The road is real life, really
If you were walking on the pavement and your way was blocked by a slower pedestrian, would you shout abuse at them to force them to move aside? Would you stand right behind them breathing down their neck until they moved aside? If another pedestrian moved in front of you without giving notice, would you curse and swear at the top of your voice and give them the finger? The answer, for most folk, would be a plain 'no' - you might curse under your breath, you might say 'excuse me', you might even shout 'coming through', but you wouldn't display naked aggression unless you were an irredeemable bampot with serious 'anger management issues'. Aside from all the strong social constraints on aggression and violence, you'd fear getting a mouthful, or even a mouthful of fist, from the object of your anger.
Why, then, when you're behind the wheel, do you feel free to honk, shout abuse, tailgate, flash lights, and generally be nakedly aggressive? Because being in your metal box insulates you and alienates you from the world. Other cars aren't driven by real human beings, but are just obstacles, frustrations to be disposed of by any means necessary. So you'll drive up someone's arse on the fast lane doing 90 in your Beamer (funny how so often it's a Suit in a Beamer giving you grief, eh?) with your headlights on full beam, until they move aside and you whizz on to the next blockage. Or you'll tailgate someone doing the speed limit on an urban road. Or you'll flash your lights angrily at someone who pulls out in front of you. Or you'll shout abuse at someone who's not indicated properly at a roundabout because he's delayed your entrance onto it by a half-second. Or you'll give the finger at someone who's dithering on lane changes in an unfamiliar area.
You know who you are. You're the sort of person who normally wouldn't say boo to a goose, or would decry with moral indignation the levels of crime and violence in society, or would deplore today's lack of civility and respect towards others. Yet put you inside a metal box powered by volatile hydrocarbons and you suddenly became the pure selfish individual, driven (literally) by naked self-interest, divorced from society, because you feel you're entering a Hobbesian war of all against all, where clubs are trumps. How many of you have fantasised about having weapons to wipe other incompetent/dangerous/irresponsible (unlike you, naturally) drivers off the road with the flick of a switch?
Yet, if someone you've given the finger to suddenly screeches to a halt and gets out of the car to confront your aggression, you shit yourself and leg it, then if you escape unscathed you bang on later about 'road rage' and how dangerous the roads have become when such nutters are loose. Even though it was you who provoked the violence with your own aggression. What's surprising is not that people get out of their cars to have it out with drivers who've been abusive, but that so few people do so given the levels of aggression on the roads. If someone shouted abuse in your ear when you're walking along the pavement, you'd turn round and shout abuse back and maybe even twat them one, yet just because you're inside a car you think that you can aggress against others without any comeback. I've got news for you, pal - other drivers are people too, just like you.
Why all this ranting? Because I've had it with drivers who drive with their balls and not their brains. It's no coincidence that most abuse, tailgating and aggression comes from men behind the wheel, for whom masculine identity and testosterone are an integral part of their 'identity' as a driver - just witness some of the witlessly macho ads for cars shown on TV, or that TV nutter Jeremy Clarkson getting a hard-on over a sports car and talking of it as if it were some pneumatic bimbo off a top shelf mysogynist fantasy mag (though if it were a bimbo it would be the only way an ugly emotionally-stunted toad like him would ever score). I've thought for a long time now that male drivers should take testosterone-reducing pills before getting behind the wheel, because it's their hormone and machismo problems that maim and kill other people.
Not that women drivers are immune from being aggressive, but at least to them the car isn't an extension of their being, an existential part of their gender identity - most women view cars, rightly, as vehicles to get them from A to B in reasonable comfort. Even they, though, can fall prey to the false separation from the world that the metal box provides, and start to view other drivers as obstacles rather than real people.
The principle is simple: do inside the car as you would do outside it, in real life. If you'd never shout abuse in real life, don't do it in the car. If you give the finger, then if you're an honest person you should be prepared to fight it out if it comes to it - if you carry out an action, you should bear responsibility for the consequences. If you're not prepared to back up your aggression with violence, then don't be aggressive in the first place. Piece of piss.
Why, then, when you're behind the wheel, do you feel free to honk, shout abuse, tailgate, flash lights, and generally be nakedly aggressive? Because being in your metal box insulates you and alienates you from the world. Other cars aren't driven by real human beings, but are just obstacles, frustrations to be disposed of by any means necessary. So you'll drive up someone's arse on the fast lane doing 90 in your Beamer (funny how so often it's a Suit in a Beamer giving you grief, eh?) with your headlights on full beam, until they move aside and you whizz on to the next blockage. Or you'll tailgate someone doing the speed limit on an urban road. Or you'll flash your lights angrily at someone who pulls out in front of you. Or you'll shout abuse at someone who's not indicated properly at a roundabout because he's delayed your entrance onto it by a half-second. Or you'll give the finger at someone who's dithering on lane changes in an unfamiliar area.
You know who you are. You're the sort of person who normally wouldn't say boo to a goose, or would decry with moral indignation the levels of crime and violence in society, or would deplore today's lack of civility and respect towards others. Yet put you inside a metal box powered by volatile hydrocarbons and you suddenly became the pure selfish individual, driven (literally) by naked self-interest, divorced from society, because you feel you're entering a Hobbesian war of all against all, where clubs are trumps. How many of you have fantasised about having weapons to wipe other incompetent/dangerous/irresponsible (unlike you, naturally) drivers off the road with the flick of a switch?
Yet, if someone you've given the finger to suddenly screeches to a halt and gets out of the car to confront your aggression, you shit yourself and leg it, then if you escape unscathed you bang on later about 'road rage' and how dangerous the roads have become when such nutters are loose. Even though it was you who provoked the violence with your own aggression. What's surprising is not that people get out of their cars to have it out with drivers who've been abusive, but that so few people do so given the levels of aggression on the roads. If someone shouted abuse in your ear when you're walking along the pavement, you'd turn round and shout abuse back and maybe even twat them one, yet just because you're inside a car you think that you can aggress against others without any comeback. I've got news for you, pal - other drivers are people too, just like you.
Why all this ranting? Because I've had it with drivers who drive with their balls and not their brains. It's no coincidence that most abuse, tailgating and aggression comes from men behind the wheel, for whom masculine identity and testosterone are an integral part of their 'identity' as a driver - just witness some of the witlessly macho ads for cars shown on TV, or that TV nutter Jeremy Clarkson getting a hard-on over a sports car and talking of it as if it were some pneumatic bimbo off a top shelf mysogynist fantasy mag (though if it were a bimbo it would be the only way an ugly emotionally-stunted toad like him would ever score). I've thought for a long time now that male drivers should take testosterone-reducing pills before getting behind the wheel, because it's their hormone and machismo problems that maim and kill other people.
Not that women drivers are immune from being aggressive, but at least to them the car isn't an extension of their being, an existential part of their gender identity - most women view cars, rightly, as vehicles to get them from A to B in reasonable comfort. Even they, though, can fall prey to the false separation from the world that the metal box provides, and start to view other drivers as obstacles rather than real people.
The principle is simple: do inside the car as you would do outside it, in real life. If you'd never shout abuse in real life, don't do it in the car. If you give the finger, then if you're an honest person you should be prepared to fight it out if it comes to it - if you carry out an action, you should bear responsibility for the consequences. If you're not prepared to back up your aggression with violence, then don't be aggressive in the first place. Piece of piss.
posted by Fred at 10:17 PM
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