According to a recent study of North American drivers, the highest incidence of Road Rage occurs during morning rush hours in general, and more specifically on Tuesday mornings in September. Predictably, another spike traditionally occurs on Fridays during evening rush hour and on urban roadways, as opposed to rural. Sundays prove to be the least hostile day to hit the road.

The AAA Foundation offers these tips for "cutting off" road rage before it starts:

All drivers need to take a deep breath sometimes and remember that most important thing about your commute is getting to your destination safely. Here are a few tips on how to avoid aggressive driving from our road rage brochure:

1. Don’t offend: Avoid cutting other drivers off and apologize if you accidently do so. Avoid tailgating and aggressively honking the horn as these things anger other drivers. Avoid making inappropriate or offensive gestures.

2. Don’t Engage: If you notice an aggressive driver, do your best to get out of their way. Avoid eye contact to prevent any encounter from becoming more personal. Seek help if you think someone is following you by driving to a safe/crowded location.

3. Adjust Your Attitude:  Don’t focus on “making good time." Instead, leave earlier to allow yourself extra time in case there is traffic that slows you down. Put yourself in the other driver’s shoes – would you want to be cut off, tailgated, or yelled at? If you find yourself getting angry while driving, take a deep breath and remember any escalation of a situation will only make things worse.

In February 2009, a 27-year-old woman from Fort Pierce, Florida, walked into a McDonald's restaurant and ordered a 10-piece McNuggets meal.  The McDonald's employee, after taking the order, then discovered that they were out of McNuggets. The employee told the customer that the restaurant had run out of McNuggets, and she would have to get something else from the menu. 

The customer then become irate, took out her cell phone and called 911 to complain. The 911 workers, who were less than helpful, received a total of three calls for help from the disgruntled customer!  Instead of McNuggets, all the angry woman got for her complaints was a ticket from police for misusing 911.

Ben Patterson writes:

“Hope is essential to waiting.  Why wait unless there is something worth waiting for.  There is a logic to the world’s frenetic grasping for everything now—not only does it lack humility, but it has given up on a future that is anything more than an extension of the present.  Eternity is a vague unknown; the here and now is what is substantial.  The world reasons that since there is no great eternal hope to wait for, why wait for anything?”

He goes on to express how this lack of hope infects even the Christian psyche:

“Christians are hard hit by this attitude.  I know many believers who formally subscribe to the doctrines of hope and heaven and eternity, but who live practically as though they didn’t.  When it comes to how they deal with a difficult marriage, failing health or a bleak professional situation, they live as though there were no tomorrow that shines with God’s promises.  They act as though there were only the here and now, and they grab for as much of it as they can get.” 

– Ben Patterson, WAITING, p. 13

[Ben Patterson has been campus pastor at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, since 2001. He is a contributing editor to Christianity Today and Leadership Journal.]