July 27, 2025
Navigating Road Rage: Tips for Motorcyclists on the Road
In this episode of the Throttle and Roast podcast, host Niels Meersschaert discusses the issue of road rage that motorcyclists often face. He highlights common scenarios where aggressive driving occurs, such as congested highways, parking lots, and urban areas. Niels provides practical strategies to reduce the likelihood of provoking road rage, including allowing other vehicles to merge, using the horn sparingly, avoiding tailgating, and being mindful of lane changes. The episode emphasizes the importance of maintaining a calm demeanor and fostering safer road interactions for everyone while navigating road rage.
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00:00 - Introduction
00:45 - Where does road rage occur?
02:07 - Reducing the chance of road rage
13:37 - Dealing with confrontation
18:35 - Wrap up
WEBVTT
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Road rage is the expression of the amateur sociopath in all of us, cured by running into a professional.
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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. In today's episode, we'll explore another issue that motorcyclists may deal with, road rage. Someone's having a bad day and you are quite literally in the firing range. We'll look at where road rage or aggressive drivers most commonly emerge and how to minimize the likelihood of causing it to come out and then how to diffuse the situation where possible.
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So where aggressive drivers typically occur? in general, it's in areas of high traffic volume. And this is what really causes people to become frustrated, act out, get angry, because they're feeling that they're in a hurry to get somewhere and other people, other vehicles are way hindering their ability to get to their destination as quickly as possible. Or maybe they've caused a potential for an accident. So if you think of this in general, you'll see this happen quite often on highways that have some congestion. You might see it in parking lots or urban areas or stroads. You know, this is something we have in the United States. These really their streets, but they kind of want to be roads. They're really wide, but they have all of the surface movement in and out of lots, if you will. And this lots of movement in and out of the main road can cause opportunities for road rage to emerge. Another one would be traffic lights. How often have sat in front of someone at a traffic light and the light turns green? And as soon as it turns green, the person behind you is honking their horn, the thing I'd say with most of these roads where you're likely find road rage come out, is that these aren't really the fun roads anyway.
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So the simplest solution, if you want to minimize your time in those areas and get onto the fun back roads, And this will be probably the simplest solution to avoid road rage is just not ride on those unfun roads. But if you are going to have to get onto those and sometimes your destination is in one of those locations or you have to resort to taking a highway to get to your destination as quickly as possible. it may not be completely unavoidable, but there are ways in which you can reduce the likelihood of an aggressive driver. And one of these is think about how could you act in a way such as not to piss off other drivers and thus make you the target of their rage. one big thing is allow other people to merge. If they're trying to get onto the highway and you're blocking them in and not giving them any sort of opportunity to move in, just ease up a little bit and allow them to merge. that will automatically diffuse a bit of the tension that they might be feeling trying to get in. So just simple. Another one in is is less likely to happen for motorcyclists if we're honest with one another, but don't sit parked in the left lane slower than other usually we may find the road rage of someone else doing that, but be thoughtful of that and maybe recognize that that might be occurring and try to temper even your own anger that you might find. Another way that you can minimize this is use your horn sparingly. I talked about of at a traffic light, someone in front of you hasn't gone immediately. Well, immediately jump onto the horn or hold the horn going for an extended period of time. Maybe sometimes a quick little toot is enough to get them going and or to alert someone to your presence without kind of turning it into a anger fest that can then cause a return of road rage towards your direction. Another way that you can minimize this is don't tailgate. It infuriates people to no end when you're sitting there on their tail.
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They can see you hanging out there and then they have to be that much more careful not to have to come to a sudden stop because they're worried that you're going to bang into And to be honest, it doesn't get you to your destination any faster. It may indicate to the person that you would like to move past them.
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But again, that's where if they're parked in that left lane, maybe pass them on the right if you have to, or if you're in the UK, pass them on the left, if you absolutely have to. I know it's not typically the right approach in most environments, but if someone's parked there and you need to get by them, sometimes that might be the best solution rather than tailgating.
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And then the inverse of this is don't cut someone off if you are Swerving into someone who is passing, let's say in that lane, that passing lane for you, rather than moving into that lane and going at a slower rate, just don't cut someone off. Just be aware in our motorcycles, we can accelerate far faster. So maybe wait for that car to pass, get behind them and then you can accelerate. Or if you are going to move in front of them, take advantage of that power that you have in the motorcycle and accelerate quickly to get up to at least matching their speed, if not exceeding it, so that you're not going to feel that you've cut them off. Now there's a few, I'll say, motorcycle specific tips because most of what I've just described is more general that you could use even if you're driving in a car. But there are some motorcycle specific tips that I do want to highlight. So the first one is if you are doing lane splitting.
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Now we've talked about in some earlier episodes that lane splitting or lane filtering, as it's sometimes called, is becoming more legal, I'll say, in the United States. And it's, it's kind of frustrating here.
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here because it is on a state by state basis. So in my state that I live in, in New York, it is not legal at this time, wh is quite frankly, stupid, because New York City is just would benefit so hugely from enabling it. But there are states that are around the country that are allowing it California has allowed it for many, many years, Minnesota just this past year made it legal Arizona. So there's a few places that are now adding in.
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the ability to do lane splitting.
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And of course, if you're in Europe, you're probably listening to this and going, what is he talking about lane splitting is a normal thing that we do all the time. you are going to do lane splitting, just be careful as you're going in between those vehicles, because clipping a mirror can cause road rage, you were doing something that may be some people feel is not correct way of riding. So if you are going to have a ride, and then if you cause damage to their vehicle, you're going to just create that anger at that point. The other thing, and this is probably a little bit more geared towards the American audience is, driver is stuck in traffic, some of them may feel resentful that you're bypassing the traffic, whether lane splitting is legal or or not.
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this almost jealousy, if you will, can cause anger, and it may even cause them maybe they see a few bikes pass by them, they may actively try to block you in and rather than what they're supposed to do, where lane splitting is legal is move If they want to go on to the side to allow the motorcycle to pass through, they may actually try to close the gap and lock you behind there just because they do it out of spite. So just be aware that this may occur.
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Keep an eye on cars as you're passing them just to be aware.
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The other thing and I was just talking to someone the other day who was, you know, really frustrated that they've had this experience when they're driving in a car, where motorcyclists will pass them splitting lanes at an insane speed differential, so they were on a highway and the speed limit might have been let's say 65 miles an hour. And there were motorcycles that were passing them 30-40 miles an hour faster than they were going and splitting between the cars. And I'm sorry, I mean, while I agree that lane splitting is something that we should have available within our repertoire of options as a motorcyclist, if you're creating that much of a speed differential, trying to thread the needle within a few feet between each car, the chance of you being off just slightly is pretty big. And it's going to startle drivers, therefore causing them to get into maybe their own accidents. So try to keep the speed differential reasonable, maybe 10 to 15 miles an hour difference in speed is fine. But just don't try weaving through cars 30-40 miles an hour faster than the flow of traffic.
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And we'll see this a lot in sport bike riders and it does make the rest of us look worse in a lot of ways. And I realize that sport bikes can go very, very fast. I've owned sport bikes for a long time. They are very quick. I don't deny that.
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if you're going to be splitting lanes, try to keep that speed differential a little bit closer.
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And if you're just normal passing, I'm a little bit less, you know, getting on my soapbox about that. But if you're literally splitting between the lanes, keep it reasonable so that you're not going to cause any sort of startling and/or damage to a vehicle. The last one, and this is probably going to be a little controversial to some people. But if you're in a group ride, don't block traffic so that everybody can stay together. So the key thing is if you're waiting to make that turn, and you're going to cross over other traffic, maybe wait for an opening that is big enough for your entire group. And I'll do this when I'm leading a ride.
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You'll just wait until there's a large enough opening so that the entire group can get through, or at the very least, a larger percentage of it. If it's just enough for you to get by, that's just A, it's rude, and B, it's not really helping the group in any way. Certainly not from a safety, which is the point of if you're leading a ride. But if you do have to have where the group gets broken up a little bit, just pull over to the side and wait for the rest of your group to come together after you've made that turn. The thing is that drivers will tend to think of motorcyclists as a monolithic group. So one bad action can cause anger towards all riders. And even if you didn't do anything wrong in the moment, they might have been pissed off at some other group of riders and therefore take it out on you. So don't contribute to anger by doing things that will just annoy other riders.
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And if your group is so big that you need people to block off traffic to be able to get everyone through, so think like you know, you've got 30, 40, 50 bikes, you're probably big enough that this should have been a permitted ride with a police escort since you're really more of a parade. And I know that there are groups that will do these really, really large groups, but it is annoying where they feel that they can block traffic and even go through lights that they don't, they have a red light, and they're going to go through that light because the thought is,"Oh, well, we keep the whole group together." It's obnoxious.
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And because you don't have a police escort in there, you're just going to piss off drivers.
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So again, you're creating a tension with those other vehicles that you don't need to do. Now, personally for a group ride, I think if you've got 40, 50, 60 bikes there, unless you're literally in a police escort, I've done this with the Distinguished Gentlemen's ride, for example, where we have police escorts, it's totally fine for that. But if for a normal ride, that's probably way too many bikes. I think under 10 is the sweet spot. And usually then, hey, if you can get three, four, or five bikes through, and then you just pull over, you'll be okay. And don't run that red light just to stay with the group. And I talked about this when you have that really large group where they'll sometimes just intentionally allow most of the group to run that red light.
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But even if you're riding and it's a couple of bikes, just wait. And this is the way I'll do it when I'm leading rides.
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And I just did this a couple of weeks ago. I had maybe eight, 10 bikes behind and we just, you know, made it through. And I always, as soon as I make it through the light, I'll look in my rear view to see what's happening. And if I see the light turn red, and the other bikes stop, I'll just find a spot and I'll pull over and I'll just wait for those other bikes to come and catch up. It's not a big deal. And look, sometimes traffic lights happen. So just wait a moment. But if you're encouraging, because as the leader that you are not allowing your group to reconnect with you in a, in a sort of a visible scene that they see you pull over as soon as you made it through the light, they're going to feel more of an impetus to run that red light, which could then cause a collision. So just try to minimize that situation.
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And if you were to run that red light, of course, you're going to annoy and piss off a lot of other drivers, and that might cause road rage to come your way.
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So those are ways in which you can reduce the likelihood of creating road rage.
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But what if it did happen anyway? Sometimes you're gonna run into someone who's just in a really bad mood that day. They woke up on the wrong side, they didn't get enough sleep, you know, they lost their job, their wife just lost them, whatever it is, sometimes people are just really in a bad mood and there's nothing that you can do that can minimize it. Well, the biggest thing is don't respond to aggression with aggression. And I'll tell a little bit of an anecdote, when I was first starting riding, I was in my first year of riding, and I was riding with another buddy of mine and we were along a highway.
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And someone cut us off or cut my riding buddy off. And we kind of stupidly rode up next to that driver and we're like honking at him and pushing him and saying like, "You gotta pull over, you gotta pull over, you know, you nearly killed us." And we got a bit of aggressive with that. And that was probably a big mistake on our part. I mean, it ended up nothing really bad came of it.
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But in hindsight, you look at that and say like, "Well, but that could have created an elevation of a situation." So don't respond to aggression with aggression. The other thing that can happen is if someone's annoyed at you, they're yelling at you, just avoid eye contact.
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By not creating that you're staring them down as they're staring you down, you create a little bit less tension. There's not a confrontation feeling that will make them feel that they're sort of even further escalating that situation. On the flip side, don't make some offensive gestures. I mean, how often have any of us, especially in a car, been pissed off at someone, and maybe you flip them the middle finger or yell at them or, you know, wave your arm angrily at them. Just Just be careful with that. Don't make an offensive gesture. And if someone cuts you off, maybe you want to feel that you want to raise your hands and be like, "Hey, what the hell are you doing?" Well, maybe don't do that because that might then just increase the level of tension that comes in. Now, I know it's really hard to temper ourselves and you might be annoyed and pissed off in the moment. But again, we are so vulnerable on a motorcycle that you don't want to create any opportunity where someone will decide to use their vehicle as a weapon against us because we are far more vulnerable. so diffuse it whenever possible. Likewise, don't sit there and yell obscenities. Don't, you know, be cursing at them and yelling and getting angry because that's just increasing the level of tension. And one way that you can do is let's say that this person is already pissed off.
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They're trying to merge into traffic and they're really angry.
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Maybe a couple of other vehicles have not let them in and now you're coming up to them. Maybe a way to almost diffuse that tension at that moment. You can see that person is exacerbated.
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They're just so pissed off.
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Maybe just offer and wave them ahead and just say, "Yeah, go ahead. Go in front of me." And that does a huge service to removing that tension, the look at you is actually a positive.
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And again, as motorcyclists, we do create a bit of influence into how others think of motorcyclists in general. So if we're able to create that sort of positive view, they will then look at other motorcyclists in a positive view. So if we all do this systemically, the likelihood of them expecting a motorcyclist to be quite frankly, you know, horrible is minimized.
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And therefore, they're not going to take that out on you or some other rider in the next sort of moment. every once in a while, you're going to run into a other driver who is just in such a bad mood or they're just so pissed off at everything in the world.
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And they're maybe even starting to chase you in some ways for whatever purpose, just their anger is caught in a hold of them. Well, really try to get away from that other driver as best as you can. And part of the reason why I highlighted is, hey, why don't you get that driver and allow them to go in front of you? Not only does it ease the tension, but also if you have the driver in front of you, it does limit their ability to do harm to you. Now, of course, any driver could decide, hey, I'm going to stop and put it into reverse and bang into you. But most won't do that, do that because they're trying to get to their destination. That's what's creating their anger to begin with. So if you let them be in front of you, you minimize the opportunity for them to get to you. And hey, if they are continuing on ahead, you could turn off. And if they did want to continue to chase you, they'd have to then find a place, turn around, come back, turn onto the road that you did. So positioning them in front of you goes a long way towards minimizing their opportunity to continue to cause harm, or even, do some sort of a collision.
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So we discussed where you're most likely to find those aggressive drivers and where road rage might peek its ugly head out. And we offered a few tips on how to keep that road rage sealed in by minimizing our own annoying behavior. And finally, we looked at a few ways that you might diffuse the situation once road rage has emerged. So my question for you is what is the worst road rage that you've ever encountered?
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Share your thoughts on the text to show link in the show notes or leave us a voicemail at throttleandroast.com/voicemail.
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Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next week.
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