Episode 023 - "Road Rage and Zipper Merging"

DLH, David, and Jaime discuss road rage and provide a public service announcement on zipper merging.

• Defining Road Rage
• Personal Experiences
• Road Rage Statistics
• Quick explanation of zipper merge
• Tips to avoid road rage or deescalate road rage.
• Verdict

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

If by some chance, some stroke of luck, or some act of God, you have stumbled upon this broadcast, you are listening to The Chivalry Chronicles with your host, Dr. DLH.

SPEAKER_01: 0:29

I'm a damn doctor!

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

David. We're going to bring the tea. I refuse to not drink during the podcast. Yeah. And me, Jaime. They need to make podcast equipment a lot more expensive to get some of these clowns off the air. Gather around as we discuss a modern manly approach to chivalry. So I hope you're ready because I know we are. So let's get into it. Oh, yeah. Yes. Finally back. You know, it's been a while. We've been after. Hold on. What? Did that guy just cut me off? That guy just cut me off. Man, what the hell? Hold up, man. I need to take care of this real quick. I'll be there in a little bit. Which gets us to our topic today. Kicking around ideas, talking to the guys, DLH, David. And we decided to do something on road rage. Perhaps I can do a quick... description of how to zipper merge because it feels like a lot of people don't know how to do that. Yeah, that's a cause for road rage. Especially here in San Antonio. So, David, do you have any thoughts on road rage? I mean, we can go through statistics. We can do however you want to do it. Define it first. David? I didn't know I was going to have to define this. I'll get back to your question, but I have a definition here pulled up anyway. Okay. So what is road rage? Road rage is very aggressive driving habits that are, that are extreme responses on the road. It generally includes violent or criminal behaviors committed by angry drivers who have the intent to cause harm to another driver. Sounds about right. Sounds about right. That's what I would have said. That's about right. Yeah. And, and, We want to distinguish road rage between that and just a traffic jam. When stuff is stopped and everybody's bumper to bumper, that's a traffic jam. We're talking about whenever it goes beyond that, when you get impatient and somebody cuts you off or somebody honks at you. I don't know why you get a visceral... reaction to somebody honking at you, it just, I don't know, it happens to me. If somebody honks at me, I'm like, what the hell? And then you look at the light, it's been green a while, you're like, all right, my bad. You raise a hand. But you acknowledge. Yeah. Right. A lot of people don't. Yeah. You see a finger, even like the window, a finger comes out the window, even though it's like, yo, I didn't mess up, you did. I was just alerting you that the light's been green for 35 seconds. Here's a funny story. Oh, hell. And it involves some road rage. On my part. Oh, shit. So I was probably 19 years... No, I was still in high school. So probably 16, 17-ish. I am in Amarillo cruising downtown. And it's me, a couple of my friends. I'm driving. And the downtown, like many downtowns and cities, they're one-way streets, right? So you usually have to recognize that... One street's going this way and the other street's going that way. So I'm at this light and I am ready to turn left. And across from me, I see a truck and this truck is honking at me and flashing its lights. And I thought it was just some random dude that wanted to start mess with me. So I'm getting all ticked off. I'm flipping them off. Wait a minute. How did it escalate so quickly though? Just because he was, he was like honking, like crazy. And I see his hand, like go out. I didn't see him flip me off, but I saw like his hand going out. Like what is this guy doing? So automatically. Yeah. So I, well, how do you know it was for you though? What if it was somebody for somebody, right? We were the only two. We were the only two at that. I was the only one. I was the only one heading, uh, And he was the only one heading west. And so I just see this truck that's honking and looking at me. There's a guy looking at me and his hands out the window and he's flashing the lights and honking the horn. And I'm just like, I'm throwing my middle finger up. And I'm like, man, what's up with this guy? The light turns green. I take a left. And as I'm taking a left, I'm flipping them off as I'm passing through, right? I'm going to have to call bullshit on you. No, no. So as I turn fully left and now pay attention to the southbound traffic or the northbound traffic, they're all pointing towards me, and I'm heading right at them. Oh, you're going the wrong way. Yeah. So luckily, there was a parking lot that I could quickly pivot into, and that's what I did. That happens downtown a lot. Yeah, and here's what made it even worse. So then that truck comes into that parking lot from the other side, and when he gets off the truck... It's one of my dad's best friends. Oh, my God. And he's like, David, what the fuck are you thinking? What are you doing? And I was like, oh, you're flipping me off, telling me I'm going to tell your dad. You know I'm going to tell your dad. I was like, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll do anything. Damn. You just screwed up all around. Yeah, I did. I did. Wow. That's some road rage. And from looking at the stats... Those under 19 years old males tend to... Under 19? Yeah, 19 and under are the most prone to road rage. Well, I think... Or to displaying road rage. Ah, man, that's an interesting stat. But I guess it's hard for me to... Well, I think that might be a stat within a stat, right? Because we talked about generational. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So just the ones that exhibit it the most... in terms of age are those 19 and under. On males, 19 and under. Those are the most that are prone to... Those are the most testosterone-filled people at that age. A little surplus of testosterone. Everybody's all... Wow. I don't even know how to follow up that story. DLH, do you have a story? If you have a story, then you can tell that. We'll go through some statistics. We'll go through some Actually, this kind of goes into traffic, right? Traffic engineering, that type of stuff. The reason that these things happen is you have a massive amount of cars and that street does not have the capacity for it. That's why it happens. What, you mean road rage? No. No. Traffic congestion, and then traffic congestion gets people impatient, and then that's when your road rage happens. Well, I also think that that's exacerbated by something. And I know you said we'll get into zipper merging, right? But let's say, for instance, that there's an area, and this isn't like on-ramp on a highway, but more like a small street. And and the street is going from two lanes down to one, not because of construction, but even if it was construction, it has to go down to one. Yeah. And then everyone sees it coming up and they start to move over into the single lane. And then you got someone who's like, oh, look, an opportunity to stay in the empty lane until they get all the way to the front. When you see everyone has moved over. Right. And if everyone's in a hurry. So we think rush hour. But we're all trying to do things because we all got places to be. But then you got somebody, the a-hole, that's coming all the way up and like, you know what the hell you're doing. And then you piss everybody else off. And the way that that presents itself is they all lose patience. And then you see drivers start to move in partially to the other lane so no one can do that anymore. And then everything becomes me first mentality. And then once you get past the me first mentality, right, then every additional light stoppage or other person who cuts them off becomes… It intensifies that, I think. That's how I view it. Anyway. That's how you view what? That's how I view the progression of, we'll say, justified anger leading to misplaced aggression or violence. Okay. I think it builds. Okay. And some of the times, like even when you get somebody aggressively driving on the highway who, as they drive, cut you off and pass you off or stick in the finger or whatever it is. When you may be like, what did I do? I've just got here. Right. Yeah. And they're going through, I still think that that has been an accumulating aggression throughout their commute, wherever they're going. You just happen to take that one gesture from them. Right. And they're mid commute. So it builds when, when, when you have two lanes margin and a one, um, what you're supposed to do is fill up both lanes. I think what most people do is just what you described is that they look ahead. They're like, Oh, I got to get over in that. I got to get over and I got to get over as soon as possible. That's not what it's supposed to do. You're actually slowing down traffic even more because you're, you're bringing it down to one, one lane way before it needs to. What you need to do is take both lanes and, and fill them up. Write them to the end. Write them to the end. And then it's a give and go, right? You let the guy in front of you go, then you go. And it's a, there has to be a conscious effort to like, you go. Okay, then I'll go. Then he goes. Then it, it has to do that. And it speeds up because I, it's supposed to speed. And actually I read somewhere because I was doing a little bit of research. I think it's, it, It speeds it up by 40% if you just do... It was something like what would normally take 30 minutes doing the wrong way would carve out almost 15 minutes of that commute. Yeah, and so... But are you basing this on something? Yes. Like it speeds up traffic. Yes. Is this something you read somewhere? Is it in your knowledge as a civil engineer? Civil engineer, yes. Okay. Yeah, because a professional. It's implied. He's an engineer. No, but we've got to say it. Why do you have to say professional? You know why. Here's why. Because my title is actually professional engineer. That's where the P-E is. On your business card, it says professional engineer? It's Jaime Noriega, P-E, which is professional engineer. Really? That's what that stands for? Yeah. Oh, all right. I actually have a license. Yeah, which is great. I just didn't know professional was in your title. Yes. Yes. So just so all the audience, like I actually have professional in my title. I didn't just make it up. Yeah, exactly. But I just figured that if I'm calling you, like if you're an engineer and you're employed as one, I just figured that the professional was. Well, it's a license and a lot of people, mostly engineers. All civils get their PE license. Mechanicals, electrical, all those guys don't really need it. They don't need the seal plans for the most part. Some still do, right? But if you work at NASA or whatever, you don't need the license. It does nothing. Shit, that's where you would think they would need a license. Well, they don't need to seal anything. You know what I'm saying? So it's just, from my experience, most civils don't. just go get their license because we actually do land development stuff and stuff for the city. But we did take classes on traffic engineering. Traffic engineering is a subset of civil, right? Right, I would assume, yeah. And I'm not a traffic engineer. Traffic engineering deals with level of service. They take every street in the city and they give you a level of service. It's either A, B, C, or D. It depends on how thick the pavement is, what kind of... Cars are on it. Is it big trucks? How wide is it? And that's what I was saying earlier. The reason congestion happens is because you have a huge amount of cars on that road, and that road, the capacity isn't for that amount of cars. Every street in San Antonio and everywhere, each street is designed for a certain load, right? Like local streets, collectors, expressways, they all have a certain amount of vehicles that they can have on it. So congestion happens when you have more than that street can hold. So anyway, I was looking through Zip Emerging because it's an interesting topic to me. And I always, anytime I see an article about it, I found two things. tweets from like five and six years ago where I'm like, yes, you know, people need to know this. And yeah, it, it's supposed to work that way. It's that's why it's called the zipper. I think zipper merge. I do think that this, and you're right. Interesting topic. I think because this is an issue that is like you, you ever heard when people give, um, This sort of cliche, there are two types of people in the world, right? And there's your fill-up two-lane zipper merge, and there's a merge early. Right. And if you're saying that... One is right and one is wrong. Right, okay. And exactly, but if you ask the people, I think that they would, even without maybe proper statistics or anything like that, would still defend merge early. Well, and they would be wrong. Now, I'm going to tell you right now, the two articles that I... Well, one was an article that I tweeted out like four or five years ago. The other one was a Minnesota Department of Transportation. And I'm pretty sure TxDOT also has a video about zipper merging. Because they're saying, this is how it's supposed to work. Those people aren't being a-holes. It's supposed to work this way. I think you should link that into the podcast info. The one that I... that I tweeted out was from Minnesota. I just thought it was a great video because I came home and I told my wife, I was like, look, see, it is a big deal because she didn't disagree with it, but she was like, I didn't know that. I just thought... Because I think a lot of people don't know. So this is a public service announcement from your local. So this was something that I came across. It may have been the same article. So the Institute for Transportation Research and Education partnered with North Carolina, right? And what they looked at is zipper merges. And ultimately, they had the potential to significantly reduce traffic backups up to 50%. Yep. Now, within that, one of the things that they also did, and it may not have been this specific one, but there were multiple states that kind of worked on messaging. And they did something as simple as put zipper merge ahead. And just simple signage to... let everybody know this is the way of the world. That would be helpful. And it worked. It worked. But it's weird because we don't see those often, and you would think with all the orange cones out and everything else that they have up, that they would throw a damn sign that says something as simplistic as that more commonly. There is a sign that looks like a zipper. I mean, the name is perfect. Like, you cannot get a better name. For that process, right? Right, yeah. When you say zipper merge, why the hell would you get in early? Like, you don't know how to dress. You know what I'm saying? Your zipper's broken. Maybe they break zippers all the time. Hey, they're all button fly.

SPEAKER_01: 17:31

Maybe

SPEAKER_00: 17:34

they're button fly. What about when somebody who's, I don't know, maybe they're a merge early person. And then they see you coming up in the empty lane, and then they start getting aggressive to come over into that lane. Is that where you're going to get out of your car and tell them, hey, listen, zipper merge? No, what I do is I go around. You go around, but that goes into oncoming traffic. No, no, no. Well, it depends on which way zipper merging. The way that I thought about it, it happens here on 281 all the time, where it's usually the left lane. The instances that I've came across. And I would go around those people. And it's not my fault that you don't know what you're doing. And I think there is enough awareness out there. I mean, I see it all the time. Maybe because I'm an engineer and I do kind of follow TxDOT and I follow all these different agencies or organizations that do that. But Anytime it comes up, I make sure to tell people, you are supposed to do that. You are supposed to go to the end. Because that dude got onto me one day. She's like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm going to the end. She's like, you're not supposed to. I was like, no, you are supposed to do that. This is what the whole point of this. So, people out there, our readers, I mean our readers, our listeners... Zipper merge. Okay. Simple. But so getting into the road rage aspect of this, you feel strongly as a driver about the correct way to do that. Yes. Someone else who's a merge early is not quite envisioning the zipper the way it's supposed to work. Right. But they are hell bent on holding their ground.

SPEAKER_01: 19:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:29

Right. And then they see enough people from your camp, but they're holding ground for their camp. No, you say it all the time. Yeah, where they stop traffic. And then they start getting pissed at each other. Especially the more traffic there is, the more angry they get. Yeah. And then things get into a rational part. I think that's where road rage happens. No, absolutely. I think you get impatient. So maybe this podcast will kind of spread the message, right? The zipper merge. The gospel. The gospel of the zipper merge. There needs to be... a hand signal for zipper merging? I think we need to come up with one. The problem is you can't do it with one hand. Well, you can't do it with hands at all because if you try to use any hand gesture... That's cutting. I just cut you. But if you do any gesture in a car that can be construed as anything other than a wave of thanks, they're going to think you're trying to flip them off. It doesn't matter what you do with your hand. They're going to be like, oh... F me, no, F you. Just so the listeners know, I'm just putting his hands over his head like a safety. You know what? You should put together a really large zipper so that every time you zip, you just have that as an LED or something. Have it hanging from a rear view mirror. I was just talking next to the dice. I was just talking this morning about about this like to a side not that like reading a lot is you know advisable while you're driving but if you could have one of those running message things that's at the front and the back of your car right that like a scroll thing yes it scrolls with words and you keep it simple so if like somebody's tailgating you you say something like it's Sunday buddy chill out oh my god get off my ass like something like that I saw a bumper sticker when I was going to a meeting and I was leaving the meeting and there was a car right there and it says and I guess they work there because I've seen it. I've noticed it one day and then I just see it every time I go. But it said, do you follow Satan this closely? And I was like, Satan, is that you? Like, why would you have that sticker on there? So if you had in the front this, it'll just show you a graphic of a zipper, right? And it starts, you just put zipper. So I'm curious, DLH, did you not subscribe to the zipper merge or were you early on? Are you the early... No, I know fundamentally how a zipper works. Okay. But I'm also somebody who's drama-averse, so I pay attention to... For me, if I see early on that looking up ahead, there's somebody who's already partially in the other lane, that tells me that that driver either can't drive straight or they've already been pissed off by someone, so I'm less inclined to do that. Now, if the line is incredibly long... I'm not going to get in that line because I know it's going to block traffic behind me, but I won't go all the way to the front either. I'll just sort of Get front-ish. Oh, man. So you're straddling the fence like you do most of the time on this podcast. That's exactly it. I'm just trying to keep the peace. We need a definitive answer from you for once in your life. I'm trying to keep the peace and make it home alive is really it. And the more we go through life, we start seeing that there are just some crazy people out there that will– Defend something that doesn't need to be defended in a way that is just far too aggressive. You're the non-aggressive driver. You get out of your car, he's like, I see your point, and I see your point. No, that's the thing. I'm not going to be ambivalent. Everything that I do, I think, when I'm driving is a decisive driver, but I'm not an aggressive one. But I'm also not somebody who's going to be— But you just said that what somebody's doing in front of you dictates what you do. And like I said, it depends on the totality, though, because if there's a way to kind of get around that up ahead and I think it's going to be the bigger benefit for everyone, then I'll try my best to do that. Okay. Right. Unless that driver starts showing a little more aggression because I'm just not trying to get into some shit over like we're just trying to get wherever we're going. Right. And I'm behind DLH saying, what the hell is Duncan? Make a decision. Let's go. When I'm in the car, and I do that all the time, when I'm in the car, I'm yelling all of these obscenities and things or whatever, but that's as far as I go with it. I yell the obscenities. And something that's been helpful, I think, for me, this was a really interesting perspective, and I tried it in the– We'll say the realm of stoicism, right? Which might be a podcast for another time. But when you are trying to calm yourself based on what's happening around you, if you just assume that the other driver who just pulled an asshole-ish move has a legitimate reason to do so. Maybe there's an emergency they're trying to get to. Maybe there's a particular reason why they're trying to hurry up and rush through. And if I just, in the moment, convince myself of that, there's no way I'm going to know that for sure. But I think it winds up being better for your remaining in a state of patience than assuming that's just another asshole going through. Because then you start amping yourself up, too. And then you're more inclined to. Well, that's why we're spreading the gospel of the zipper merge. I have a couple of stories, right? And back to road rage. And this is me just trying to go home, right? I got off of work. It's 545. And I'm trying to get on from where I was to on the highway, right? And so there's only a finite amount of space to merge in. And this guy is on the lane next to me. And he's not letting me in, right? He's not speeding up or slowing down. And I'm about to run out of road. So I slow down, I slow down, let him go forward and I get behind him and then I get to the left lane and then I pass him up. Right. I didn't do anything. I didn't, you know, give him the stink eye. None of that. I just slow down, got behind him, got over to the left lane, passed him up. Well, this guy felt like I did something wrong. Oh, you're going to show me up. Yes. And so he speeds up and then he goes to the, cause this it's three lanes. Now he goes to the furthest right lane, gets in front of that guy. And then he comes all the way over and gets in front of me. Right. And so I'm like, what are you doing, bro? Like, and so, because now I thought this was fun. I got over the middle lane, sped up and then got ahead of him again. And we did this for the better part of like six miles. And this guy's getting more and more angry. Like he is flipping me off. He is like yelling. He's doing the angry fist. And you're just playing leapfrog. It was the craziest thing. And now I'm having fun, right? Because I'm like, you know, this brings a little bit of excitement. You know, it's been a rough day. And so I pass him up. So we keep passing each other. And I was like, man, your truck can't. And he had a truck, too. I was like, your truck can't keep up, bro. And so I pass him up one last time. And then this time I flipped him off. And then I went all the way right and got off of my exit and left. And this guy's like, bro, he's about to, if he had a gun. Follow you. Yeah. Well, that's what you got to watch out for. Yeah. There's a lot of people, especially here in Texas. And that's the other story. Yeah. My coworker, which we all know, he's also a brother, comes into work, and he's like, hey, bro, I just got a gun pulled on me because he thought I cut him off. I was like, what? It was in that same area that this freaking psycho, it's probably the same guy for all I know, but yeah, he said the guy pulled up next to him and flashed a gun and pointed it at him, and of course, you do what most people would be like, you know, like, Sorry. I don't even want to be on the street. Nope, my bad. Isn't this how that movie Falling Down starts? Road Rage? Yeah, it is about Road Rage. That's where it starts, but then he goes way off the rails. All the way, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and unfortunately, like this stuff, it gets crazy. I know there's a friend of the family who recently, and by recently, I mean like only two months ago, was... in a road rage incident. I don't know exactly what happened, but clearly they either cut each other off or whatever, but the friend of the family pulled off to the side, the other person followed them, and then the guy who followed him shot him, the family friend, and he died. So... No, that... There was a... It happened here in Central, and it was actually on 35, and same thing. And... They shot two people. It was the driver and then the passenger just by chance because he shot so many times at the car. But that was at 2 a.m. So that to me is a little bit more on the level that stuff like that happens a little bit more. People have been drinking a little bit more and doing that. But yeah, here's something that would work that I've tried personally that I was surprised that it worked when you're in traffic and... it's bumper to bumper or it's rush hour, you know, you're late to work and all that stuff. Classical music. Right. Yeah. Put on classical music and you just get in it. You're like, yeah, but you know, this is a quick story here. I got picked up by an Uber one day that I came back to San Antonio off a work trip and it's around the three o'clock timeframe. This guy has classical music playing and, It was a peaceful drive the whole way. Didn't really seem like he wanted to talk, and I'm fine with that half the time. So it was just a quiet, peaceful ride all the way home. But every now and then, he was exhibiting gestures that you could see he was getting upset. So somebody... Merged over or something. Imagine if he didn't have the freaking classical music. Yeah. Well, maybe that's why he plays it. That's his. But here's, here's where it really gets, uh, where, where it heated up. We then get to the, to the road that starts leading into my house. So we're now off of four 10 and on water's edge road. And there's a school there. Schools had just let out. So everybody's just kind of at a standstill as kids are crossing the street and so forth. And this guy is just like, making all this thing and hitting his steering wheel a couple times. And I'm like... What the heck is... What's up with this dude? That guy has anger issues. Yeah, he had to have. And he shouldn't be an Uber driver. No, I got probably. I gave him my three stars. I didn't say anything because at the same time you're at the mercy, you're in the back seat. It's like, you can't just drive out of the room. An Uber passenger just got shot. Exactly. Exactly. He needs to do the horse carriage downtown. I fully subscribe. I mean, I don't put on classical music, but whenever I am in traffic and I recognize that there are just too many people people that i you know wind up yelling dumb ass right like all this stuff i play otis redding and otis otis redding for me is a way it takes everything down shout and then i and then i stop i stop rushing yeah i just yeah accept it right that you can be in traffic no i did i did share this with you guys earlier but uh 66 percent of traffic fatalities are caused by aggressive driving So some form of road rage, right? Or not necessarily defined as road rage altogether, right? No, I think that can lead to road rage. Yes. But 37% of aggressive driving incidents involve a firearm. And then... That kind of goes back. Yeah, that has to be. Yeah, but you got to get there, right? So the 66%, this is Jaime on the road playing leapfrog. Yes. Right? When you start weaving in and out of traffic in order to get ahead of somebody, you increase the chances an accident will occur. Yeah, absolutely. And now you got two or even three people. I know y'all been on the road sometimes on the highway, and it seems like this small cluster of cars, almost like they're together. Yeah. are like zooming past you, right? But they're all racing now because they're in their own road rage emerging incident. And they're all going past and it's like, I want no part of that. Let me just stay out the way. Absolutely. Now, yeah. Like, so when, when stuff like that happens, I'd like, that's when I'm like, where the hell, where the hell the cops at? You know what I'm saying? These guys that ha that happened yesterday. I was coming home from work and this guy was going, he had to been going over 95 miles an hour. Because on this highway, I was going 75, and this guy just, like, zoomed right past me, like, fast. And then he just kind of tried to weave through traffic. And I'm like, man, you're about to hit the freaking mall, and this is going to come down to zero. So I was fully expecting to see a huge freaking accident. But, I mean, it's stuff like that. I mean... I did it because I thought it was fun. But kids, don't do that. I also saw how Mondays, Fridays, evenings are where the magic happens for road rage. Those are the magical hours. And it makes a lot of sense. It's whenever congestion is the highest. You're getting off of work. You're frustrated. Maybe you had a hard day. There's all things of life. Frustrated before you even get on the road. Exactly. Exactly. One other thing you could do to kind of deescalate the road rage is listen to us. Listen to a podcast. You know, we talked about the classical music, but I mean, I think if you just listen to us every time you go home. It'll do better for your- Yeah, especially the early episodes when DLH was whispering. Whispering. I'm happy to- You may fall asleep, though, so don't do that. I'm happy to lull you into calmness while you're in your car, right? So in giving real suggestions, right? Because this is a real issue, especially where guns- You gave a statistic- Dave, using guns in road rage incidents, but it's also currently rising. The amount of people that are using gun violence in road rage incidents is on the rise. Well, yeah, and I believe that those stats too are violence. They merge. They zipper merge. Trump couldn't say criminals. He's like, people of crime. People of crime. Jaime, I think you're the one who mentioned this one. 96.6%, so roughly 97% of road rage incidents. are committed by men. By men. So I'm assuming that largely our audience is men. 88%. Which is largely, right? Depends how many are raging. That's the thing. If you're one of these people that doesn't correctly zipper merge, do it correctly and I think that'll already reduce stress. Correct. Play traveling music that you know isn't going to get you more quickly incensed. Why, simple things? Do you know what incense means? I think I saw a little look of confusion. It's going to make you mad faster.

SPEAKER_01: 35:58

Well,

SPEAKER_00: 35:59

here's the thing. The music I listen to gets you there pretty quickly. It's usually hip-hop or metal and not that music. But that's music I love, so it makes me happy. Right, as long as it makes you happy. But don't play, you know, like... Move, bitch, get out the way. That's a perfect commute song. Well, that's on every freaking traffic report. It's a really good song, too. We were, I don't know, last year or a couple of months ago, we had finished a podcast, right? And we're in the deck. Over here outside in the house, we were all smoking a cigar, having a drink, just talking about, hey, you know, that was a good topic, whatever. And I was playing music. And then DLH looks at me and he's like, man, what is this? I feel aggressive right now. I was like, that was Megadeth. Yeah, that's right. I feel all worked up and shit. He goes, man, you need to change that. We're supposed to be mellow. I was like, I was fine. I just want to yell at somebody. I thought that was freaking hilarious. I was like, I guess so. But yeah, it's... Choose them. Classical music works because I've tried it. I read that a long time ago and I was like, you know, I'm going to try it. And on the way to work, I put on classical music and I was like, I do feel lighter. Lighter, yeah. Like, you know, it's like raindrops keep falling. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And I think if you just, and if you're not like, if you really, if maybe classical makes somebody mad, I guess ultimately find whatever music, you know, is going to help you feel calm and happy. Yeah. Right. And I mean, I've been in a car with my wife and I'm usually, you know, patient, forgiving, you know, that type of stuff. I was like, Hey, just get over, bro. No big deal. Right. Fine. And then something will happen. Then my wife is like, Oh, what? Honk at the guy and she'll reach over and I'm like, do not. Do not reach over. Do not honk my horn. I will pull this car over. But she has done that. I'll have to grab her hand and be like, no, we're not doing that. And you got to do like you do with the kids. Don't make me pull this car over. I was like, we don't need no. Yeah, we didn't mention those stats that women weren't involved. Yeah. It happens. It happens. But I think my wife is quick. Quick with the horn. I'm not. There was a road rage incident, but they were both in the same car. I was like, what are we looking at? Anything else, David? I know you told us your crazy ass story, which I was like, no way. I have a few of those. I even had it 14 years old. I wasn't the one that exhibited the road rage, but I almost got Really? Yeah. And I pulled out into that street, and I turned on that street. And then next thing you know, these two motorcycles, a husband and a wife or his girlfriend or something, they blocked my door with their motorcycle. And the guy gets off of his, and... he's like right at the driver's side door and he's what the F and blah, blah, blah. And like yelling at me. And he's like, get out, get out, get out of the car. Well, luckily I had went to that convenience store multiple times in the, the, the employee that was working was a regular. So he recognized me and then he went outside and he's all leave that guy alone. He's freaking 15 years old. Leave him alone. And, uh, the guy left, but he was like, you better watch where you're going. I mean, I understand his side of it, but, but yeah, you're, you're 14, 15. I usually, if it's somebody young, cause you know, when my daughter started driving, I, I'm going to tell you this right now, when my daughter started driving and even when my son, he just started driving this year, right? I will not watch them leave the house. If we're going to, if we're leaving at the same time, I'll let them go first or I'll take off way before them because I don't know if I don't want them anywhere around me, but I just seeing them like gives me anxiety. Watching them leave gives me anxiety because I'm like, Oh, that turns a little wide. You

SPEAKER_01: 41:00

know,

SPEAKER_00: 41:00

you're not in a semi slow down, you know? So it's just, um, So I can see that. So when I see... I know those bumper stickers are kind of dumb, like a new driver. I forgot what are they. You've seen those? Yeah. Be patient, new driver. Yeah. I think they're kind of dumb. But when I see them, I'm like, cool. But you back off some. Yes. I'm like, this kid is... Because I know... I told my kids when they learned how to drive, I said, look, if somebody honks at you, don't overreact. Like, just... Do what you're doing. If you're going slow, stay going at speed. Don't speed up. Don't react to honking. Just be calm. You know what I'm saying? Don't take off just because somebody honked at you or anything like that. Just don't worry about that. Right before they go out the door, Letty gives them her own honk, honk, honk. You tell that. But yeah, what sucks about it is that when they experience it because they're new drivers. I mean, my son who, like I just said, started driving like in January, December ish, like actually driving like with, you know, with the license and all that. He's like, dad, this guy just got behind me. He thought I cut him off and he followed him into the subdivision. And he said, I didn't come home. I drove around the neighborhood until, you know, he kind of settled down. And then I came home. I was like, I mean, that was good. Yeah, that's really good. That's smart play. Yeah. So those bumper stickers, even though they're kind of silly, they do work. Yeah, because I was going to ask you, considering they work, but you said they're dumb, do you have like an alternative to offer? No. When I first saw it, it's like the baby on board one. I just kind of have an issue with that. I mean, when I see the baby on board, I'm like, okay, you kind of do the same thing. It's just kind of cheesy. They're effective. They are effective. I will say that because when, if I see a kid, I say kid, if I see this new driver and they're doing something odd, like they're kind of swerving, then I'm not as quick to go. You give them the benefit of the doubt, right? Just because you're learning or whatever, you're distracted or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty like, um, if it does something, if they're going slow, I'm like, okay, that's either an old person, um, Or a lady. Or someone on their phone. Yeah, so I wanted to bring up that because we haven't talked about it, but I'm curious what both of your thoughts are on does having a cell phone in today's world equate to more road rage or less? Certainly more traffic accidents. I think that, you know, like I have been in a... car accident because somebody on their phone ran into uh our car damn um now let me tell you the the potential i'd like to think that i could keep a cooler head but this car who was a it was a younger uh driver he was somewhere between let's say 1922 somewhere in there he was on his phone um his light was green he was turning left but he did not have a protected arrow and our Our light was green, right? So you just wait, almost like a yield, right? But he ran into the driver's side of the car right next to SI's door. And luckily, because he hadn't picked up enough speed, it damaged the car. The car was no longer drivable. But if he were going any faster and that had caused... you know, like SI's death or something like that, would I be able to maintain? I have no, I have no clue. Right. So, uh, yeah. Like driving while, uh, on your phone and all that other stuff. Big problem. Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, I just, I just found the, the, the stat that I had saw, uh, the percentage of drivers manipulating handheld electronic devices increased by 82%. Uh, Oh, never mind. That's not the one that I was looking for. What the hell? Totally fake news. Either way, if you just do a quick Google search yourself, you will see that the distractibility that is caused by using a phone while driving drastically increases your chances of being in an accident. If you're doing it while... you know, driving and it, uh, is distracting you the way that we know it does, then could it lead to road rage? Yeah. I would say it's going to likely increase the chances that that happens because if another driver gets pissed off that you're not doing what you should be doing, and then they see on top of that, that you're not doing what you should be doing because you're on your phone, um, they're going to be more likely to be angry. Yeah. And I will tell you now, like, I'm not somebody who I think is, uh, prone to like outward gestures. Most of the time I keep it in the car. When I see someone on their phone and they're weaving for, and they're like, uh, entering another lane. And then I can see that they're using their phone. I will honk. And that's the only time I'd like honk and just like, and I'll give them pay attention to the road, uh, because existing road rage, uh, You didn't have a road rage story. This is about as close as I get right there. And I'm like, pay attention to the road. Put your damn phone down. I got my eye on you, fucker. I say this to the kids all the time because there'll be some people that like, even when you're on a residential street and someone, they don't have a blinker on and they're just sort of hovering in the intersection. And you're like, what are you doing? Listen to the classical. And they're on their phone. And I'm like, they're probably trying to figure out where they need to go. But pull your ass over, figure it out, and then start moving again. So anyway, you want to catch me in a road rage, that's going to be it. You sound real aggressive right now. I know. I am. You got a little worked up. Like I'm listening to Megadeth. You got the little bead of sweat working up. Working up. All right. So to sum it all up, okay, because at some point we need to– we need to board approve something, right? So we talked about road rage. We talked about zipper merging, and we talked about tactics to how to kind of deescalate it. Did you, so first of all, as a public service announcement, zipper merge, look it up. We will post a video about zipper merging. Do it. It helps. You're supposed to go all the way to the end. You're not being an a-hole. Take it from me. Right. Is it a strategy for reducing road rage? Yes. I think we need to figure out what percentage of the population. Well, because if you do it, it speeds up traffic. Okay. And if it speeds up traffic, what is the best feeling? Whenever you're like, it opens up, you know, like everything's down to like two lanes. And then that's the best feeling. Like right as soon as you get past that, that accident or whatever. And then that was like six lanes. What if we just gave a friendly amendment to this and said, use both lanes so that you can properly zipper merge. But in the event that you see an already overly aggressive driver up front, you zipper merge both. Behind that aggressive driver. Negative. Ghostwriter. Don't be wrong because someone else is wrong. A negative times a negative equals a positive. Again. You're contributing to more road rage because you're slowing it even more. Just because this idiot doesn't know what he's doing. I don't know. All the people who were merged all the way on the right may not I agree with that. This is what I'm saying. This is why I tell you. I think that you're less likely to get the masses to automatically comply with this particular one. Well, this is my attempt to get people to comply. Yeah, on the PSA. Okay. I think we can agree on the PSA that the PSA should be learn how to zipper merge. That's why we're going to post it. Yeah, I could board approve that. All right. Yeah. Learn how to zipper merge. The other one was play tranquil or happy music. Yeah. Yes. Listen to classical music. Listen to our podcast. Laugh a little bit. Laugh at David. That's easy to do. The other things you could do is maybe if you know it's going to be an hour, maybe take off a little bit earlier. Plan a little bit better. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, if you have the ability to do that. Yeah. Or just plan ahead, right? Plan ahead. If you know what's going to be your most calm commute back home, because you know, especially if you know traffic's coming, try and put yourself in a position where you're just going to accept the traffic's coming. Right. And then, you know, be patient, be courteous, let the guy in front of you go. Now, let one go. don't let everybody go. Cause that shit pisses me off too. Don't, don't, don't get walked all over. Yeah. You just let everybody like, bro, I'm okay with you letting one dude. I get it. You know, But now you're letting everybody in. Now I got to sit here and watch you let everybody in. Well, that's the New York City mentality too, right? You let one person on the bus ahead of you if you get in on the bus or in the subway or whatever. But if you keep on letting everyone go through, traffic is constant. You'll be sitting at the door all damn day. That's not a zipper merge. That's not a zipper merge. It's not. It's just about taking turns, right? Let somebody through for courteousness. Yeah, it's a give and take. But then take your turn. As a We need a give and take, right? You go, they go. You know, it has to be a very understood thing. And I think that's a problem. A lot of people don't know. And the people that do know get really frustrated with the people that don't know. And now you know. You heard it here first. Okay, so you guys added a lot of context to that. We need a concise word of approval. Learn how to zipper merge. If that's it. Then you have my vote. Otherwise. Okay. So road rage. Don't do it. Zipper merge. And listen to classical music and our podcast. And our podcast. Yeah. All right. Okay. Board approved. Oh, shit. That was loud.

UNKNOWN: 52:08

There's a hole over here.

SPEAKER_00: 52:12

So thanks again, and we'll see you next time.