Intermittent aggressive anger often causes road rage. Driving behaviors such as trying to run someone off the road, waving, gesturing, and tailgating can be dangerous to other motorists. While it's important to learn defensive driving skills to avoid incidents with aggressive motorists on the highway, it's also important that you learn to control your own anger. Thankfully, there are many ways to curb road rage.
Take a Defensive Driving Course
Defensive driving is the best way to handle road rage. When you drive defensively, you can save lives, money, and time. Defensive drivers control their own speed. They also look ahead and anticipate what other drivers may do. Furthermore, defensive drivers are alert and ignore distractions that might otherwise bother other motorists. Since it's important to master these skills, you may want to consider taking an online defensive driving course NY .
Concentrate on Your Breathing
If you feel road rage, concentrate on your breathing. Take a deep breath and let it out very slowly. Keep breathing this way until you feel yourself calm down. The magic of this technique is that the aggressive driver will speed on down the highway leaving you alone before you take off after them. You are also less likely to become another statistic in the 66 percent of car accidents that involve road rage.
Don't Personalize the Incident
Remember that the other driver is just having a bad day, and we've all been there. It's nothing personal against you. Instead of focusing on your anger, play some music or simply pull off the road into a safe place. It's important to note that 37 percent of aggressive driving accidents actually involve a firearm. There's no reason to escalate an incident any further than necessary.
Control Your Mood
At Drive Rite Academy , the instructors put an emphasis on dealing with road rage. By taking an online defensive driving course NY, you could learn ways to stop other people from controlling your mood. Realizing that everyone makes an occasional mistake often helps you move on. If you are still feeling aggressive, pull over in a safe place until you are back in control of your own actions. The result is that you won't be involved in one of the approximately 33 murders and 4,200 injuries resulting from road rage each year.
Remember, if the police see you driving aggressively, they can give you a ticket. Therefore, driving safely can also help your pocketbook in many ways.