I dunno about that title… I was trying to think about what I might call this post. It has to do with guessing at the psychology, or maybe motives, of people in traffic situations. Which, given the particular reaction I’m going to discuss, seemed “psycho”. Since that is from the word psychology, I put that in… ah, let me just get to the story.

This morning I leave the house, get to the light and there is a series of cars coming, kind of spaced out a little. I wait until I get a small opening and then turn right and accelerate pretty quickly because I know there is more traffic coming. The guy I was moving in front of does something that I’ve seen many times before: rather than just slowing down a bit, he accelerates, then swerves around me while honking the entire time, then swerves back in front of me, and flips me off while he turns right at the next red light.

Now of course, you, as the reader, might question my telling of the event. Perhaps I wasn’t going as fast as I thought, and I really did cut him off. But the speed limit is 40, and by the time he was swerving around me, I was already up to 40 (I knew I was pulling in to traffic, so I accelerated pretty quickly).  This was not, therefore, something I did that forced him in to an evasive action in order to avoid a crash. But that’s EXACTLY the impression the other driver wanted to give. He acted as if it was only his evasive action that prevented a crash, and therefore, he was justified in his anger at my having so stupidly and recklessly endangered both our lives.  

I know better, so he isn’t going to convince ME that I cut him off that badly. And he would of course know that there was no danger. Who then, was the show for?

The probable answer is he could be frustrated by any number of things in his life. He could be heading to a job he hates, with a boss who nags him… he could have had a fight with his wife… maybe he was just frustrated with traffic that morning… and I happened to be the guy who pissed him off.  

I suppose that’s what interested me in the entire game, because that’s what it is, a show we put on. When someone cuts in front of you, as long as it’s not too severe, ya just slow down and let them in. But when you speed up, just so you can get close enough to them to act like they just cut you off really bad, it’s all a farce, and why? 

Here’s my hypothesis.

I know that we as humans love, LOVE, LOVE ourselves some ‘righteous indignation’. In general, we know we’re supposed to behave ourselves and not lose our, um…poo… over things, get nuts and start screaming at other people. We’re civilized and we learn over time to stuff those reactions into the closet so people don’t see them. But, there are times when our anger would be justified, and that anger, that indignation over some egregious wrong perpetrated by purveyors of evil… that almost requires our anger at the injustice… it is a righteous indignation, because none of us should be indifferent in the face of egregious injustice, amirite?

And here comes the fun part, venting our anger on the type of people that would perpetrated such injustices actually feels pretty good because, let’s face it… we LIKE venting our anger, even if most of the time it’s not a socially acceptable option to punch people who anger us in the face. That should have been disciplined out of us as toddlers… hopefully….

So…. IF someone were to act in such wanton disregard of decency as to cut in to traffic in front of you, and he were to do so in a dangerous way that his actions would cause an accident- possibly including injury, maiming, or even DEATH…. well, then THAT, my friends, would be just the kind of situation that calls for…. (drum roll please…..) Righteous Indignation!

But of course, IF you’re gonna play the righteous indignation card, then ya gotta make sure that the incident to which you’re reacting is a sufficiently egregious display of injustice. That’s the trick. If it’s a sufficiently egregious display of injustice, then righteous indignation is justified. Otherwise, you’ll just end up looking like a douche that overreacted. Which, leads us back to our traffic example. I pull into traffic and accelerate, the guy behind me doesn’t like it, and being pissed and wanting to vent, but knowing that a guy simply pulling into traffic doesn’t quite reach the standard of egregious injustice that would be required for righteous indignation, he has to then massage the scenario in order to bring it up to the level of egregious injustice. So he speeds up, and now, with the closeness of the two vehicles which required him to swerve out of the way to avoid contact, well, anyone, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, would be forced to admit that such behavior on the driver pulling into traffic, would rise to the level of egregious injustice, and therefore merit, nay, practically require, righteous indignation, which, in this case, looked like honking and flipping someone off.  

This, so it seems to me, was probably the breakdown of what happened this morning. I was at first incensed by the guy’s reaction, but very quickly decided that my own reaction would be a mirror of his, and if I thought his was unjustified, then mine would be too. So, I took Elsa’s advice and let it go.