Road Rage Rationale

What really gets your blood boiling behind the wheel? For the second year in a row the travel website Expedia.com, Bellevue, Washington, commissioned a survey of bad driving behavior that’s most likely to ignite the ire of even the most passive motorists. Not surprisingly, texting while driving was found to incite the most road rage among one’s fellow travelers, infuriating 26 percent of those queried, followed by tailgating at 13 percent, hogging the left lane at 12 percent and crawling along at an infuriatingly slow speed at 10 percent. What’s more, highway fury is almost as often directed toward one’s passengers, with so-called back-seat drivers found to enrage 52 percent of motorists. Other annoying passenger types include “the reluctant co-pilot” (one who refuses to help navigate on a road trip) at 12 percent, “the radio hog” at 10 percent, “the snoozer” at 8 percent and - perhaps the grossest of all - “the shoe remover” at 7 percent. Can’t we all just get along?