Expressing Your Road Rage When You’re Too Scared To Honk The Horn
For many of us, conflict can be scary. Nobody wants to write a difficult email or confront their roommate about her live-in boyfriend who keeps making weird phone calls at all hours of the night. These situations can spark feelings of worry and anxiety, and they are best avoided.
However, despite our best attempts, conflict is sometimes necessary. For instance, if the woman at the red light in front of you is staring at her phone instead of hitting the gas pedal, you may feel the urge to lean on your horn for a full ten seconds in a brazen display of anger.
But you wouldn’t do that because it’s too scary. What if she glares at you, or shakes her head in disapproval? That would be too much for you to handle. Instead, here are some healthy ways for you to express your simmering road rage while avoiding any possible conflict.
Instead of honking the horn, try using a technique that produces less noise. You could write a message on a cardboard sign and hang it in your window. Some options include:
“Excuse me, the light has changed, so you are free to move.”
“Hello, I’m sorry to bother you, but can you please let me turn left?”
“You have a beautiful soul, but I am humbly requesting that you speed up.”
These messages are non-threatening and let the other drivers know that you seek peace, despite their atrocities on the road. You can also airdrop the message to all nearby cell phones, which ensures that distracted drivers will see it, or flash your headlights in morse code.
Unfortunately, these methods won’t work on a truly distracted driver. In such a scenario, you may need to use the horn. But that doesn’t mean you need to watch as the other driver glares at you. Instead, hide your face from their cruel gaze by blacking out your windows with duct tape. That way, you won’t need to see their angry reaction. You can achieve a similar effect by using one hand to cover your eyes while you drive. If you’re worried about compromising your ability to steer, ask a passenger to cover your eyes for you, or put on a blindfold before you leave the house.
You can also hire an employee to help you express your road rage. Put an ad on craigslist looking for a passenger you can pay to sit in your car and yell at people when you’re too scared. Personally, I reached out to my roommate’s boyfriend since he already keeps odd hours and he needed the work. We had some trouble getting along in the beginning because he kept asking me to drive to his friends’ houses to drop off packages and he would get cagey when I asked about the contents. But after I firmly set boundaries and explained that he’s not allowed to get black out drunk in my car or throw rocks at other people’s windshields, it’s been smooth sailing for both of us.
As a last resort, you may end up in a truly desperate situation where you need to honk the horn because someone isn’t letting you merge. Take a deep breath, gather your confidence, and crash your car into the median. At least nobody will think you were being aggressive.
