Stress and anxiety could happen to anyone on any day and under any circumstances. Anyone who lives in the big city would probably know that by heart. As in a familiar scenario, you may start the day arguing with a family member, or your boss complains about your performance at work. Not to mention spending half of each day behind the wheel, fighting your way through heavy rush-hour gridlock and the heat of the day, these types of things really test your patience.
Because under these influences you feel frustrated and angry. In fact, you might feel like you could easily explode if just one more thing happens. While some of us may have an ability to control our temper toward the situation, unfortunately there are many who are unable to. For some reason, these angry people are always seething and always ready to explode when things do not go their way. These people speed up to beat red lights, they tailgate you, they honk their horns constantly because they think you're driving too slow, and they never hesitate to provide other drivers with the "middle finger" salute -- how rude. And yes, there's a name for it: road rage.
According to the Ministry of Transport, road rage is defined as "aggressive or violent behaviour stemming from a driver's uncontrolled anger at the actions of another motorist". Road rage is said to be one of the main causes of traffic accidents and violent confrontations between angry drivers, which we see almost daily on the news and social media.
And the latest king of road rage in the public's mind recently is none other than Rachata Wangitcharoensuk, a young man who's been dubbed "the four-eyed hothead". The man made headlines from his road-rage outburst on Aksa Road two weeks ago.
Rachata became the nation's most-hated man in a single day after the other motorist Nanthawat shared footage of him shouting and screaming online. Rachata not only offended and physically attacked the disputant, he went over the top by allegedly making negative remarks about all Thai people and the country, and even insulted the high institution. The two clips that Nanthawat posted went viral, and Rachata was soon heavily criticised on social media.
Rachata along with his parents later came out to apologise to the media and claimed that his son suffers from depression, and that he forgot to take his medication the night prior. Plus he studied overseas for a long time, causing him a lack of good understanding of Thai culture.
Of course, nobody was hurt by this incident, and Rachata probably ended up being fined a couple thousand baht for his actions, and he would eventually get away with it. But the incident raised a few questions left to answer, such as what will be the decisive measure to punish those with road rage and aggressive driving behaviour on the road? Why did his parents allow him to drive when they knew that he's sick? And is it always OK to just blame it on the mental health every time someone loses their temper on the road and causes damage to others?
This kind of story sort of reminded me of another case a few years back of Kanpitak "Moo Ham" Patchimsawat, son of a high-profile businessman who assaulted a bus driver before ploughing his Mercedes into a crowd of people at a bus stop, killing one woman and injuring seven others. The parents of Moo Ham also said their son could not control himself due to mental illness.
Dr Dusadee Juengsirakulwit, director of the Rajanagarindra Institute of Child Development, said that it's not fair to blame the sickness, and that mental illness should never be cited to explain why someone behaved badly or even committed crimes. People need to look at each case and each action differently, and try not to judge people who suffer from mental illness as a whole, as doing so can lead to more discrimination against them.
While we're still waiting for enforcers and other authorities to follow up on the issue, we know that there are so many other drivers out there on the road who have road rage. Many of them haven't been diagnosed as sick people. And we will never know that we may have to confront these aggressive drivers on the road one day.
So how can these scenarios be prevented? Of course, you probably won't be able to stop the way others drive, but we can concentrate on our own driving. It's important for us to remind ourselves that, whatever happens on the road, it is not personal. Also, we can try asking ourselves two things. First, is it really worth it to get out of the car with a high temper and take some dangerous action? And second, what are the consequences of taking an action? Also, if you think you're someone who easily loses control in these types of incidents, then it's maybe time to seek professional help and learn how to control that behaviour.
Tata Bunnag is a feature writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.