CARLTON FLETCHER: Coming to grips with my road rage-aholism

I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bed. Get along with the voices inside of my head.

— Eminem

Hi, my name is Fletcher, and I’m a road rage-aholic.

Most of the time I’m one of those quiet — relatively speaking — stick-to-myself kind of folks who believes in “you do your thing, I’ll do mine.” Put me behind the wheel of a car, though — even a beat-to-hell, piece of junk, 10-year-old compact — and I sincerely believe the highway belongs to me.

I’m the jerk who blows his horn if you wait more than a nonosecond to take off when the light changes to green. I’m the idiot who’ll risk a traffic citation going 25 miles over the posted speed limit to make sure I get to the place where the highway lanes reduce from two to one before that no-driving imbecile in the gray pickup who cut me off two miles back. I’m the one who’ll hit you with my brights if you hesitate the least little bit in dimming yours.

My wife used to question me about some of my driving habits, wondering why I was in such a hurry that I’d blast my horn at the driver in front of me for some perceived infraction. Now she just laughs … which, of course, makes it worse.

I don’t know why I’m this way. Maybe I was a racecar driver in another life. Maybe I feel like I’m exerting some kind of control when I dictate how others drive when they share a road with me. Maybe I’m just frustrated that this area has the worst drivers in the world, people who don’t know how to use a turn signal, zip through red lights as if they were color blind, block two lanes of traffic by driving side-by-side with an equally inept driver going 15 mph under the speed limit.

Or, as some have suggested, maybe I’m just an impatient @33%0!e.

(A quick note about another driving habit that makes me see red: people who text and drive. I’m certain your OMG and LOL are vital to you and your friends’ survival, but I prefer not to have innocent people’s lives put at risk because you couldn’t wait five minutes to send that crucial text. I’m ashamed to say that I often find myself wishing texting drivers would run a stop sign and force a State Patrol officer to have to slam on the brakes to avoid them … or worse.)

I’ve tried to deal with my affliction by telling myself how stupid, dangerous and unreasonable I’m being when I fly into a hissy fit, blood pressure rising, gas pedal to the floor in an attempt to catch up with someone who made me jam on the brakes to keep from hitting them and then slowed to a crawl after passing me … just so I can stare at them when I pull up alongside them and mouth an epithet I would never use under normal circumstances.

Comedian Louis C.K. does a brilliant bit about this affliction. He notes how ridiculous it is that he would call offending drivers vile names just because said driver made him turn his steering wheel a fraction of an inch. I’m with Louie … I get how ridiculous it is. But that hasn’t stopped my road rage-aholism.

I confess my sins knowing that I’m alerting law enforcement to be on the lookout, but I also make my confession as therapy. Maybe by admitting my affliction, I can convince myself to take a more chill approach to vehicle operation. It couldn’t hurt.

Plus, maybe this will alert others on what the appropriately named Canadian band Red Rider called the “lunatic fringe” … “I know you’re out there” … that they’re just as ridiculous as I am. Yes, I see a lot more of you on the road. And I recognize the symptoms.