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Crash Course Anger behind the wheel often leads to accidents – here’s how to pump your brakes 
Safe driving – now there’s a healthy idea. According to AAA’s Foundation for Traffic Safety 2008 survey, 60 percent of drivers admit to having road rage. Scarier still, more than half of fatal car crashes involve some form of aggressive driving: speeding, running another driver off the road, tailgating or yelling obscenities. Aggressive driving – as great as it is for getting your adrenaline up when you’re yelling at the car in front of you – isn’t the safest way to get around. The survey found that 80 percent of drivers believe that aggressive driving habits are extremely dangerous. So, why do we do it? It may be because we love competition or because slow drivers get in the way. But, whatever the reason, here are some tips from AAA on ways to calm down that mentality and drive safer instead. * Don’t do things to make other drivers angry – slow driving, “forgetting” to use your blinker, swerving. * Simmer down on the road rage – don’t take other drivers’ actions personally, avoid retaliation, give them extra room. * Change the way you think about driving – relax and drive: it’s not a competition; you won’t win anything. If you think about it, driving safely means driving healthily too. The better driving habits you start practicing on the roads, the safer you’re helping to make the streets. And really, what good does road rage do for you mentally when you’re showing up to work angry? |
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