Runners and Road Rage

Over the last 15 years running on the roads, I am pleased to say that I have had very few unpleasant incidents. However, my running history has not been completely devoid of difficult encounters with motorists, bicyclists, and the occasional unrestrained dog.

Once I had a bicyclist scream at me to get out of the bike lane and once, in Winston-Salem North Carolina, a woman made a left turn right in front of me as I was crossing the street.  She stopped her car, halting my progress, then rolled down the window and blew her cigarette smoke in my face, rolled up the window, and continued on.  Not a word, just smoke.  I was stunned.

In LA, there are two things I get most - drivers screaming at me to get on the sidewalk and drivers making right hand turns into me without first looking right.  

A momentary diversion:  Have you ever SEEN the sidewalks in LA?  Years of earthquakes have turned them into a mangled, gnarly mess...SO dangerous to run on.  I'd rather take my chances with the killer SUVs!

Anyway, I recently had a rather shocking encounter with a mommy dropping off her 5 year old at day care.  As she exited the parking lot she looked left and saw me coming up the road on her side, not more than 20 feet away.  She looked right at me, then, as I was just about to cross in front of her, she punched the gas and pulled out, just barely missing me!  I was SO pissed off.  I slapped the side of her big fat gas-guzzling SUV as she passed and continued on.  

When I looked up, she had stopped her big fat gas guzzling SUV, and rolling down the window, she screamed at me "Get off the road b_itch!"  She then hit the gas again and sped off.  "Have a nice day," I shouted - but she was gone and unlikely to have heard me,safely locked as she was in her big fat SUV.

What makes people so mean?  How can a woman do this to a female athlete?  Was I wrong to slap her car?

I've done a bit of checking up on this and evidently, road rage against runners is on the rise in general.  According to Bill Crist of the Boulder Sherriff's Office in an article by Mary Butler,  "Anger tends to erupt when people aren't following the rules or when there's a perception that one user is more entitled to use of a thoroughfare than another, Crist said.

Don Weatherley, a University of Colorado psychology professor and director of CU's Raimy Clinic for clinical psychology, said everybody has a different "trigger finger" sensitivity. For instance, he said, someone who has had a bad day at work may take out his or her aggression on the runner who gets in the way on the commute home. It's called "triggered displaced aggression." Yikes!

One study by researchers from the University of Montevallo in Alabama examined the road rage perceptions and driving practices of drivers in that state.

When participants said that they did drive aggressively, they claimed they did so "for good reason." The causes of road rage remain debatable, the study states that some possible explanations are summer heat, traffic congestion, faster pace of life, and general lack of common courtesy. Other possible causes are job stress, the driving practices of sport-utility drivers [WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT],  and the use of cell phones.

According to the study, most people were undecided as to who they believe is most often targeted by aggressive male and female drivers. However, there was little support that males targeted females and females targeted males with their aggression. A slightly higher number felt that females targeted other females.

Interestingly, All of my unpleasant personal experiences has been with female drivers.  Mmmmm...

While you ponder this, I leave you with a bit of road rage humor yanked off of a community at Runner's World;  

Road Rage!

Just you and yourself, out on a run

It's hot as hell and you just want to get done
When suddenly you hear combustion and tires,
An engine from behind you fires.

Driving by, in a team
Angry faces open to scream
"Hey ***!","Loser!", or "Queer!"
While from a car window the s****** and leer

They expect you to return a dewy-eyed stare
Ha! A gas-powered ******* is never worth a glare
Instead, although it won't long linger,
Your response is a flipped middle finger.

And a response:

It's not a bad poem
though the beat is askew,
I freely admit
I feel sorry you

The drivers I see
have all been quite nice
while sharing the road
they never think twice

They give a wide berth
they wave, honk, and smile
as I sweat it out
untold mile upon mile

small towns are the best
where most folks know your name
without them my runs
just would not be the same

so rage not, good friend
with your slightly flawed meter
instead try to run
where the people are sweeter

::

 Happy running!  But watch out - it can be brutal out there!

• Currently 2.3/5 Stars.