What turns respectable women into monsters behind the wheel?
WHEN Ceri-Jade Poulton climbs behind the wheel of her car, something very strange happens to her. As soon as her foot hits the pedal of her Renault Clio, her usual calm demeanour disappears and a burning indignation takes root. ‘I suffer from terrible road rage,’ says Ceri, 30, a personal assistant from Exeter.
‘I start frowning as soon as I get in the car, and if someone is driving too close I’ll keep tapping on my brakes so they get the hint.
‘If they don’t back off, I’ll shut off my engine, get out of the car, tap on their window and shout at them.’
And if that doesn’t reduce the offending driver to a state of apologetic acquiescence, Ceri’s belligerence grows.
‘If they won’t talk to me, I’ll get back in my car with the engine off and block them until they apologise,’ she says. ‘I’ve even been late for work because of this.’
Ceri admits her behaviour is worrisome, especially as her daughter Jasmine, eight, is often in the car with her.
‘I’ll swear at people who cut me up, honk my horn and gesticulate,’ she says. ‘I hate showing Jasmine that side of me. She’s well brought up and often looks at me and says: “Mummy, don’t say that.” I feel terrible.
‘Even if they’re beeping and swearing at me, I don’t feel afraid. In that moment, when I’m angry, I’m not thinking straight.’
Ceri is just one of many road rage offenders in the UK, with 80.4 per cent of drivers describing themselves as victims of it, according to a recent Gallup poll, which found Britain was the world’s worst country for road rage incidents.
While it was once the ‘white van man’ who was the most common offender, more women are now angrily taking to the roads.
Just this month 22-year-old Fatima Festus was spared jail after she dragged a woman from her BMW in Didsbury, Manchester, and beat her up while their babies were in the cars. She was sentenced to a 12-month community order for the road rage attack.
Aggression on the roads is clearly not the domain of men alone. In fact, a study by car manufacturer Hyundai suggested road rage affected women more, due to an instinctive ‘early warning system’.
‘Evolutionary theory suggests our early female ancestors had to develop an acute sense of danger for anything that threatened them and their young,’ says Patrick Fagan, a psychologist from Goldsmiths University London, who led the study.
‘That is still relevant, as we have a Stone Age brain. Women tend to score higher in neuroticism in personality tests, so they’re more prone to irritability and stress and become angry more quickly.’
Emma Tapping, 36, a mother of three who lets holiday cottages in the Isle of Man, agrees a stressful life means she is less forbearing on roads.
‘ I don’t have time for bad drivers,’ she says. ‘I’m always flashing my lights, beeping my horn and swearing.
ONCE I turned off my engine and got out to confront a driver who was honking me to get moving. I had my three children in the car and screamed at him, then drove at 20 miles an hour knowing he was behind me.
‘I had a stand-off with a woman, too. Both of us were shouting “You move!” “No, you move!” until eventually she gave in.’
Emma’s partner, James Brown, 42, shakes his head in resignation. ‘I find she goes a bit over the top,’ he says.
‘Once someone was driving too close. She stopped and got out and mouthed off. I stayed in the car and she had a go at me for not supporting her!’
Being a victim of female road rage can be terrifying. Eleanor Greene, 42, a TV producer from North London, tried to pull out at a busy junction in front of another woman driver.
‘I nudged into her lane and the passenger — the driver’s daughter, in her 30s — made an offensive sign, called me every name under the sun and said I’d nearly killed her mother,’ says Eleanor. ‘I was really upset.
‘The rage was ten times more extreme than any I’ve suffered from a man.’
Dr Lisa Dorn, associate professor of driver behaviour and director of the Driving Research Group at Cranfield University, believes female road rage isn’t necessarily about being angry.
She attributes it to the fact that the car is often the only space where women feel they can act in this way. ‘It is an environment where you don’t have to account for your behaviour,’ she says.
‘You can shout and drive away without repercussions. It could be a way to let off steam.’
Where you live can also have an effect on road rage.
Lynn Tolmon, a 38-year- old mother of one, admits it was a factor in her decision to move from congested Liverpool to quiet Hayling Island in Hampshire. Her appalling road rage, she says, was something she didn’t want her 15-month-old son, Eric, to see.
‘I often ended up racing, chasing or blocking cars,’ says Lynn, a single, stay-at-home mother.
‘ When I was eight months pregnant, I used my campervan to force a cyclist off the road. He was cycling dangerously — taking up too much road. He didn’t expect a hormonal blonde to be having none of it!
‘When he shouted about killing me, I stopped, got out and used my bump to make him look bad in front of onlookers. I was shaky afterwards, thinking about what could have happened. But I didn’t feel anyone would hurt me.’
Having her son made her realise something had to change as she was putting herself — and him — in danger. ‘My behaviour on the road was a huge factor in the move,’ says Lynn.
‘Road rage is an epidemic in Liverpool. I’ve had men leaning in through my window threatening me and lorries trying to force me off the road.
‘I’ve had people damage my van because I parked in “their” spot.’
BUT aside from moving home, how can you counter road rage? ‘ Understand your emotional and physical health and know the triggers before you get in the car,’ says Dr Richard Sherry, clinical psychologist and director of London clinic Psychological Systems Ltd.
‘Your reaction is a reading of where you’re at in your body. Know how tired or stressed you are. Are you dehydrated? When women are stressed, their reactions will be more visceral.
‘If you recognise these elements, try to combat them — leave earlier, have a bottle of water in the car, listen to relaxing music and count to ten when another driver infuriates you.
‘ I know it’s hard, but it’s important to remember your behaviour has consequences. In extreme circumstances, it could land you in jail.’