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-   -   Road Rage - Understanding, Avoidance and De-escalating Situation (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/133373-road-rage-understanding-avoidance-de-escalating-situation-23.html)

You're preaching to the choir sir! I know of too many cases where the other guy was too crazy or had weapons to put to use on an unsuspecting victim; an irate plumber used a heavy wrench in Chennai's Doraisamy subway once and caused multiple fractures on a Santro driver. I remember a screw driver being used by an angry biker to kill a pedestrian in Chennai. I've seen a share auto driver chase someone on the road with an oversized stone atop his uplifted arms...I don't see myself in any one of those scenarios. Nope.

Absolutely! Remember that Chinese SUV driver with an infant and his wife in the car, when they were gheraoed by a swarm of angry bikers in NYC? He had to run over some of them to protect his family. I just hope it never comes to that for any of us because once you've run over somebody, you cannot go back to how things were. Everything changes.

Edit: I request everyone to read this article where a rightfully angry bus driver was run over by an angry lorry driver in 2012 - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/16608871.cms

The Hindu even carried a somewhat dignified pic of the dying driver on the road. He remained alive for quite some time after being run over. That's no way to go!

I'm at a loss for words as to what to say; I wonder, with such a diverse population, how long it will take (will it ever?) for us to become a sensible lot!
We have a number of theories as to why the guy behaved like that. But what's he trying to prove? We can't understand that because we're not in his shoes and so we might never understand.

Like someone mentioned a few post earlier, road rage isn't about anything that has happened on the road. The incident is just the canvas we're using to vent off pent up emotions.

For someone like me who'll get shaken by even looking at such things, there are very little options left other than following some basic rules like not rolling down the windows, not saying a word and letting the good Samaritans around calm the animal.

Blimey! I'm obsessed with roadrage videos these days. It's like the final frontier for me...
https://youtu.be/oAMnRbhpHf4
What would I have done? How about revving a little just to knock him down? (Who am I kidding? That's illegal and so not in my nature)

For reasons unclear to me, I'm all grinning while watching this video. That was very well managed by the driver, considering it seems he had the option to ride through him and the gap in front of him.

On a side note, ROTFL on the top youtube comment to this video "when nature calls in morning and someone is already in the bathroom" :D

Unfortunately, Road Rage is like a disease here in India. Cities like Delhi NCR have even crossed limits when it comes to fighting or in extreme cases shooting on small things like honking. :Frustrati

Owing to day to day civic issues that we were facing (and trust me there are a ton of them), we decided to move to Australia and took the plunge last year.

We discovered that this problem of road rage has nothing to do with India, but with Indians. People from Indian community behave the same very way even here, though they have to face consequences and then they learn their lesson the hard way. However, the point is that it is to do with the personal ego which is set way to high in our society and people associate their pride and ego with their belongings like cars they own, house they live in and other materialistic items.

The other day I was at a crossroad and there was no stop sign on the side that I was, the driver in a car bigger than mine, not to say an Indian, ignored the stop line and almost ran into my car. After that he rolled his windows down and started hurling abuses. He created a scene there causing the traffic the traffic to come to a standstill until being threatened of police action for causing disruption to traffic movement by firstly his negligence and secondly his behavior by drivers of 4 other cars. All he shouted was "meri gaadi teri gaadi se badi hai *****, main tujhe dekh loonga".

There is a dire need for recognition in this strata of people who actually don't deserve that vehicle and have got it because they got it as a gift or suddenly scored some cash by selling off their lands or other means and now feel that they have made it big for themselves. The best thing to do if ever stuck in such a situation is to ignore such people if the situation permits, or straightaway drive to a police station. The chances are that they will blindly chase you and will land up behind you in Police Station (happened with one of my friends).

The blind eye that police turns towards such crimes combined with blinding ego is the prime cause of such incidents.

This is quite an old video. I think it happened 2 to 3 years back if I remember correctly. Was shared quite a lot on social media at that time.

Is it so? A few days back I saw road rage here in London. One guy broke the outside rear view mirror of the other car :Shockked:

This is really sick. Such people bring a bad name to their country and fellow country men in other countries. Thankfully, the laws outside are way stricter than India, which makes a lot of difference when such people have a brush with the law once or twice. They mellow down after that understanding that they are not on their home turf.

Somewhere I think it also boils down to the upbringing an individual has. It is said that kids see their parents and learn than what the parents tell them. Probably whom you met was one such nutcase

Well its irrespective of country of origin. Given we are second highest populated country probability of road rage are higher. I have seen enough incidents abroad and also just do a search on youtube for Road rage and you will find videos from across the globe.

Roadrage is universal. I watch tons of videos every day of road rage incidents from the US, Canada, UK and other Western countries.

With our infrastructure woes and the frustration because of traffic chaos, I'm actually surprised we don't have huge number of road rage incidents.

I used to get irritated and wound up with even relatively small incidents for the Indian roads when I started driving here after driving in the West for a while. But I got used to it and ignore these things now. Best example are the many good Uber/Ola drivers, they are more patient and zen like than any saint can be.

Today while dropping my son to school, I encountered a thorough gentleman. He zoomed past us under a tunnel where there is always water flowing and sprayed us both though he could see that we are on a bike.
When I asked him if he has any decency left, spraying water on kids, he responds by saying -

Now you guys are going to teach us what to do?

What is to be done with such folks, normally if I was alone I would have taught him a few more things. But while traveling with family all we are supposed to do is get wet, feel insulted, be quiet and carry on.

We find this a lot in the fringe areas of our city, I have noticed that most of these are the get-rich-quick guys selling their ancestral land and think no end of themselves, probably if he would have earned that through hard work, he would be a lot more humble.

What has happened to our society, where decency and apologies are lying neglected in the drain, and people like us end up being bound and frustrated and do nothing.

:deadhorse

A weird thing I've noticed lately is, I get way more angry when I'm riding a bike than when I'm driving a car. I get much more affected by someone else swerving into my lane or randomly popping out of a bylane. In fact, I had even stopped riding for a couple of months because I feared I'd get into a fight one day. More often than not, after a road rage incident, I'd ride more aggressively until I reached my destination. That's not safe, at all.
Is it the same with others too?

When similar situations occur and I'm driving, I'm as cool as a cucumber and generally don't even care. So when a biker attempts to road rage, I tend to sympathize since I know exactly how it feels.

PS: I've stopped riding unless it's absolutely necessary and the journey is too short to take the car out for.

"Even Cops Don't Stop Me": Gurgaon Driver Drags Toll Staff 6 Km On Bonnet

NDTV News.

A first hand account of an 18 year old just escaping from getting killed or looted.

On 28th March 2019 i made the longest call to my mom lasting for over 6 minutes. What had happened ?

Dad was in Bombay for some meetings from pasts 4-5 days and was going to be there for another week, Dad called me and told me to bring a payment from Najafgarh, i agreed and took the keys for the WagonR, changed into my lowers and just like any other normal day, took the payment from Najafgarh and was heading back to Dwarka (it was broad daylight so i did not expected anything out of the ordinary which was going to take place and the biggest mistake was the WagonR). I am always alert on the road and i spotted something unusual, a white Verna had been following me it had tints and the number was barely visible as the font was small and was written in haryanvi i guess and after the suspicion i increased my speed and stepped on the accelerator but it did not really help as the Verna was progressing faster than me and reaching near me and as soon as i crossed the Najafgarh Drain the Verna overtook me and seeing this i slowed down and as expected he tried to block me and stopped his car in the middle of the road
(black arrow is the verna and the other one is me)

and seeing this my plan failed and i had to replan and took a left on a single lane road as i had no other option(gave a command to google to call my mom) and the Verna being more powerful again overtook me and stopped just in front of me, i checked the rear view mirror and thank my stars there was no one behind me, i engaged reverse and stomped on the pedal and moved atleast 25 feet behind and lo and behold 4 or 5 guys each around 6 foot, very healthy stepped out, ran a little bit but as i was reversing they stopped and pelted some stones on the car but as i was far enough none of them hit my car, being a single lane road for both ongoing and incoming traffic i made a three point u turn

for the old palam road and as soon as i entered the old palam road i could not see him, thought it was over, not yet 10 seconds later i could see him halting his car at the signal and the Verna took a right turn onto the old palam road,

i was telling my mom everything while overtaking and he was also making a fast progress and out of nowhere an E-Rickshaw jumped in front of me and i was not able to stop in time and bumped into him but had enough room to overtake again as he was coming neck to neck and as i was overtaking the E Rickshaw (tyres skidded like in movies lol: everyone was seeing me and i was constantly updating mom that i will be coming to Dwarka Court as only vehicles of advocates are allowed entry) he was neck on neck with me which lead him onto the oncoming traffic and i was making progress but he was too (and my mom was telling me to go to the MP office which is on that road but i decided not to as it was weekday and most probably other than sweeper no one would have been there and i did not wanted to take any risk) and after a few seconds he was just 2 cars behind me and ahead was some traffic in my lane so i took the decision to overtake as if i would not have taken the step he would have blocked me again and this time he was neck on neck again but i left no space for him leading him again onto the oncoming traffic and after a few seconds i entered Dwarka and kept checking the rear view mirror for my death but guess what the territory of the dog was till there only but i could not take any risk and reached the Dwarka court parked the car in basement and took a sigh of relief. Reached in the chamber and told mom everything, i should thank my stars and god that i am alive and in good health today.

Remaining calm and not losing your cool is the mantra to handle situations like these and which helped me tackling this situation.

Some people might ask why i did not head to a police chowki because sometimes even the officers are involved in cases like these, as cases like these appear in court daily in which police is also involved.

More a case of attempted robbery than road rage.
Could have been opportunistic where they targeted you on the fly after seeing that you are carrying cash or could have been even pre-meditated.