You Are Not a Better Driver Than Everyone Else

Ask a room full of drivers to rate their own skill and nearly everyone will say above average. That’s mathematically impossible, and it explains a lot about what happens on the road every day. Recent surveys on driving behavior found that almost every driver — not most, almost all — admits to some form of road rage or aggressive driving within the past year. This isn’t a fringe problem caused by a few bad actors. It’s close to universal, which means it’s very likely you.

The car does something specific to people: it removes the social friction that normally keeps behavior in check. Nobody can see your face clearly, nobody knows your name, and the person who cut you off stops being a person and becomes an obstacle. That’s how a normal, reasonable adult ends up tailgating a stranger over a lane change, or speeding up to close a gap out of spite instead of letting someone merge.

The tell is in the story people tell afterward. Almost nobody says “I was the problem back there.” It’s always the other driver who was an idiot, distracted, entitled — never a description of what you did in response. That gap between what actually happened and what you remember happening is the arrogance part. Not the mistake. The refusal to count it as one.

None of this requires becoming a different person. It requires noticing the exact moment your foot gets heavier or your hand moves toward the horn, and asking what you’re actually reacting to. Usually it’s not the other driver. It’s a bad day, being late, or an ego that doesn’t like being told to wait — arriving through the steering wheel and pedals instead of words.

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