Entry: Road Rage

Someone randomly mentioned road rage yesterday, and I was wondering if it's still a "thing." The worst exchange I've ever dealt with while driving has been a honking horn or a middle finger (the latter of which is considered road rage by the article, but c'mon. With regards to driving, I spent my formative years in New Jersey; the bird is tantamount to saying hello).

Two things that stood out to me in the article:

1. The list of websites devoted to dealing with road rage by recording other drivers' license plate numbers and crazy driving habits. I guess this would help you deal with your anger after the fact, but it's not a very good preventative measure, unless you find a list of repeat offenders in your town and memorize their license plates. "Watch out, Louise, FPQ-4291 just merged into the lane behind us, and you know his reputation for tailgating!" Also, if you're in a dangerous driving situation, are you really going to take your concentration off the road and record the other person's plate number? Maybe if you licked your finger and traced it in the dust on your dashboard. Not that I've ever left a note to myself that way.

2. A 1988 newspaper article that was quoted as an example of an early usage of the term "road rage" has a grammatical error, complete with a finger-wagging [sic] added by the editor of the Wikipedia article. Sucks to be you, St. Petersburg Times! Now, I make my share of errors while writing, but that's why I don't work for a newspaper. Well, actually I don't work for a newspaper because it's hard to find an entry-level position in a dying industry, but I digress.

I don't consider my initial question to be answered by the Wik', though, because a lot of the statements in the article were followed by the "citation needed" superscript, a red flag in my mind. Perhaps this "road rage" is a fabrication cooked up by the liberal Jewish media. Or maybe it was the conservative Christian media. Or even the damned dirty neutral Buddhist media. Bastards.