Harrowing traffic making decent people turn aggressive: My experience

Finally merged gingerly into a gap in traffic, but a fine gentleman in a Verna one lane overtook umbrage: honked angrily, cut across, brake checked and finally cornered me into stopping.

BHPian Chetan_Rao recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

An incident that happened last week ended rather unexpectedly.

A family medical situation necessitated some commuting back & forth to HRBR Layout for a few days.

One afternoon, I'd stopped onto the ORR service/slip road (somewhere after Hebbal) to take a call, and had to wait a few minutes to merge back onto the main carriageway as nobody would let me in and traffic was thick.

Finally merged gingerly into a gap in traffic, but a fine gentleman in a Verna one lane overtook umbrage: honked angrily, cut across, brake checked and finally cornered me into stopping.

This conversation followed:

'Are you blind? You could've hit me!'

'It's a straight piece of road, I was merging slowly into the left-most lane after indicating properly, and you probably saw me from hundreds of meters away. I definitely saw you'.

'You should wait, not barge in.'

'I've been waiting a few minutes, I did wait for a gap, and I wasn't even in your lane.'

'You could've barged across. How would I know with how people drive these days?'

'I didn't? Did I?'

'Umm...No.'

'Look man, I'm sorry. I waited to merge back in, nobody would let me in so did the next safest thing and merged slowly into a gap in traffic. Didn't intend to startle or barge in. I need to get to the hospital, so please move your car.'

<At this point, his demeanor changes completely as he remembered something>

'I need to get to hospital too. You seem a decent fellow, I'm sorry too, just frustrating with traffic and a sick kid.'

I saw him in the parking lot of the same pediatric hospital I was visiting, an hour later, even helped him carry coffee to his car.

Traffic is turning everyday people, worn down by a million worries, into raging nutcases, and this guy was a relatively milder specimen.

Can't be healthy, surely?

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