I confess that I have been – and will surely be again someday soon – guilty of road rage. I know I am not alone in my once and future sins. There is no Washington area driver, save perhaps an unknown descendent of Job, who can deny they’ve known the pain, frustration and madness brought on by our local traffic problems.

I’m from Northern Virginia, the unofficial gridlock capital of the world; if you get on any main artery at the wrong time of day, you could easily sit in traffic for an hour and only move a few miles. In NOVA, businesses not only reschedule their workdays around peak rush-hour times to minimize their employees’ daily commutes, they frequently encourage people to work at home full-time.

Some of us know people who may sit in three hours of traffic daily trying to get to and from work. Over a 35-year career, these people spend close to 2.5 years engaged in the agonizing ritual of bumper-to-bumper auto-creep.

College Park can’t often compete with NOVA’s enormous gridlock dilemma, although car accidents and sheer volume of drivers on Route 1 keep College Park a contender.

Additionally, parking on and around campus is atrocious. Expensive parking passes, meters that only take an hour and a half worth of change, merciless meter maids, and the aggressive – and highly questionable – tow companies keep residents and commuters on their toes.

I park in Lot 1 when I’m too late to catch the UM-Shuttle, or if it’s too cold to ride my bike (as it was Tuesday). The lot is crowded and dangerous as people drive really fast through it – no doubt trying to make up for time lost on the constipated state roads.

On Tuesday, I was parked near Ludwig Field. My headlights were pointed towards the tennis courts and the soccer stadium was behind me as my car sat in the second-to-last row. I went to leave as usual and waited cautiously to pull out until I could see any other cars coming. My vision was limited, however, by the line of cars on either side of my own. I thought the coast was clear, and I inched my rear end out of the space.

This time though, I accidentally cut someone off. Fortunately, both she and I stopped in time to avoid an accident. Alas, the other driver was irate and felt it necessary to express her anger and frustration over my clearly unintentional mistake. Although I tried to pacify her with a smile and wave, she proceeded to give me the middle finger and tailgate me while making elaborate gestures and hollering at me. She apparently hadn’t exhausted her deep well of emotion, because as she sped pass me on University Boulevard, she flipped me off again.

How had a simple, and I must reiterate, unintentional, driving mistake become so personal?

I don’t presume to know what was on her mind or to understand her motivation. Maybe she was in a hurry to get to a doctor’s appointment or upset about an unsatisfactory midterm grade. Maybe she had just caught the love of her life canoodling and sharing overpriced Starbucks coffee with her younger, less temperamental sister. I can’t know. But if she’s ever parked in Lot 1, surely she must know how hard it is to pull out of those tight parking spaces while anxious students are speeding in and out behind you.

If she had recognized me, or if we knew each other, would her initial anger have been replaced by good humor? Maybe she would have quoted the prolific Will Ferrell in Wedding Crashers and said, “Dude, I almost nunchucked you. You don’t even know,” and we would have laughed about it.

Couldn’t she have just taken a breath, smiled, and given a generous wave, knowing that I was just another frazzled College Park driver like herself?

So if you’re reading this, my Lot 1 compadre, I forgive you your vulgarity and wish you safe driving. May all your parking lots be empty, your highways uncongested and your journeys unforgettable.

Lisa Horowitz is a senior English language and literature major. She can be reached at lhorow@umd.edu.