I've experienced quite a bit of road rage this week and while in the moment I was able to avoid any repercussions, looking back on it it's pissing me off more and more.
I've done quite a bit of driving this week in addition to my normal commute so I guess the increased occurrences are to be expected but they were pretty severe. At one, at a zipper onramp (alternate right of way, two lanes merge into one) a guy in a Honda decided he was going to fly around me and force his way in front of me almost causing me to rearend him. When I honked my horn he reached out the window and flipped me off and proceeded to swerve left and right all over the lane as a preemptive way to keep me from even entertaining the idea of going around him (why would I on a now one-lane ramp?). Continuing to lean his head out of his window and shout what I assume were obscenities at me (had my windows up, music on, didn't care at the time), he drove erratically trying to block any potential maneuver he felt I might try to "one-up" him. When we merged onto the highway, I jumped two lanes over to put as much space between us as possible (there was room), so he ht the gas, zoomed up my ass, tailgated me and flashed his high beams for about a quarter mile before veering off and going his separate way. All because he cut me off and I honked at him.
Another time, traffic was merging into my lane and I slowed down to let a car in front of me. As I caught back up to fill the space another car decided he was going to try to occupy the space I was attempting to fill, and I inadvertently boxed him out. So he gets behind me, gets over one more lane, pulls even and then abruptly swerves into my lane, forcing me onto the shoulder where I punched it to get around traffic and managed to luck into a space further up. I'm sure he felt like a big man.
And finally, I was trying to get into the turn lane to turn into my office park and had my left blinker on. There was a car in the left lane but there was plenty of room so I merged over. Suddenly the car I had seen was right on my ass and violently swerving into the lane I came from. As he passed me, a 70-something year old man stuck his head out his window and via lipreading I discerned that he yelled, "ASSHOLE" at me. You know, because I used my turn signal and merged into a lane where there was room to do so.
Maybe I'm being a little sensitive, maybe it just comes with the territory. But I've been driving nearly 20 years and, to me, that's a pretty concentrated bit of incidents to happen in the span of 5 working days.