parking spot at a local mall, it was just before Christmas, so the mall was busy. I was camping on an strip waiting for cars leaving. An older man, came out pointed at his car and wave. Bingo, thank you sir. Signal, wait. The kind old man moved out, but he took a route that completely blocked me out from parking my car, no sweat, I will just wait till he move out of the way. A modded up Honda Civic, gun through traffic, parked right in the spot. My dinky small car has an amazing horn. I honk the horn, it was so loud that there was an echo in a crowded parking lot! The Civic driver, came out, look at me as if he owns the world, gave me the worse attitude ever. I reason (negotiated) with him, he was swearing at me. I start to think to myself "Should I kick his ass right here", don't laugh, those who knows me know that I do possess the skill to beat up even the biggest guys. Anyways, I dropped that thought, since my girlfriend (at the time) said "Lets just go". I told this Civic boy "You know what, keep your parking spot, I can so see people like you keying my car even if you do give me back the spot". We took off.

Right after the holiday, one of my staff resigned, I have an opening. I received a stash of resume from HR. Oh, this one looks interesting - Wilton Chan, fresh grad, computer engineering, top of class, GPA of 3.9. Excellent, chances are, this guy is smarter than me. Ok Wilton, lets talk. Picked up the phone called him, he sounded very sincere, and he was able to handle MOST of the questions I asked him (and I don't even know what the heck did I just asked him), see, he IS smarter than me, hiring him also mean that there will be less work for me... I started picturing my Vodka vacation when I delegate all task to him, force him to attend meeting in my place etc. Snap out of it, he came in for a face to face interview. Security called up, I send one of the senior down to greet this guy, and have him bring my "clone" up for the face to face. I was waiting in a room. Senior came in with a familiar face.. oh wait.. Civic Guy.. I remember you! Hey, look up look at my face? I bet you recognized me too. No vodka vacation for me, but for sure, no job for you. And YES, I admit, I took it all personal. SO? You don't even have the decency as a human, you failed to present yourself in the public, let alone presenting yourself in a professional environment. The interview lasted 2 minutes: He came in, I walk out, I called HR, told them to never present his application ever to the rest of the organization. Done. You just screw yourself for an opportunity with a global organization... over a parking spot. Congratulation, you just enrolled yourself to the "loser" crowd of the earth's population

Every time I decide to drive recklessly (again, I call it driving with technique, and sliding in style), this story will pop up. Reality is that, you never know who you will run into the next day. My behavior, on the road, is far from being acceptable. Maybe, I too, should tone down a bit