(2 of 6)
Too true, too true. But the example of Anne--prosperous, well-adjusted Anne, loving wife and mother--raises the overarching question of road anarchy. Residents of late 20th century America are arguably the luckiest human beings in history: the most technologically pampered, the richest, the freest things on two legs the world has ever seen. Then why do we drive like such jerks?
The most common answer: What do you mean we, Kemo Sabe? Of course, you don't drive like a jerk. Neither does Anne--just ask her. Very few drivers admit to being an obnoxious road warrior. There seem to be only three types of people on the road these days: the insane (those who drive faster than you), the moronic (those who drive slower than you) and...you. But this merely confuses the issue. Surely someone is doing all that speeding, tailgating, headlight flashing and abrupt lane changing, not to mention the bird flipping and horn blasting. There's enough in the phenomenon of road rage to keep a faculty-loungeful of social theorists thinking deeply for years--or at least until the grant money runs out.
That won't be any time soon. With millions of victims and hardly any confessed perpetrators, road recklessness has become the car-related sickness du jour, deposing (for the moment) drunk driving from its long-standing reign. Like drunk driving, the issue has energized America's vast machinery of social concern. The Federal Government is spending money on research, Congress has held hearings, law-enforcement authorities have held seminars and developed special enforcement programs, and psychologists are treating it as a genuine, stand-alone disorder. There are Websites devoted to the topic, including one--the Database of Unsafe Driving--that allows Web users to enter not only an account of their experience with an aggressive driver but also the "insane moron's" license-plate number, along with a proposed punishment. (Several of these--surprise!--are obscene.)
Aggressive driving, of course, has been around since the early decades of this century, from the moment when the average number of automobiles on any given roadway rose from 1 to 2. It is partly a matter of numbers. There are 17% more cars in America than there were 10 years ago, while the number of drivers is up 10%. More to the point: the number of miles driven has increased 35% since 1987, while only 1% more roads have been built.
But as the quantity of cars has risen, the nature of the problem has changed qualitatively as well. Maybe the congestion is making everyone cranky. Americans are famously attached to their cars; it's just the driving they can't stand. "Driving and habitual road rage have become virtually inseparable," says Leon James, a professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii who specializes in the phenomenon. In the most comprehensive national survey on driving behavior so far, a Michigan firm, EPIC-MRA, found that an astounding 80% of drivers are angry most or all of the time while driving. Simple traffic congestion is one cause of irritation, but these days just about anything can get the average driver to tap his horn. More than one-third of respondents to the Michigan survey said they get impatient at stoplights or when waiting for a parking space; an additional 25% can't stand waiting for passengers to get in the car. And 22% said they get mad when a multi-lane highway narrows.