Why we're wired to get angry behind the wheel

The word my father used to use was "simmer" as in"simmer down, son."

It seems to me there's a great deal of tension and anger among Ottawa's drivers, and not just the commuting ones, either.

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That anger seems to be there all thetime. To me, it seems like competitive behaviour. The roads are filled with people who need to chill, to perhaps take a step back from their rat race they're running and look at the big picture.

Sure, getting ahead of that car could save you 10-15 seconds. But stopping to pet a dog could eat that time up, ordropping your keys in the parking lot.

So why such fury over 15 seconds?

I decided to find out.

Designed to enrage

At theUniversity of Wisconsin-Green Bay there's a professor of psychology named Ryan Martin. I had many questions, and he had all the answers. He studies this stuff.

In fact, he's gone as far to say that if you were an evil genius and wanted to develop a situation guaranteed to make people angry, it would look a lot like driving.

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There arefour causes for that anger, Martinsays: tension, goal-blocking, unwritten rules and anonymous offenders.

There's tension, he says,because driving is potentially dangerous and it makes us nervous.Our heart rate increases, our muscles tense up basically, we'reprimed for anger.

Add to thatthe feeling you get when something gets in your way:this is the goal-blocking part.

We're going from A to B, and every red light, slow driver or reversing plow potentially gets us leaning on our hornsbecause our progress is being hindered.

'Inflammatory labelling'

The unwritten rules part involves all those things we swear by, but aren't necessarily law -- like the speed wefeel is appropriate.

When someone violates our personal, unwritten rules, Martin says, we'reoffended by the behaviour.

"Most people don't drive the speed limit. But how fast over the speed limit you go is one of those unwritten rules," he says.

"If you think you should drive five over, and that's OK, then the person driving the speed limit feels like an obstacle to you."

Often what happens next is we lash out, because and this is the anonymous offenders part now we're all isolated in our own vehicles, not dealing with others face-to-face.

It becomes much easier for you to react with aggression.- Ryan Martin

This makes it really easy for us to give another driver a labellike"complete idiot," even though, for all we know, they might be brilliant.

We also sometimes make assumptions about other drivers' motivations for instance, that they saw us and just don't care and when we do so, Martin says, the anger flows and it makes iteasy for us to hate them.

It's what he calls "inflammatory labelling."

"There's a level of social distance that exists while you're driving that makes it easier for people toreact that way," says Martin. "It becomes much easier for you to react with aggression."

So how do we change this behaviour? People need to simply decide to practise thinking differently about the world around them.Those changes require effort.

For me, it happened almost two years ago when I was passed on the right by another driver. My buddy Derek, who was sittingin the passenger seat,said, "Wow, if that's the kind of world you want, buddy you better go ahead."

Seems simple, but it changed my perspective forever.

Do you have a story about road rage on Ottawa-Gatineau's streets?Send us anemail.

This is part of CBC Ottawa's special seriesNowhere Fast, a look at how and why people commute in the capital region.

We'll be looking at the people, numbers and stories that are part of your daily tripto and from work.