Fingered...

Road rage always puzzles me. That is not to say that I don't get very angry while driving. It's not unusual for me to unleash a string of explatives that would make a sailor blush, especially at people who manage to drive just slow enough to prevent me from making a traffic light while I'm running late to work.

But I usually keep my cursing to myself. I don't honk. I don't flip the bird. I don't yell out the window. Probably because I'm in general scared of confrontation, especially from people I don't know, and because I don't want to appear a jerk.

So I don't understand people who are willing to confront other people over some percieved injustice - especially when they are the person who caused or escalated whatever traffic sin has been committed.

Case in point - I'm driving off the exit ramp near exit 8 on 83 North (the one that if you keep going on goes to falls road). I'm trying to merge. I see a spot in front of an older civic. I put on my blinker and am about to merge when I realize that there is a Ford Explorer sitting in my blind spot. Wait for it to pass, then prepare to move over. The civic is now right near my quarter panel. I accelerate and he accelerate. So I slow down, and he slows down, until we are both almost stopped. He then accelerates, flips me off, and passes me.

Huh? If anyone should be pissed at me, it would be Explorer guy. And does he really think that coming to a near-stop in the right lane of an interstate is a safe driving technique? Or that merging off an exit somehow wrong?