Women More Prone to Road Rage

Driving And Aggression

City traffic has made driving a nightmare with increasing number of vehicles, traffic jams and unbearable pollution especially at peak hours. This turns even the most rational of us into aggressive, abusive, raging tyrants once we are behind the wheel. It is nort unusual to see people yelling, speeding, cutting off other cars and sometimes in the worst of rages, step out of the car and begin to figh. “Women are definitely more stressed out than men. They have to balance their high profile jobs as well as the home front. Stress leads to aggression on the road,” says psychologist Dr. Anjali Chabria.

Women today have become assertive; they have economic independence, but low frustration tolerance. Road rage is a kind of outlet that displaces the anger caused due to stress and strain. In addition aversion towards women drivers has been blown out of proportion and this too enrages them.


The common opinion is that women do not drive well. “Women don’t drive well. They lean forward and sit on the tip of the seat. They honk, shout, get irritated and use abusive language. Let us accept this fact that women simply are terrible drivers. Take a look at them when they are looking for space to park their cars. They do not follow traffic signals. They drive either to slow or too fast. They apply sudden brakes without even thinking,” says computer professional Mark Manuel.

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Both men and women have different ways of showing road rage. A man is more protective about his vehicle than his lady-love. He tends to get enraged if another driver, especially a woman, gets in his way. On the other hand, women have time-bound errands to finish- dropping children to school, picking them from school, going to office on time, buying groceries on their way back home. They have a lot of responsibilities on their head. So when they find that their time is running out, their reaction is more hyper than that of most men. They succumb to road rage and land in a dangerous driving situation much more frequently then the men.