Road rage, a phenomenon I completely fail to understand and justify

A while ago I was returning home after completing an errand; I witnessed a very shocking human behaviour which I honestly and completely fail to understand as well as justify.

On a bumper-to-bumper traffic where one can hardly drive at a speed of 20 to 30 km/hr, two teenage middle class kids on a bike, a few meters ahead, bumped slightly into a rear mud guard of a red Ford car as the bike driver could not abruptly halt. What I saw immediately was almost a maniacal and beastly behaviour of two middle aged gentlemen in the Ford. They stopped there vehicle in the middle of a road and both jumped out of their vehicle within a second and started beating the bike driver kid then and there in a savagely manner with punches and slaps all over kid’s body parts while constantly abusing him. I felt pity as I saw that the bike-driving kid was constantly pleading with his palms against each other – a typical Indian expression for forgiveness and was almost on the verge of crying. I could sense that he was equally guilty and now with this behaviour by those car guys he was feeling threatened for his life at least for that moment. The pillion rider kid was even younger to his driver and was so scarred that he jumped off the bike scarcely managing the polythene carry beg with some heavy household stuff and started running away from the scene so as to somehow save him self.

Even in the case of a rash-driving involving fatal injury, I personally do not subscribe to this savage behaviour; to me the damage, no matter in what amount, can not be undone by this revenge-hungry behaviour. Everyone of us probably would agree that accidents are never a pleasure but at the same time we all humans do know in our mind that then accidents are unintentional and that is precisely why they are termed as an accidents.

These two car guys are representatives of a growing sect of our society – the upper middle class with a car and they start thinking they are better-off than lower middle class person. They also carry license to do as they please at any place; their behaviour was highlighting several shocking aspects. Seriously poor traffic sense – they were completely engulfed in their own; other several vehicles behind were not allowed to move and the traffic was building on the road at the peak-hours. Complete absence of civilised behaviour – beating someone especially teen age kid in a savagely fashion tells a lot about the attacker’s mental status. Even under the influence of various pressures that life nowadays exerts on each of us city-dwellers including jobs, hectic lives etc. one cant not justify this kind of behaviour.

Opposite to this, I was involved in almost a same intensity accident on a rainy night in Dubai, a city famous for its heavy traffic globally; all vehicles were in a hurry to get back home after a long and tiring office hours and due to slippery road surface my friend failed to halt his car in time which slightly bumped into the posh Honda SUV ahead of us. The driver instantly came out but just to notice the slight dent on back of his vehicle; my driving friend offered a genuinely guilt-ridden ‘sorry’ and the SUV guy maturely accepted the same without much fuss. Within few seconds we all were on our way without jamming traffic behind us. This was a pleasant human behaviour especially on SUV guy’s part as under Dubai traffic rules if the vehicle owner involved in a road accident wants to claim insurance he has to park his vehicle on a side, inform police which then would arrive at a scene and will issue a written memo to the vehicle owner after thoroughly understanding both – how-it-happened and the damage to vehicles. Without this memo any insurance company will not repay any amount to the vehicle owner for the damage. Though this incident does not prove a complete absence of road-rage especially in Dubai or any other part of the world with more proven traffic sense, it definitely proves that we – the humans – have ability to understand situations and solve them in more pleasant and civilised way.

I pray that somehow we all, especially those on driving seats, think on this and try and accept accidents as an accidents and not delve into inhumanly revenge-seeking behaviour.