So I Have Road Rage

All the replies have been good. I had road rage pretty bad 20 years ago. I used to drive I-25 from Colorado Springs to Denver every day. My preferred speed was 80 and I frequently tailgated 3 feet off the bumper of cars only doing 70 in the hammer lane. Imagine how dumb I feel now.

Pat is right - a lot of that has just gone away as I've gotten older. And Brett nailed it - patience is a learned behavior. Just today I got to practice patience as I sat for three hours at the shop waiting for my truck. And this entire weekend actually - truck went into the shop Thursday and I didn't get a weekend load. Bummer, dude.

The psychology of it is pretty interesting and really easy for me to see now. I used to think the road was mine and everyone was in my way or trying to kill me. Now I see the road as a way to get from a shipper to a receiver and what everyone else is doing there isn't my concern. I used to think that other drivers were doing stupid things intentionally. The truth is, 1) I was the stupid one, and 2) they weren't paying me much attention anyway.

My job is to get there quickly and safely, and safely is more important than quickly, since prioritizing "quickly" more frequently results in a trip that is neither safe nor quick.

The mental picture of cars and semi's that comes to me is mice scurrying around the elephant's feet as we all make our way down the road, ha ha. It helps me to think of it in that way as the mice just don't seem to realize that running under an elephant's foot just might not be the smartest thing for him to do, LOL!

DSTURBD

I just smile and wave. If they're actually yelling at me I just tell them to have a nice day. LOL

JJ

Thanks for all the replies. Way more than I expected! My favorite is the bit about treating them like children and them dropping their pacifiers, haha!

I'm pretty happy with my career move so far, passed knowledge/airbrakes/combination and got my permit. week 1 down. 3 more to go. See you all on the flip side (south side). ^^

Tools of the trade:

People who tailgate trucks annoy the boogers out of me. I will deliberately slow down to force them to go around me.

The worst one ever was about a week ago at night. I couldn't see the car, just his lights under the trailer. So I started slowing down. Three virtually empty lanes and he wanted to follow me. I eventually got down to 37 MPH!!! Before he finally passed me. When he did, he went flying around, just laying on the horn.

Makes you want slap someone sometimes....

Great post by Brett. Totally resonates with my experience, and how I've gradually developed over the years. The true professional doesn't get emotional about it. I'm not yet 100% but getting close.

One thing I noticed early in my career was how the fits of rage did three things:

1. Spends energy, and that wears you out -- the opposite of what you want in a 14 hr day, 70 hr week.

2. Distracts you. While fulminating over that driver's dumb, selfish, dangerous, etc, move, and maybe you're trying to send him a message about how rotten he is, what you aren't doing is focusing on the current situation.

3. Accomplishes nothing.