Road Rage

3 Ways To Avoid Getting Harmed

Putting humans behind the wheel of a car, traveling at even neigh­borhood speeds, can escalate the physiology of the brain and body and get us into an intense mood. Add in a situation of getting cut off or even a minor fender bender and what should have been something to be brushed off, now turns into an emotional melt down.

This can happen to anyone, turn­ing even the most calm and logical person into a raging lunatic. There­fore, we must be aware of the steps we can take to proactively evade a road rage situation, but also have countermeasures in place to deal defensively with violent situations.

To deal with this, think of tackling the issues proactively, reactively and defensively. Proactively, we can avoid most potential situations by doing a few simple things after we've made another driver irate for whatever rea­son. Obviously, keep driving and don't stop.

In many cases, there can only be a danger­ous encounter if you stop and engage or give another driver a chance to engage you.

Second, leave space between you and the car in front of you whether you're moving or stationary. Getting locked into traf­fic gives you less options to escape a potentially dangerous situation. The final proactive step is to take a picture of the person's license plate. Why? Even if you leave the scene and try to avoid any contact, it doesn't mean the person won't follow you or seek revenge some­how. Knowing who is after you is much better than fearing who could come back and try to harm you. Also, having the driver see you take a picture of their license plate may have them thinking twice before resorting to destructive behavior.

If you do engage with a person for whatever reason, there are reactive steps you can take. The easiest thing is to apologize for whatever you did or they thought you did. You may not have noticed that you cut some­one off in traffic and denying it will only make the other person more angry. So, who cares, say you're sorry and move on.

If an angry person ap­proaches your window, don't roll down the windows or open your doors. Don't give them an easy opportunity to grab or hit you. Note that they may want to damage your car, as we see many times with mobs attempting to shut down streets and highways dur-ing protests. Dealing with a dent in your car is easier than getting assaulted by multiple people.

If you are surrounded by a mob, signal that you're going to call the police and then do call the police if they don't leave you alone. It puts the ball in the aggressor's court, if they really want to deal with law enforcement, and works just as well even if you are bluffing. Worst case scenario, if you do call, you'll have not only extra help coming, but you'll have a record of being on the receiving end of the aggressor's verbal or physical assaults.

There are those situations where, for whatever reason, things do get physi­cal and you must defend yourself. Just because you refuse to roll down your window, doesn't mean they won't break it. Sometimes you are boxed in by other traffic or you have to defend other family members in the car.

In these cases, knowing a protec­tive block and a powerful strike can save your life. The kind of block you can do while seated in a car is a ''Triangular Cover'' which wraps your arm around the side of your head tightly, protecting it from bro­ken glass and/or oncoming fists.

A useful strike is the ''Hammer strike'' that uses the bottom of your fist, to strike someone's arm if they're reaching in to hit or choke you or it can be used as a fury of strikes when standing against your opponent. Targeting anything from the forearm to the face will disorient and cause pain, allowing you time to escape. Once again, having these three lines of defense gives you several options at different intervals of a potentially deadly road rage situation.