Picture yourself driving down the road. You may be listening to some nice tunes on the radio or just enjoying your drive. Then suddenly, you see a car speeding up and notice they are riding your tail. All at once, your peaceful drive has been turned into one of horror. It is safe to say at that point, you've began your start of road rage.

1. Pre-anger

This stage starts when you slowly start to realize you are in a situation that is going to trigger road rage. You may see a reckless driver in your midst or perhaps you’re greeted by a sea of red taillights and are forced to go from driving 70 mph to a standstill. My personal favorite pre-anger trigger is when you are on the highway and see two semi-trucks side by side each other.

2. Heavy Breathing

I always laugh at this stage because it is almost never successful. During this stage, you start to take really deep breathes in a pathetic attempt to control yourself. Let’s be honest though, we all know the devil is about to come out and play.

3. Steering Wheel Slamming

This is one of my favorite stages. In another pretty pathetic attempt to release some anger, you start slamming your steering wheel. You may also opt to punch your dashboard or instead of slamming the steering wheel, you just violently shake it. I am definitely a huge fan of aggressively shaking the wheel while also letting out a slight growl.

4. Cussing, A LOT

What is road rage without cussing? At this point when you swear, it isn’t even an attempt to stop the road rage. If anything, it basically just adds fuel to the fire. When you reach this stage, you cuss about pretty much every party involved. You’ll swear at the car(s) annoying you, the radio, the road itself, basically anything and everything.

5. Full-on rage

At this point, the devil has consumed your body and you are pretty scary to any passengers riding with you. Not only is steam shooting out of your ears, but you’ve also combined stages 1-4, which added up creates a super road rage. Nobody can talk you down at this point and all cars on the road should be afraid of you. This stage tends to last the remaining time of the car ride and there is usually no going back.

So, next time you are driving on the road be aware of the five stages. You may try to talk yourself down, but more than likely will not be successful. Once you do hit your full road rage peak, just let it happen and ride it out. Eventually, you will get out of that car, and go back to being a somewhat calm human being.