WHETHER driving on a road in Lahore or some other traffic-swarmed road across Pakistan, we are all vulnerable to an exchange of angry words with other drivers. Fights have erupted over speeding, wrongful manoeuvring and even simple things like staring.
Fury on the road, or road rage, as it is commonly known, is an expression of aggressive behaviour of a driver towards others in response to his emotional assessment of the traffic situation. In its simple form, it is no more than the communication of anger in the form of words. In worse cases, it can turn into hostility with an attempt to inflict injury.
Road rage has become a matter of global concern. The number of cars around the world is increasing day by day. We are all in a hurry and running out of time. The fast life that we lead has created new obligations. Repeated honking, cutting others, flashing headlights and similar gestures expose the inherent stress and frustration that has become a part of our lives.
Organizations that sense the urgency of this matter have taken up the task of creating awareness of its harmful effects. The National Highway Traffic Safety Association of the USA is one such organization which conducts research in road-related incidents, and based on those, makes legislative proposals to the US Congress.
Road rage is already a criminal offence in New York, where three separate degrees of penalties are available for punishing offenders. In the UK also, through the Road Traffic Act 1988, it is ensured that persons exhibiting any sort of rage on the roads don’t get away.
California-based psychologist, Dr Arnold Neremberg, in his Road Rage Model, equates road rage with the anger that results from feeling endangered, such as being cut off, feeling detained by other drivers who are going slow, and watching others break the rules.
These factors, according to him, are the leading causes of ‘retaliation’ on the road. Dr Neremberg further claims that children who watch others demonstrating road rage have a greater chance of developing the same when they grow up.
Professor Leon James, a professor at the University of Hawaii, maintains that road rage demonstrates a ‘culture of disrespect’ that exists on the roads, and expressed through rushing, resisting, quiet verbal abuses and in some cases, fighting and shooting.
In Pakistan, there is no specific law against road rage as such, but Section 279 of the Pakistan Penal Code allows imprisonment of up to two years for a driver whose driving ‘endangers’ human life or is ‘likely’ to cause hurt or injury to any other person.
John Larson, a psychiatrist at Yale University offers yet another explanation for road rage. He says that drivers often deduce the motivation of the other driver from the make and model of the car. In other words, they react to the ‘personality’ that they associate it with, and not with the actual person inside. Does this mean that every rickshawwala or wagonwala in Pakistan sees a Pajero or a Civic as a potentially threatening fictitious ‘personality’ or vice versa?
Allah Yaar, a Traffic Police Constable, says, “Some scooter and motorcycle riders don’t like the way they are treated on the roads by the owners of expensive cars. I have seen owners of such cars drive around recklessly and veer off without any regard of other vehicles on the roads.”
What can be done to avoid becoming victims of road rage? Most experts believe that defence is best in such a situation. If someone passes an indecent gesture or does worse, the best thing to do is to keep calm and avoid expressing any sort of rage yourself.
WHETHER driving on a road in Lahore or some other traffic-swarmed road across Pakistan, we are all vulnerable to an exchange of angry words with other drivers. Fights have erupted over speeding, wrongful manoeuvring and even simple things like staring.
