The price of road rage

Is road rage finger waving stupid? There is at least one guy in Utah who will not be making the standard gesture at other drivers for a long time.

Rage is a common human frailty. It occurs when one of us loses our cool. Suppose it happens to everybody sooner or later, but there are increasing incidents of what has been labeled "road rage," and the daily cases I read about on the police and sheriff's logs are generally either ridiculous or stupid, or both.

Couple of weeks ago I was driving to Missoula in poor visibility, wind, and greasy highways. Going up the big hill south of Lakeside, rear lights on two cars ahead of me in the gloom veered to the left so I did too. Good thing. Here came an eighteen-wheeler semi…sliding backwards toward me. Then one of the cars spun out but there was room for me to go around him on the outside so I did. As I cautiously eased past the frustrated driver, he gave me that one digit signal that he believed to be the ultimate available insult. There was no way to understand why he was mad at me for being able to keep rolling when he was stuck. I laughed to myself and sent him a mental message, "Are you showing me your age…or your I.Q.?"

Now! Here's the best "Road Rage Story" of the year—

Earlier this fall a female driver on Interstate 15 in Salt Lake City deliberately drove into a blocked off lane to get around a 25-year-old male driver. As she came along side, she rolled down the window and screamed something at him. Whatever she said gave the fellow road rage so he gave her the one finger salute. This caused her to get "road rage" also so she pulled out a .357 Magnum and shot off the man's offending finger, then sped away.

A person can imagine all sorts of endings for this story. One of mine has the lady getting the address of her victim, apologizing, they fall in love, and she goes on to win the Olympic gold medal for being the best pistol shot in the world.

The actual ending isn't quite like that. Down the road a ways she crashed into a barricade, ruined her car, got arrested on multiple charges, went to jail and is likely going to be sued for every dime she has by a guy known as "Stubby."