American Pie: It's All The Rage - Road Rage That Is
John Merchant reports that road rage is rife in urban areas in the USA, "Cities in Florida have their own brand, mostly related to the impatience of young people when they encounter older drivers, of which Florida has a high proportion. When these young bloods encounter what they perceive as hesitancy, or even, dare I say, “careful” driving, or spot an out-of-town registration plate, it appears to turn them into modern-day Genghis Khans.''
John's suggested cause for this antisocial behaviour points to a bleak future for affluent nations.
To read more of John's well-consider columns please click on American Pie in the menu on this page.
I have no proof, but I’d be willing to bet that the mood altering powers of the automobile have been at work ever since horseless transportation came into being. Put a perfectly normal, polite and friendly human being behind a steering wheel and you’re well on the way to creating a monster. The vehement exchanges that were once joined between the automobilist and the postilion have lived on through changing times.
If I were to rank driver “attitude” by country in this regard, Italy would be number one, France number two, and the country noted for the fine art of its reserve, England, number three. Odd isn’t it that a population noted for its unwillingness to make eye contact, and which recoils from public expressions of emotion, should be so willing to engage in flamboyant behavior on the highway.
I suppose you could say that the antics of British football fans also runs counter to the National reserve, but my theory is that anonymity encourages people to behave outlandishly. A crowded arena and the confines of a car on a heavily trafficked road both offer shelter from recognition. But leaving the soccer fans out of the discussion, it seems to me that the aggressive behavior of motorists in the UK and Europe stops short of the pure enmity to be found on metropolitan highways in the USA.
I deliberately left the USA out of my ranking because there’s an element in driver’s “attitudes” here that I don’t believe is common elsewhere, and that is incipient rage. When the rage factor kicks in, terrible acts often ensue. Cars have been rammed, drivers shot and pedestrians run down. Fortunately for the rest of the country, such behavior is to be found mostly in metropolitan areas like New Jersey, New York, Los Angeles and Washington.
However, cities in Florida have their own brand, mostly related to the impatience of young people when they encounter older drivers, of which Florida has a high proportion. When these young bloods encounter what they perceive as hesitancy, or even, dare I say, “careful” driving, or spot an out-of-town registration plate, it appears to turn them into modern-day Genghis Khans.
This behavior used to be the exclusive province of young males, but is now demonstrated increasingly by young women. In its mildest form, their angry responses include tail gating, horn blowing and gesturing, with epithets yelled out of the window as they pass. More extreme behavior includes cutting across lanes at high speed and weaving around the more staid motorists, often while speaking on a cell phone.
What they fail to appreciate is that such antics unnerve older drivers to the point that they are themselves liable to be the cause of an accident. In one case involving a friend of mine, she was forced off the road after being tailgated for some distance, and the vehicle she was driving overturned, causing injuries to her and her child. Needless to say, the driver that caused the accident did not stop.
This kind of behavior has become so endemic in the USA that roadside signs on some highways post a telephone number that one can call to report dangerous driving. In my opinion, two obvious factors contribute to this state of affairs. In the first place it is far too easy to obtain a driver’s license in America.
My driving test in England lasted well over an hour on the road, followed by a 15 minute oral exam. The time on the road included driving in city traffic and out on the highway. My examiner was a retired police officer. The first time I took the test I failed. By contrast, my daughter’s driving test in New York Sate lasted all of 10 minutes, and merely involved driving round quiet suburban streets. Fortunately she was and is a very competent driver.
The other contributing factor that I see is the existence and glorification of the, so called, “muscle cars.” Some of these beasts are capable of speeds well in excess of 150mph, and of acceleration rates more suitable for grand prix racing than suburban transportation, and we’re talking unmodified production cars here.
The cars’ capabilities are proudly touted by the manufacturers in TV commercials aired during sports programming, and watched by a high proportion of young, macho males, and some macha females. If you add that exposure to recreational drug use and an almost constant diet of movies featuring wild car chases you have a recipe for mayhem on the roads.
And now it would seem that the culture of anger is spilling out of cars and into parking spaces. A report by Jesse McKinley in the New York Times titled “San Franciscans Hurl Their Rage at Parking Patrol,” states that “San Franciscans have been shocked in recent months by crimes related to finding places to park. These include an attack in September 2006, in which a young man was killed trying to defend a parking spot he had found! Parking control officers in that city suffered 28 attacks in 2006, up from 17 in 2005.”
On top of all the other encouragement to violent behavior on the roads, could the anger also be an expression of disillusionment by this generation of twenty and thirty-somethings? Here they are with all the freedoms that previous generations craved, and happiness is still illusory. If so, they could perhaps be labeled the “Is that all there is?” generation.
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