Many experts have provided advice on how to avoid road rage. A recent post on this blog included the insightful piece on the “Law of the Garbage Truck”. Another very important strategy is that of renowned Marketing Guru, Chris Moerdyk. He penned down an excellent bit of advice on a uniquely African way to fight road rage. It reads:
“ I am one of those people that gets into a rage on the road. And it depresses me. Frustrates me. But I have found the answer.
Quite simply, every time I get into my car from now on I am going to imagine that I am in the Kruger National Park.
I am going to drive at a pace sedate enough not to run over or have my paintwork damaged by all those crazy guinea fowl that always seem to wait for an oncoming vehicle before scurrying across the road. Like all those pedestrians who dice with death on a daily basis trying to run across motorways.
To me, there are no buses. Only elephants. No big trucks. Only Rhinos.
No combi taxis. Only herds and herds of impala, mindlessly springing hither then thither and rushing about desperately looking for somewhere to commit suicide.
There will be no more idiots hogging the fast lane at two miles a fortnight. Only the odd warthog trotting along in the same direction as I am, oblivious to all but its own strange little world.
There will be no more cyclists riding five abreast. Only waterbuck with circular white saddlemarks on their bottoms. No more delivery motorbikes. Only wild dogs with their strange but fascinating penchant for snapping at car tyres.
I’ve been trying it for a week now and it works a treat. I just go into bush driving mode.
I feel as if I am on my way back to “camp” after a day of animal spotting and bird watching and all I want is a cool shower and a whacking great whiskey. In the kind of mood where I couldn’t care less if I never saw another rhino with or without its prehensile lip, nor if I ever spotted another wailing cisticola as long as I lived. I’ve been in that kind of mood when I’ve come up behind the umpteenth herd of elephant standing in the middle of the road.
I don’t lean out of the window and yell; “what are you waiting for, you bunch of morons? Do you think you own the @#*& road or something?” and then start thumping the steering wheel with such passion I can’t hold a golf club for a week.
No, I simply assume that elephants don’t have the foggiest notion about the concept of motorised road transport. My lack of road rage in this case has nothing to do with the fact that when you abuse an elephant it tends to stomp on you because that’s what buses and trucks do as well. But, somehow, it hasn’t prevented me in the past from letting rip with a string of ripe invective in their direction.
Now, this might all look like giving up and lowering my standards. I don’t believe so. It is simply a compromise in a country where the road traffic authorities harp on endlessly with “Don’t fool yourself, speed kills” and completely ignore the fact that unlicensed and untrained drivers, unroadworthy vehicles, bald tyres, incorrect following distance, overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic and a million other things also kill people on the roads. “
Let us consider this strategy …. when in Africa let us think of Africa…or follow the advice that keeps your mind at peace and your body safe!
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