Reno's Towing
Tow Company Reno NV - Road Etiquette
Julie Sussman, et al in their book Dare To Repair Your Car (see excerpt below) discusses how to maintain your cool when you are on the road. Our ultimate goal in sharing this information is to hopefully decrease the accidents while driving. Reno Towing Company is your trusted 24-hour towing service and roadside assistance in the unfortunate event that you are in one.
Aggressive Driving
If you're assuming that young male drivers make up the majority of aggressive drivers, you'd be correct. To find out who the other perps are you may only have to look no farther than your mirror.
Aggressive Drivers
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that about one-third of traffic crashes and about two-thirds of the deaths associated with them can be attributed to aggressive driving.
Not all aggressive drivers have long rap sheets or drive fast cars. In fact, it's often law-abiding people who've had a bad day at the office, or have a screaming child in the car, or are worrying about an overdue bill, or are suffering from holiday stress. They meet up with another motorist who is doing something stupid, and presto, they've transformed from upstanding citizens to raging road warriors!
Before you give a judgmental "tsk, tsk" to such offenders, try taking the following test to see if you can live in a glass car.
Aggressive Driver TestIf you do any of these things more than 2 or 3 times a year, then you can be classified as an aggressive driver.
- You have blared (not honked) your horn at a driver.
- You've refused to let a driver pass.
- You've refused to let a driver enter your lane.
- You've made an obscene gesture to a motorist.
- You've cut in front of another car.
- You've tailgated a car.
- You've flashed your lights repeatedly at the car in front of you.
- You've deliberately slowed down to anger the motorist behind you.
- You've yelled at a motorist.
- You deliberately took a parking spot someone else was waiting for.
Avoiding Trouble
To avoid escalating a traffic offense into a road war, you need to decide if you want to be right or dead right. In other words, you can choose to know you're right and not participate in the battle, or you can choose to be right and get revenge.
If It's Not Your Fault
If someone cuts you off, flips you off, or rides your bumper, the best thing for you to do is to not take it personally – if it wasn't you, it'd be someone else. The angry motorist wants to get into a power struggle and he can do it anonymously in his car. It's normal to want to react in a less than adult way, but take a deep breath and remember that this fool is not worth it.
Instead of getting angry, get even by using your cell phone and call 911, or if you're traveling on an interstate, contact the state police. Give the operator your location and direction of travel along with the make and model of the aggressive driver's vehicle, and, if possible, the license plate number. Once the other driver sees you talking on the cell phone, chances are he’ll speed away. Most states have aggressive driving laws, which can result in jail time for a violator.
If You're Being Followed
If the road rager is following you, drive to a police station, hospital, or other very public place and lay on your horn. If that's not possible, then lock your doors, put your windows up, and keep driving. Do not pull over and do not get out of your car.
If It Is Your Fault
If you were wrong and accidentally cut someone off on the road, or didn't notice that you took a parking spot that someone had been waiting for, or were going 35 mph in a 50 mph lane and were holding up traffic, immediately apologize out loud to the driver or mouth "I'm sorry" and wave. If it's not too late, you could back out of the parking spot and offer it to the other driver."
Check out our next post here!