Letter | Why are drivers so angry?

Published 10:30 am Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Having lived in the Snoqualmie Valley for the past 16 years, I have seen an increase in road rage recently. When driving, we expect people to follow the law and drive safely. When people don’t, other drivers have weird thoughts about their behavior.

Some unexpected and potentially dangerous driving habits are tailgating, flashing high beams while tailgating, yelling at drivers, flipping drivers off, overtaking into oncoming traffic and angrily waving hands. This behavior causes other drivers to feel unsafe, afraid and stressed.

As drivers, we sometimes forget that other people are not in the same hurry as we’re in, or are not currently dealing with similar stresses.

Yet, when drivers around us respond to small problems (the person in front of you is driving slower than you’d like) with a big-problem response (yelling like there’s a life threatening emergency) they are endangering the lives of others.

A safe and small response to a small problem is to just pass the person you’re annoyed with calmly and respectfully. You could try putting yourself in the other driver’s shoes and do some deep breathing. When you respond with road rage, your actions make people feel unsafe and scared.

We all live in a beautiful area and can all be reminded occasionally to work a little harder at thinking about others. We can all be reminded to do what’s expected while driving and be more aware of our own potentially dangerous behaviors.

Erica Healy

North Bend