In defence of road rage

A friend told me recently that the only time she and her husband get passionate these days is when they are yelling abuse at each other across the cup-holders of their Renault Hybrid. He complains that she drives like an anxious old lady while she's convinced he's an entitled prat behind the wheel. During every mangled gear change, every junction missed, every failed three-point turn each reminds the other of his or her imbecility. It's all displacement of course – these disproportionate attacks are never really about whether one of you forgot to indicate. Outside the confines of their hybrid, the couple in question live a life of quiet, seething resentment just like the rest of us.

For all of us passive aggressive road users, driving under the influence of acrimony allows us the freedom to express our disconnectedness without fear of embarrassment. Yelling expletives at strangers from a distance is much easier than demanding your boss gives you a pay rise. It also acts as a useful safety valve and is about the only thing keeping many of us from actual bodily harm. 

So imagine my disappointment at YouTube's latest sensation, the Zen School of Motoring. These viral ten-minute dashcam clips feature a mightily bearded, super-chilled Ivan Battaliero-Owen cruising the mean streets of north London while calmly allowing fellow drivers to cut him up. Such is the popularity of his videos that the BBC have snapped him up for a driving series. His laidback attitude towards the terminally perilous is supposed to set an example to erratic road users like me but instead I found my hackles rising. Mindful motoring? Is nothing sacred? I seethed as the Zen master muttered something about letting go of negative emotions as he narrowly missed an idiotic scooter-boy on the Dalston Road. It's one thing to call out horrendous driving as it occurs, quite another to be a passive witness after the event. I mean what use is there in that?

Lord only knows how we buttoned-up Brits would fare if we didn't have our cars as a place to let off steam. Venting at other motorists is about the only time we ever directly display our emotions in public. Locking ourselves away inside a protective capsule in the knowledge that no one outside the car can hear what we're saying brings with it a thrilling kind of freedom. Without the ability to make sudden, vigorous hand gestures at random cyclists while yelling 'UN-BER*******LIEVABLE' I would almost certainly have imploded under the weight of my own emotional incontinence.

Ivan is right of course – driving is stressful enough without compounding the experience with unchecked rage; one can only imagine the damage it is doing to our hearts. The trouble is, all that pent up anger has to go somewhere and until we learn to express ourselves coolly and calmly out here in the real world, many of us will continue to take our frustrations out on bumbling bus drivers, suicidal cyclists and anyone else too far away to cause harm.