Why I no longer get angry behind the wheel

I’m about 23 years old, and I’m driving down Interstate 10 in El Paso. By this point I’ve had a driver’s license for about five years, and I know I have aproblem. When I get behind the wheel, I am immediately prone to road rage. As Isee it, everyone’s out to break the rules, to take advantage of the situation, and to selfishly do whatever they need to — no matter the cost to others.

For this angry young man in a1989 Ford Thunderbird, driving is a microcosm of what’s wrong with the world, and I’ve had it.

Except today it’s going to be different, as the white BMW cuts me off in an exit-only lane, I force myself to ignore it. It’s too good a day: The weather’s nice, I’m singing along to the radio and I’m feeling fine. No need to let this bring me down. We move farther down the off ramp, and I notice the BMW slowing down. That’s when the driver in the other car bounces his lit cigarette off my windshield. I stop singing.

“What’s this rich guy doing?” I wonder. Although, to be honest, I used amore colorful word than “guy.” Anyway, the car continues to slow down until it stops in the off ramp, blocking the way. The driver’s door opens and an elderly woman comes out and starts screaming at me for tailgating her. I lose it.

I got out of my car and started screaming back, thinking only of how mad I was. In that moment, I felt as if I could kill this woman.

Since this isn’t a letter from prison, you already know I didn’t. We screamed until we tired ourselves out, got back in our cars and kept driving. Later, as I was replaying the events, I realized how lucky I was. The woman could have had a gun, or I could have been run over by a passing car.

I never get this mad when I am not in a car. Looking back, maybe I should just blame it on the Thunderbird, and be glad they don’t make them any more. Turns out, says John Vincent, a psychologist and director of the Center for Forensic Psychology at the University of Houston, there is something about being behind the wheel that can send anybody over the line.

“When you’re in your automobile there’s acertain anonymity,” Vincent said. “You’re driving along, you look at someone in another car you don’t see them so much as a person. You see them embodied in this vehicle that they’re driving, with all the stereotypes we can often invoke about that.”

He’s right. Once I was calm and started thinking about the other driver as a human being instead of some rich lady, I was able to give her the benefit of the doubt. She may have not seen me when she cut me off, and the next thing she knows there’s a car riding her bumper and some jerk is flapping his gums, probably cursing her out. She shouldn’t have reacted like she did, but I was no saint.

I would like to say that after that day road rage was a thing of the past. But I can’t. I still let things get to me that shouldn’t, but in the 20 years after that woman flicked her cigarette at me, I’ve never let things get so hot again.

Being in Houston has brought all this back because drivers here always seem so mad. On Tuesday, a man was found dead inside a truck after what police believe was a road-rage shooting. After exchanging insults, a man shot at a car over July Fourth, igniting fireworks that seriously burned a couple and two small children. A Katy woman was killed last month, the victim of a bullet fired in a road-rage confrontation she wasn’t involved in.

So, what can we do about it? Occasional road rage is normal. We are all in a hurry sometimes, we all get frustrated with traffic, and Lord knows there are some really terrible drivers out there. But how do we keep it under control?

“Anything you can do to manage your own stress: Deep breathing, telling yourself it’s not worth it and that this is just part of the tax we all have to pay for driving,” Vincent said. “Having that kind of internal dialogue eventually neutralizes the negative emotions. That helps tremendously.”

That’s easier said than done in a city where commuters spend 75 hours in added time sitting in traffic each year, but I keep telling myself it’s better to let someone cut in front of you than not driving home at all. As a former angry young man, I can tell you, there’s a lot of us out there, and until we all learn that it’s crazy to be screaming at an old lady in the middle of the road, it’s best to steer clear.

Carrasco ( @lfcarrasco ) is an editorial writer at the Houston Chronicle and a member of the editorial board.