Hyderabad: Around 70 per cent of Hyderabadis spend around an hour each day travelling on damaged, narrow and congested roads amid high levels of air and noise pollution.
This stress often leads to road rage, especially among those who are on the road for long hours like drivers of public vehicles and those driving long distances to work.
Unlike foreign cities like London and Singapore, India has no laws to prevent aggressive driving. It is a well-known fact that road rage is among the primary causes of stress related disorders in people.
Psychiatrist Dr Purnima Nagaraja explained, “A larger percentage of people on roads are mostly driving to and from work, every one with a different mind set and stress level. All are in a hurry to reach the destination and in this case wrong turns, irresponsible driving, minor accidents, gestures and even rash advice stirs one up. This comes under driving related anxiety disorders, they develop anxiousness in traffic and panic disorders, many avoid heavy traffic.
“A couple with relationship issues had approached me, the husband would simple refuse to go out on weekends, which created problems in their married life, the prime issue was that he had developed driving anxiety disorder.”
In another case, a top corporate employee’s car was hit by an auto driver, the employee beat up the auto driver and also got beaten up. The employee was then brought to a counseling center as his rage continued at office and at home as well.
A common myth is that only people who have anger management issues get road rage; however even a docile person develops road rage but with different reactions, mostly suppressed anger.
