I know you’re not surprised to hear that Atlanta is among the five worst cities in the U.S. when it comes to road rage incidents and aggressive driving habits. Ha! You can’t be. If you live here…you see it every day. Crazy “A”zz people cutting you off, speeding up so you can’t merge, high-beaming you for driving too slow. Yeah….all of that. We’ve got it bad here and I can only assume it’s because we spend half of our lives sitting in traffic.

“In any populated city in this country, you’ll find a lot of road incidents, arguments, whatever you’ll call it,” said Lt. Paul Cosper of the Georgia State Patrol. “And more the roads are congested, the more aggravated people will get. When they get aggravated, they’ll yell or start blowing their horn. The next thing, hand gestures get involved and it escalates from there,” Cosper said.

The way to defuse most road rage situations is easy, Cosper said: “You become a courteous driver.” (Source)

My favorite African proverb says: “There are two things over which you have complete dominion, authority and control….your mind and your mouth.” Notice that “Traffic” isn’t included in that list, so as you sit in traffic later today remember to be kind to your fellow drivers. If someone cuts you off, issue a friendly wave instead of the finger. Your efforts combined might actually move the ATL further down the list next year.  That’s my PSA for the day….