August 25

Road Rage

A few days ago, I was in a taxi here which I normally hate to take (the drivers are smelly, rude, expect a tip, and plus, it's just stressful watching a meter counting how much money you're going to give them for pissing you off). I much prefer the subway and bus where the service level is consistent and you don't have to take no 'tude from no one. But I digress....

So I was in the middle of a lot of traffic and the driver changed like 2 lanes and totally cut the guy off from behind. Not to be outdone, the car from behind promptly changed lanes and rolled his window down, as his car caught up with ours. Expecting a crass exchange of words, I was thinking "oh not again...."

The driver of the car behind us was a black dude, and he smiled as he leaned over: "I ain't mad at you, I ain't mad at you." I'm not sure if the taxi driver heard him or not, because he kept repeating "Just learn to drive...just learn to drive." The black dude repeated again smiling "I ain't mad at you, but you really did cross a lot of lanes there and cut me off. But I ain't mad at you." His smile was genuine and he certainly didn't sound one bit upset.

I was so impressed with how this guy handled everything. If it had been me, I'm sure I would have flipped the guy off or something of comparable class. Even though it feels good to give someone the big finger, and have a short conversation consisting of 4 letter words, in reality it does cause stress, at least for me. Whereas for this guy, he took the high road, and was able to smile through it. Much better!