It's All the Rage!

Whether you are one of Mikey Schultz's sparring partners or a nun, every person who has a drivers licence in this country and has commandeered some form of a vehicle is guilty of road rage. It could be a simple, subtle grimace and curling of the top lip at a cyclist taking up an entire lane or a truck driver hurtling down a quiet suburban road, just the smallest of transgressions induce paroxysms of expletives. We've all driven down that ugly road of rage. The assault of a pedestrian at the hands of a taxi driver in Bloemfontein recently was yet another confirmation of why South Africans are among the worst road ragers in the world. Could it be our long-held culture of violence, often repressed under repeated calls for simunye-ness and cliched delusions of us living under a rainbow, which leave us with few forms of cartharsis apart from moering the crap out of a fellow-driver who failed to indicate? Is our underlying hatred of each other, that subconscious racism, xenophobia and misogynism, which fuels our conscious rage? It's a bit of everything. And it's made worse by that good old South African complex of entitlement. We all feel entitled to something, whether it is a job, a house, land; we all feel we deserve these things. On paper we do, no matter who you are, a poephol, rapist or corrupt civil servant or a Salvation Army volunteer and tree-hugger - our basic demand is for any of the above-mentioned things or at the very least a promise. But amid this climate of 'I-deserve-everything-no-mater-what', entitlement now extends to roads. The minute we step into out cars and mini-buses, onto our scooters and bicycles, the road becomes ours, our own personal domain, to be used by no one but ourselves. If you are a Capetonian, there is the double-entitlement of thinking you needn't employ even the most basic road and driving rule because you live 'In the most beautiful city in the world'. Gone is the indicator, sense of direction and basic intelligence. A Capetonian motorist's sense of utilising something mechanised becomes marred by that fucking mountain, a strange accent and the ocean. In Joburg, the exact opposite occurs. The second a Joburger gets behind the wheel it's go, go go, and Jah help you if you get in my way! Aggression is as necessary for Joburg road users as a licence is (although a licence is optional, these days). So, how is it such a violent display of road rage as seen by that now infamous Bloemfontein taxi man occurred in that sleepy, nowhere town, where I should imagine the only signs of true anger come when the Cheetahs lose a match. We all 'own' the roads, technically. It's our taxes which pay for their construction and upkeep (except in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, where it seems the money is best spent on keeping roads as kak as possible). I fear with the new swear word of 2102, e-tolling, and constant threats of it being implemented beyond Gauteng (that healthy hotbed of road madness) we can expect further road rage on a national scale. I see even pensioners alighting from their Honda Ballades, canes at the ready, poking motorists irritated by their insistence at driving in the 'fast lane' at 20 km/h. They'll be joined by taxi drivers, knobkierries in hand attacking a Sandton priss in her Mini Cooper in rush hour traffic applying make-up while in transit. Expect traffic cops to break the sound barrier at news of Debonairs two-for-one pizza special Wednesdays. Why? Because we all apparently own the roads and this entitles us to ignore most road rules, drive like morons, beat each other up, scream, shout, curse, flip the bird and spit. But fellow-motorists, when strangled by that familair sense of rage when on our roads, stop to think for a second where it stems from, what its origins could be. If you get bored at pontificating on the origins of anger, then alternatively aim your ire at yourself and stop for a second to possibly realise - maybe you are part of the problem. Just like that pedestrian, nudged by the Bloem taxi man and subsequently kicked into virtual uncosciousness because he shouldn't have been jay-walking at such a leisurely pace in the first place. Just like the taxi driver who, no doubt has been the perpetrator of far worse traffic transgressions, he's equally as guilty. Both are the problem, along with millions of other road-users. We're all a little kak behind the wheel, on our motorbikes, bicycles, in our trucks, buses, in our shoes and on horse carts. We are all guilty of bad driving and road rage.