Posted by Fleet Safety
Road rage is an alarming trend that can lead to conflicts and severe accidents. In fact, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reported that about 80 percent of drivers typically feel some sort of road rage at least once a month. These aggressive drivers are more likely to drive recklessly and become confrontational if they get involved in an accident.
If you want to avoid experiencing road rage, here are five tips to try:
1. Avoid being in a hurry while driving
Compromising your safety just to shave a few minutes off your trip is a big no-no. In fact, it usually doesn’t make sense to drive fast and make yourself completely stressed out—usually it hardly saves any time at all. When other drivers get in your way and you’re in a hurry, it can cause the rage to build. Worst case, you could even get into an accident just because you acted on impulse.
2. Don’t drive when you’re stressed
If you think that you are stressed out, give yourself some extra time to calm down before driving. Your emotions can translate into anger on the road. You may end up letting your feelings out on other drivers and cause an accident!
3. Understand that no one wants accidents, we’re all just trying to go places
Always keep in mind that no one wants to get into an accident. If a driver makes a mistake, know that it isn’t always deliberate. You shouldn’t immediately react or respond as though they’ve lashed out at you. Calm yourself down, assess your situation, and remind yourself that we’re all human it likely wasn’t an intentional move.
4. Be forgiving on the road
Being forgiving when hitting the road means that you always value safety and the lives of people. Remember, we are all humans and make mistakes, we all have good days and bad days. You may also have made your fair share of driving mistakes on a bad day or when you were new to driving. For this reason, you should always try to be forgiving toward other drivers, as their actions may not be on purpose.
5. Get proper driver training
It’s essential that you try to avoid road rage. Being a responsible driver and knowing the rules of the road can help you create a calmer environment as you drive. Driver training can help with this, plus you’ll learn how to deal with stressful situations… and even how to handle an accident.
For over 30 years, we have been providing research-based driver safety training with our professional in-personal and online defensive driving courses in Alberta. If you want to learn how to avoid road rage and foster the utmost driving safety, reach out to us and we will set you up with the training you need!
CONCLUSION
That concludes our five tips: Be sure to avoid always being in a hurry, keep your stress levels down, understand that no one wants accidents, be forgiving on the road, and get proper driving safety training. However, we already applaud you for reading this article. Recognizing a problem is the first step in actively working to fix it. By realizing when you are starting to rage, you can take measures to stop it before it creates more problems.
Our driving programs at Fleet Safety International endeavour to help new drivers, commuters, corporate and commercial drivers learn the SAFER™ System of defensive driving. For a defensive driving course or in-vehicle training at our driving school in Calgary, get in touch with us today to see how we can help!