Everything you know if you’re a girl with road rage

Literally just get out of my way


To say that I have a slight road rage problem would be a bit of an understatement. While I don’t do dangerous things while driving, such as cutting people off or tailgating as close as possible, my car is almost always filled with cacophony of noise as I rant and rave about the various ineptitudes of the drivers surrounding me.

My behavior has been described as many things, “ladylike” not being one of them. But you know what? Why can’t a girl get mad when the idiot in front of her is driving 10 miles under the speed limit? What’s wrong with screaming at the jackass who just switched lanes in front of me without using his blinker, then slammed on his brakes and almost caused me to get in an accident? It’s not like they can hear me anyway, and if I don’t act on my behavior, who’s it really hurting? No one, that’s who.

Can’t be blamed for this, it’s Nissan 2007’s fault

I know I can’t be alone with this road rage problem, so for all you out there who too suffer from this particular issue, here are several issues that I’m sure are all too relatable for you as well.

You can’t drive on dates

Despite the fact that men driving is the more traditional thing to have happen, maybe you’re the one with the nicer car, or you’re picking someone up for a lunch date: whatever the case, women finding themselves driving on dates nowadays is much more common than it used to be.

But when you’re a girl with road rage, this is slightly more inconvenient. No one likes to see their boyfriend (or girlfriend) cowering against the car door because the student driver in front of you didn’t speed up to make the yellow light and you consequently missed it as well.

Which brings me to my next point…

You can’t drive with anyone anywhere, really

Even when you aren’t the one driving, you’re still paying attention and are attuned to the goings-on of the road, and others driving poorly still feels like a personal attack on you and your car. However, as unacceptable as it is to scream at other drivers when you’re the one driving, it’s even less acceptable to scream at them when you’re not the one driving. “Stop distracting me,” they may whine: “calm down, it’s not a big deal,” they say. Well it’s a big deal to me, and you know this about me.

You’re the one who wanted to carpool to work today, Sally, so tomorrow I guess I’ll just drive myself, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you again.

Being the designated driver is literally the worst

This goes without saying: no one likes driving their drunk friends around because no one likes being around drunk people if they themselves aren’t drunk. Drunk people are loud, and annoying, and when they’re in the enclosed space that is a car their irritation multiplies tenfold. My road rage, which is typically directed at the world outside of my car, then shifts directions and is instead focused on those directly next to me, who can unfortunately hear everything I may say about them.

The last time I was a designated driver, someone in the car described my driving as being like “a bat out of hell.” In my defense, I was driving a car that was a lot bigger than ones I’m used to and the brakes were slow so I had to start slowing down earlier than usual to go around turns (something I didn’t realize until we were almost home): but also, going around a roundabout(we were on a deserted road so I was in no danger of hitting another car) fast enough to make everyone in the backseat fall against each other and make them all shut up about how they would “totally beat up that one basketball player given the opportunity” (because A. no one cares, and B. I would LOVE to watch any of them try to beat up a 6’7″ muscular athlete) was so satisfying.

On an unrelated note, I haven’t been asked to DD since.

Sometimes it transfers to the real world

I don’t know if I’m just more aware of this now, or if I’m a magnet that attracts inconvenient people, but I seem to find myself stuck behind groups of people who walk 5 abreast at like 1 mile an hour, usually when I’m going to class across campus or running late to work. In these circumstances, I usually try to pass these people as unobtrusively as possible, but sometimes they’re just so damn inconvenient that I have to purposefully speed my stride, go around them, and then slow down to a regular (but still faster) stride. Which then means that they know that my only goal was passing them, and then they sometimes start talking about me, and I can sometimes hear them. And that’s awkward.

Enter my car at your own risk

If only everyone could do simple things, like drive the speed limit or walk at a reasonable pace. What a world that would be. But then, where would I direct my apparently limitless supply of internal rage? Stress baking, probably. On second thought, maybe the opportunity for road rage isn’t such a bad thing.