Y ou know the feeling ... someone changes lanes without indicating, then brakes in front of you. Your heart starts pounding and your blood boils. You can feel your face going red. You lean on your hooter and make a rude gesture ... Sound familiar? We’ve all been there.

But for a certain portion of the population, the anger doesn’t stop there. Some people, instead of taking a deep breath and completing their journey, feel the need to 'teach him a lesson'. They’ll pursue the other vehicle, get out of their own car and, at best, commit a verbal assault; at worst, an act of physical violence. This is road rage.

“When you are in a car, especially in a congested environment, your reptilian

brain – the part of your brain responsible for survival – takes over,” says Jacques van Zyl, a psychologist who specialises in road behaviour.

“There is limited space on the road and it becomes a competitive situation. You need to get home or to a meeting, and other people are in your way.”

He explains that your brain sends a message to your adrenal glands to produce adrenalin, which is the neurochemical responsible for the fight or flight reflex. And this takes place in a brain already preconditioned for stress – most of us are dealing with financial pressure, family worries and work stress every day.

Then, the car itself adds to the rage mix. “The car becomes an extension of your personality – you feel untouchable and it becomes a weapon. It makes you feel powerful. It increases the mania. You feel

that you could get away with whatever act of violence you want to commit.”

At this point, most people, most of the time, will resort to some kind of outburst, but there is a condition that American scientists diagnose as intermittent explosive disorder (IED) and people who suffer from it – a very small percentage of the population, Van Zyl stresses – lose control when they get that rush of adrenalin.

“The feeling only goes away once it’s been spent through an attack. Those are the people who pull out a gun and shoot.”

Road rage in its truest form – where it leads to some kind of assault – is symptomatic of a broader problem, Van Zyl explains. Globally – and in South

Africa in particular – there is a lot of unchecked aggression and prejudice.

“If for instance, you believe that women are bad drivers, every time you see a woman pulling off too slowly, you’ll take that as confirmation of the problem. In this case, making the next step to ‘teaching her a lesson’ is not such a big leap.”

And the fact that people on the road are already in a heightened state of aggression about so many things means that situations are often escalated rather than defused.

“Road rage is often not the result of one person’s out-of-control anger, but of both sides contributing to the situation.”

Since the problem starts way before you get into the car, it makes sense that working on a solution also needs to happen before you’re on the road. If