Vehicles and anonymity
What is it about cars that make people behave the way they do? I’m not just talking about the people who pick their noses or check their teeth for lipstick, I’m sort of talking about road rage. I don’t mean the kind of road rage where people pull guns out, I’m talking about people who beep at the car lingering at the green light a second too long. I’m talking about the people who will weave in and out of 3 lanes of traffic just to pass you and not go any faster.
Every day on my commute home I encounter a traffic jam at each point where a left lane ends. There are plenty of signs notifying drivers, but still they fly through this lane, and come to an abrupt stop when they realize no one will let them over. So every day, the right two lanes are at stand still because a few cars just had to be in front of everyone else. Almost always the cars are imports, SUVs, or both. Is there some notion of auto-entitlement? I paid $70,000 for my car, therefore I have more right to the road than you do?
I can recall a road trip where a woman rode on my bumper for a good 10 miles. I was going 90 miles per hour. (This was in college, I drive like a grandma now.) She started flashing her lights at me, but the more she fussed the angrier I got. Why should I yield to her, I was going 30mph above the speed limit! Finally she drove between my car and a semi to pass me.
There’s a road on the way to my parents’ house that runs through the Metroparks. It’s dark, windy, and surrounded by woods, so it’s no surprise the speed limit is 30mph. Two years ago I hit a deer there (more on this story later.) I was only going about 20 miles per hour, but a car coming from the other direction was flying when the deer ran out in front of it. It swerved to miss the deer, right into my lane, so when I counter-swerved to miss it, I hit the deer, and totalled my car. Still, every time I take this road some jerk rides up on my ass. I wish I had a megaphone on my car so I could scream “I hit a deer on this road, and I’d not care to hit another you inconsiderate bastard!”
I doubt any of this behavior is surprising or unfamiliar to anyone, but remove the cars from those contexts. If you were walking behind some old people at the mall who stopped to gawk at some hot topic faux hawks would you scream “HONK” at the top of your lungs? Would you run them off the tile and into the nearest fountain or plastic foliage? What about the women with the double-wide strollers trying to squeeze their way through displays of stacked wine glasses? Would you step on their heels, or maybe give them a little push? Would you walk in front of every other person in the store just to get in front of them? Would you push someone over and insist it was their fault for daring to walk in front of you? What about risking people’s safety and lives? Would you jump two floors off an escalator, onto a rack of clothes, just so you could get their first? I think not. Just because you’re hiding behind your car doesn’t mean you’re not a big, fat, jerk.
