WOMAN AT THE WHEEL - Nice ladies get angry too

Shirley Dixon, Gleaner Writer

Automotives closes off its Woman at the Wheel series with road rage. Next week a new four-week series begins, as a young man takes us through his search for his first car.

Road rage is, perhaps, one of the oldest human hazards on the road. We all can relate to it, whether we are on the receiving end or the one dishing out the anger.

It comes in many forms and is set off by the offending driver in many ways - inattentive driving, talking on the cell phone, texting, fiddling with the radio/CD player, messing with the controls, paying attention to a toddler in the backseat, reading, applying make-up, eating, changing clothes, shaving - and the list goes on.

All of these activities either cause the driver to drive at a much slower speed than is necessary or play hit or miss with another vehicle. Almost invariably, these actions trigger road rage.

In a recent discussion at work, road rage was introduced into the conversation and, as usual, women were perceived as the main perpetrators. While they may not leap out of their vehicle with a cutlass, they have been know to kick butts with their body language and verbal attacks.

"A woman will attack you with obscenities and it is worse than a fist fight," said a male colleague as he related an experience. "I was driving on Tom Redcam Drive and this lady had her child in the passenger seat beside her, unstrapped! But that was not all - the child was sticking his hands and head out of the window! This lady was talking on her phone."

Expletives

"I drove alongside her, tooted my horn for a good while before she paused to acknowledge me. I gently said, 'Lady, with due respect, you are driving with your child in danger, he is not wearing the seat belt and he has his head and hand out the window'."

"The well-dressed lady in her nice vehicle tell me some blue lights (bad words); the string of expletives left me shocked. All I was doing was alerting her to possible danger and mishap. I put up my window and drove on. That to me was road rage, woman style," he said.

A taxi driver related a similar experience. Now, if a woman can embarrass a hardened taxi driver, it means that she was going on really badly. He said a lady was "extending her lashes" and putting on her make-up in the line of traffic and refused to move up with the flow. Other motorists were switching lanes to fill the gap and it was really slowing him down. He said he drove up to her at the stoplight and calmly said, "hello, you must do that at home, you slowing down traffic". She gave him the finger first, then proceeded to 'trace'. He drove off quickly, pretending the rage was not directed at him.

What this tells me is that men do not expect women, especially those of us who "look and dress decently and who drive nice cars", to behave like hooligans on the road, even when we are wronged. They expect a certain level of decorum, at least from professionals. The flip side is that men are not surprised when they encounter road rage from their counterparts. They either shrug it off or try to get even.

What is becoming clearer to me is that most men in Jamaica still hold women in high esteem and we should live up to this, even on our roads. I have used this to my advantage; ladies, you should too.