![Post Post](./styles/prosilver/imageset/icon_post_target.gif)
"Emotionally neutral". Excellent way of putting it, zodacbrown. I think of other road users in the same way as I would any other hazard. You wouldn't get upset with a roundabout, or traffic lights, or even an unattended animal, if it didn't do what you wanted. So why would you get upset or involved with another road user?
Even if someone is tailgaiting you / being aggressive towards you / driving incredibly stupidly, there is nothing to gain by thinking of them as an individual person, because the truth is that your relationship with that individual should not last any longer or be any more involved than the relationship you have with any other hazard on the road. You don't know them and they don't know you, and they will be gone soon enough. If you need to take action to make them gone sooner (eg get out of their way, etc) then so be it.
Once I started seeing things this way, driving became a lot more pleasant for me. It was a real breakthrough moment, although to be fair, I was pretty calm before. My problems before I saw things this way were more around letting myself be intimidated by others.
Even if someone is tailgaiting you / being aggressive towards you / driving incredibly stupidly, there is nothing to gain by thinking of them as an individual person, because the truth is that your relationship with that individual should not last any longer or be any more involved than the relationship you have with any other hazard on the road. You don't know them and they don't know you, and they will be gone soon enough. If you need to take action to make them gone sooner (eg get out of their way, etc) then so be it.
Once I started seeing things this way, driving became a lot more pleasant for me. It was a real breakthrough moment, although to be fair, I was pretty calm before. My problems before I saw things this way were more around letting myself be intimidated by others.