Anger Management On Two Wheels

A fellow blogger recently described having to battle personal anger earlier this year. This blogger was brutally honest about the battle, and about how their initial angry outburst did not help the cause they were championing, but hurt instead. The blogger also honestly described the process of working through the roots of the anger in order to formulate better responses to it in the future.

Now one thing I've discovered over the years is that when people reveal a bit of themselves in public, their audience often contains quiet people listening with expressionless faces that seem to say, “Your problem is very interesting. But as you can see, I haven't confessed to any such problem; therefore, you must be an unusual case!” If the confessors could only see into the lives of many of their silent hearers, they would know instantly that they are neither unusual or alone.

Anyway, here's my bit of confession for the week. I am an evangelical Christian who believes that many in the American evangelical camp no longer represent Christ, because they are no longer willing to model His otherworldliness, kindness, charity, and freedom from materialism. In my blogging, I've been trying to paint a different portrait of the Faith than that normally seen from the Religious Right. I realize that the work of painting such a portrait extends far beyond blogging, and encompasses all of daily life.

But there is (at least!) one area in which I fall down on the job, and that's as a bicycle commuter. Anyone who reads my other blog, The Well Run Dry, knows what I think about Peak Oil and global warming, and how these are the main reasons why I commute by bike as much as possible. What people may not know (unless they also commute by bike) is how much of a life-threatening struggle it can be at times, because of impatient drivers. The driving culture in America has become ever more “driven” over the years, due to TV ads for ever larger, faster and more powerful cars, SUV's and trucks, as well as ever more lax enforcement of traffic laws. Drivers who get stuck in traffic on main arterials are increasingly barreling through adjacent residential neighborhoods, endangering kids, pedestrians and bicyclists. Residents in these neighborhoods are buying more and more cautionary signs saying things like, “SLOW – KIDS PLAYING,” or are spray-painting words like “SLOW – CHILDREN” on the asphalt of their streets. All these things are a plea to motorists to give up their murderous hurrying impatience, because people don't want a motorist to kill them or their children.

As for me, my response has been somewhat stronger, especially lately. I'm tired of being buzzed by people who can't abide a delay of even a few seconds, and in fact, I've allowed myself to be provoked to real anger. Sometimes I've expressed this anger in a way that I thought humorous (although I'm not sure the drivers I targeted saw the humor) – for instance, when I've been buzzed or threatened by a motorist in passing and have managed to catch up to that motorist at a light, I've been known to sing, “TEN DOLLARS A GALLON! TEN DOLLARS A GALLON! ONE DAY, YOU'LL HAVE TO PAY – TEN DOLLARS A GALLON!” at the top of my lungs.

Other times, the response hasn't been so humorous. I've allowed myself to react with words I haven't used since I was in the Army. I've fantasized about settling a few disputes by physical means. The thing that got me to stop and look at this whole process of anger was an incident that happened last week. That Monday I had passed an accident scene where it seems that a car had cut in front of a bicyclist going downhill, causing the bike to crash into the car and sending the rider onto the pavement. The ambulance and several police cars were there by the time I passed. That provoked a sullen, smouldering anger that stayed with me the whole day, just under the surface.

The next day as I was riding home from work, I got to a two-lane street in a business district. The part I was on was rather narrow, but there was a stop sign about fifty yards ahead, with a much wider stretch of road on the other side of the sign. As I was riding, an SUV turned onto the street and started closing in behind me. I sped up to about 15 miles per hour in order to get quickly to the wider stretch of road beyond the stop sign. But the lady driving the SUV was in a bit of a hurry, and sped up to pass me on the left – just as I got to the stop sign!

We both had to stop, as there was moving traffic on the cross street. This gave me time to shout, “So! A delay of three seconds is enough to make you kill someone?! You selfish, impatient car driver!”

The lady – a middle-aged woman – responded by blowing me a kiss. At that I got even angrier, and as we both rolled through the stop sign I followed her to a shop, where she got out of her car. I stopped and shouted the same complaint to her, and she responded by saying that she had given me plenty of room when she passed. In her response she was not nearly as loud as I was. In fact, she was a model of reasonableness. She explained the kiss as a means of wishing me well and that she was not trying to be hostile.

Truly, “a soft answer turns away wrath,” as the Good Book says. I sort of wilted. “All right,” I said. “You're being reasonable, so I will be reasonable.” But I did give her a (very) condensed version of the story of Peak Oil and climate change, and told her that stupid idealists like me were riding our bikes as a way of reducing our exposure on one hand and our culpability on the other hand. In return, all we were asking was to be allowed to stay alive. She received that statement sympathetically, although she told me that she had different beliefs about climate change. Then she stuck her hand out and wished me a good evening. I sheepishly shook her hand and rode off.

I still think the lady could have waited until we were both on the wider part of the street before she passed. But it occurs to me that I can't be a very good expression of Christ if I get a reputation for yelling at motorists. Those of you who are of the Faith, please pray for me.