You don’t need a car to get road rage.
For many people, few things are more infuriating than slow walkers—those seemingly inconsiderate people who clog up sidewalks, grocery aisles and airport hallways while others fume behind them.
Researchers say the concept of “sidewalk rage” is real. One scientist has even developed a Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale to map out how people express their fury. At its most extreme, sidewalk rage can signal a psychiatric condition known as “intermittent explosive disorder [as defined by the DSM-IV, or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, psychiatry’s bible of diagnoses],” researchers say.
This Wall Street Journal article explores the condition further. Though the whole idea of people who become enraged because the person in front of them is perceived as walking more slowly than they ought may seem trivial (that’s an actual disorder? People just need to cope), the study could to shed some light into the much larger question—very real and very destructive—of anger control, what triggers sudden rages, and how this can be prevented. Read more…
My 10 year old daughter and I were walking down a street in Hamilton NY, in front of the college recently. Three young women, high school or college age, were walking shoulder to shoulder across the walk. I am obviously their senior. As always, my daughter and I formed a single line. The girl to the inside of the approaching threesome did not move. I was sick of the rude, aggressive, ignorant, entitled snotty behavior I constantly see now-a-days. So I stood my ground on MY side of the walk, and the girl slammed into me! No sorry, no nothing! It was as though it was some socio-economic victory for her. She was rude and wrong, but felt as though it was okay to slam into a 50 year old woman with a kid, because that meant she was cool? What is that? Is it that these kids are so heads down with their phones, and music they don’t even care about manners anymore?