I Get Road Raged Worse When Driving A Compact Car
I normally drive my crew cab pickup truck, nothing too fancy, not jacked up, and not loud at all. More recently I've been driving my Wife's car for work quite often, as the gas mileage is at least double what I get in the truck.
Her car is a 2018 Toyota Yaris iA and it's pretty much the definition of a compact. While it has four doors, it's small, and also decently underpowered for the size. It's the MPG and the out-the-door price that sold her on it, and that I can mostly understand.
My road rage used to be pretty bad, as in I almost had a couple of Grand Theft Auto type incidents and that helped me to reflect and calm down a bit. This is good because it was not only bad for my blood pressure, but someone might also have ended up seriously hurt. It's also good because since I have been driving her car, the people road raging me in it has been insane.
I know it's happened to her, and I've seen minor bouts of it when I've driven it before. Almost daily driving it has really opened my eyes to how people view the tiny car. No, it doesn't accelerate fast, but I'm not a slouch grandpa driver even with the tiny engine. In the last two weeks I've seen more middle fingers, been sped up on and cut off, been inches from my bumper tailgated, and honked at more times than I can count. This is not something that happens very often when I'm in my truck.
All in all, I think I'm a decent driver. I practice the lost art of using a blinker to signal my intent almost to a fault, I'm generally a speed limit to maybe five over kind of guy, and I try my best to not cut people off, especially when I'm in the slow to accelerate discount car. Still, we live in selfish times when everyone is in a hurry and feels their trip somewhere is more important. Or maybe the people road raging the little car are so well endowed they feel like they need to display their wannabe alpha posture.
My point of this is that it would be nice to see a little more respect for each other on the road. I say that and also acknowledge I have had bouts of impatience with other vehicles and will again for sure. If you get road rage like I used to, try these tips to avoid road rage. Also remember, maybe that chubby bald guy driving the little car is trying to save money on fuel.