Truckers can teach us how to deal with rage

by Ted Light

While thumbing through the boards for this issue, I noted that we’ve run a story about road rage between two truckers in Ontario.

I spend enough hours on the highway each month to almost be a part-time trucker. I must admit, I was surprised to read of the incident.

Not a day goes by that I don’t witness at least some form of road rage. But in the 60,000 kms. I drove last year, not once did I witness a confrontation among truckers.

I’ve often been impressed with the calm of professional truckers as they navigate the highways and among the increasingly angry four wheelers they share them with.

You kings of the road stand out clearly as you roll. Maybe the others know you’re too big to engage and so they stick to their own kind.

The real reasons truckers are not often involved in road-rage incidents is that they are professional drivers who don’t put themselves in situations which would result in that kind of anger.

I’m amazed that truckers do so well at containing their frustrations when dealing with the little devils, who cut truckers off, tailgate them, and who don’t allow for proper space to brake or turn.

My wife Karen and I recently saw road rage first hand.

For reasons unknown to us, the cabbie who drove us home from a recent party displayed, over the course of a few miles, tons of aggressive driving techniques.

It was only through our intervening that these clowns didn’t get into a full-out brawl.

The speed with which these two strangers moved to extremely hostile and almost violent combatants was amazing.

The intensity of their anger was palpable.

I know it took Karen and I a while to calm down after we got home – I can’t imagine how long it took those two guys to get their adrenaline levels to anything approaching normal.

You can bet that any friends or family they dealt with after this incident were not enjoying the contact.

It’s just not worth it.

We should all take lessons from the majority of truckers out there and learn how to share our highways with our fellow drivers. n


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