Do You Fear Road Rage?

Mad Lady Behind the Wheel - Cartoon image of woman behind the wheel
United States
March 5, 2010 11:18am CST
I've lived in Los Angeles for most of my life and while there is always something to do or see, I find myself a little agoraphobic when it comes to doing a lot of things. Right now, I'm writing freelance and running a small business at home with a inventory job I do a few times a month. Not rich but I'm getting by for the moment. Last month, I was offered an additional site to perform inventory. This place is not far but it is near a lot of traffic. So instead of driving my car all the way in, I decide to park and take the bus the rest of the way. When I went to the lot, there was no where to park my car. When I found a spot, some dude comes out of nowhere a blocks me - intentionally. After a couple of minutes, I just told him that he can have the spot and I ended up driving to the place. Also, I hate driving with my mother because she gets seriously upset when she's cut off or someone is driving strange. The thing is that she doesn't even drive in typical L.A. traffic but isolated incidents where a shortcut or something can be done within a minute or two. At the moment, I'm dreading dealing with traffic to work less than 10 hours a month and feel that it's best to save all that for a salaried job. Does anyone go through a similar thing?
1 response
@cyrus123 (6363)
• United States
6 Mar 10
I live in a small town and I don't have to deal with road rage very often. I remember one time when I was stopped at a stop sign and a woman behind me started bumping my car for me to go on. I was about to get on a major highway through Jasper, where I live, and there were cars coming pretty fast and I just couldn't pull out in front of them. I noticed she had a car load of kids and I guess they were getting on her nerves! I've had to deal with parking lot rage I don't know how many times. One time, I went to Walmart one Saturday Night because I needed some bread for toast the next morning. I also bought some other things while I was there as well. I nearly always use the buggy corrals when I'm going back to my car but this particular Saturday Night, all the buggy corrals were packed to the rim and I just didn't know where to put mine. I just put it with some other buggies that were near a corral and I thought I made sure it wouldn't go anywhere. Well, just as I got in my car, this man came to my car to tell me that it had rolled down and hit a car and his wife had to run to catch it. He told me from now on to be more thoughtful and considerate and use the buggy corrals. I could tell he was pretty upset and I just told him "The Lord bless you". He said "Bless you, too, maam". Usually a comment like this will pacify them but I couldn't tell whether it pacified him or not. I had been having a lot of problems with my car at the time and I thought at first he was going to tell me I was about to have a flat or something. I was dreading to hear what he had to tell me. There was no call for him to act this way, though. I was already upset about something else at the time and it just made me feel worse. I know a lot of the road rage these days is due to impatience but people need to realize that other people are having problems, too. Kathy.
• United States
6 Mar 10
Hey Kathy, Before road rage became an everyday thing out here, I experienced weird, impatient behavior at Wal-Mart. There are at least 5 in the L.A. area and I just go to Target where the customers aren't quite as frenzied. Walmart has the better prices sometimes but it's not worth the hassle.
1 person likes this
@cyrus123 (6363)
• United States
6 Mar 10
You wouldn't believe the Walmart here. It seems like it's always frenzied no matter what day of the week it is. It's always busy, especially on Friday and Saturday. It seems like everybody is in their own little world. It seems like whatever aisle you start to go down, there is always somebody there in the way and people just run out in front of you with their buggies all the time. About half of the time, they don't even say excuse me! I dread going most of the time. Kathy.