July 23, 2015 • 52 mins
About half of all people experience rage on a daily basis when they get behind the wheel. What is it about driving that ticks us off so badly?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuff Bryant. Jerry's over there
eating some super crackers, which means this is stuffy. Yeah,
Jerry's following too close. Yeah, well she's sitting down at
(00:23):
the debt. So it's okay. It's dangerous to eat super
crackers right on someone's bumper, right, you could set somebody
off and they may go crazy on you and shoot you.
That's right. Um. I would like to just right off
the bat say that. In Chuck's book Driving, there are
three kinds of drivers. Okay, I thought about this. Uh,
(00:43):
there are good drivers, Okay, it's me, which you're generally
just capable, confident. You make mistakes, but you're just in
control of your vehicle. Defensive driving. That's me. There are
bad drivers, that's me. Uh, nervous drivers. You know, have
you ever been a car with someone that just doesn't
feel confident behind me? That's the worst. It's scary. It's
(01:07):
not the worst. Actually that's coming. But also people who
are just in their own like I say, they have
their heads up their fannies. I say that a lot
in traffic, get your head out of your Fannie r H.
So that counts as a bad driver, just in your
own world, basically not even thinking that there are other
people around you. That is still the second one. Yeah, okay, yeah,
I'm not I'm not number two. And then the third
(01:29):
is jerks. That's me and I think jerk. I think
we can reach people in the first two categories with
this read of this podcast, But you can't reach jerks.
I don't know, man, because I definitely consider myself a
jerk in traffic, you can't reach jerks. And and this
reached me in a lot of voice. Well, then you're
(01:49):
not a jerk, because jerks are ones who are like
feel completely justified to like get up in front of
someone and slam on the brakes if as punishment. That
is jerk. So I wouldn't slam on my brakes. That's
just stupid and juvenile. But I would go around somebody
who cut me off and maybe cut them off, which
(02:12):
would make me a jerk. Right, that makes you a
dangerous driver? Okay, Well I agree, and I realized that
that being a dangerous driver is a really stupid, dumb
thing to do. And this article, Like I was already
on the road. You me hate the way I drive
a lot of times, right, so she's got me on
shortly as far as driving goes um and so like
(02:36):
I'm already in the mindset, but then reading this article
helped drive it home even further, like, yes, this is
really stupid. The thing that that the light bulb that
went on over my head was like, if you drive aggressively,
it's bad enough, right, it can be dangerous. It just
takes a very stressful situation. It makes it worse for yourself, hand, everybody.
(02:56):
But then one thing I hadn't considered. You might run
a foul of somebody who is like a genuine psychopath
that will run you off the road and kill you.
It actually a weapon on you and try and shoot you. Right.
There's a there's a video of cell phone video of
a guy who was driving and there's a guy road
raging next to him or whatever, and the guy was
(03:18):
just filming him. And in the film, the guy pulls
out a gun and all of a sudden, a puff
of gray smoke comes out of the end of the
gun that's being pointed at the guy shooting the video,
who's driving in the other has been fired unless that
gun just burped right. That guy was a doctor in Kentucky.
The guy who shot at the other dude, So, um,
(03:40):
you never know who you're going to run a foul
And that was one thing I hadn't considered. That Now
I'm like, oh yeah, I should probably add this to
the pile of reasons why I shouldn't drive like a jerk. Well,
and here's my caveat here is I think that any
of those three drivers I described can be You can
be any of those given certain circumstances on any given day.
But what I mean by jerks or people that are
(04:01):
just they're out of the car, they're jerks. Personality wise,
they're jerks and that's just who you are, and that's
not who you are. Thanks man, I'm just about to
put you on the spot. But you took the initiative.
How about that. So this is written by Jonathan Strickland
of tech Stuff, who ironically does not have a driver's license.
Now he doesn't drive, but and you can tell that
(04:22):
Strickland wrote this because he talks a lot early on
about how dangerous and stressful driving is and how basically
you could sort of extrapolate you're a fool if you
drive a car pretty much. Yeah, that's why I don't.
And um, road rage what we're talking about here is,
um it's a of a fairly recent providence, which means
(04:45):
it's kind of one of those um like since cars
have been around, yeah, but even more recent than that,
As far as as far as I can tell, they've
traced the origin of the term back to only and
it didn't really become like a nationally renowned thing until
the nineties. Um. And there was this this idea that
there was an epidemic of road rage going and I
(05:06):
think a lot of people still suspect that there's plenty
of road rage. But you don't hear the word like
epidemic used any longer as much. I think now everybody
just calls it driving. But the it's it's also contextually bound, right,
there's not like a strict definition of it. No. But
you also you can't have road rage without having a car.
And the more and more I looked into this, more
(05:28):
and more I realized that road rage is not you
can't just extrapolate it onto other conditions. It is a
very unique, very specific type of mental malady. Basically you know,
like because people behave in their car, and we see
this over and over when they talked to psychological experts
or psychologists, Um that it. It's you behave in your
(05:53):
car much differently like the things you would do in
a car you would not think of doing, like in
an elevator. Yeah, the car but stosa and you a
sense of um, not invincibility, but there's a little bit
there's like you can see the other person, but there's
a barrier between that person that gives you the confidence
in the arrogance to be like, here's my middle finger.
(06:14):
Whereas like, like you said, if you were in an elevator,
you would not do the same thing. I said, floor
to get your head out of your middle finger. Right,
So the car set you up for a certain sort
of psychological aggressiveness. It's become okay. But it's also also
when you're in a car, you're almost always plopped into
(06:35):
a set of stressful circumstances, and so all of this
together leads to a potential for road rage to just
kick in. Yeah, well there's uh someone and boy what
a name. Dr Leon James Um studies this a lot,
and he has even known as Doctor Driving because he
has been an expert witness to Congress on traffic psychology.
(06:58):
That's all it takes to get a name like Dr Driving.
I bet he never gets honked at with that vanity
plate in traffic right after driving. So um he believes
and I tend to agree with him that one of
the big causes of road rage isn't too many people
or traffic or whatever, but the way our culture views
aggressive driving. And he pointed out that children who see
(07:21):
their parents are nice and sweet folks, when they get
in a car, they see them driving aggressively and yelling
things and saying things. And this brings kids up with
this idea that wait a minute, when I'm in this
weird tin can on four wheels, or when my parents
are their personality changes. Yeah, I get to flip the
bird at people. Yeah, and it's fine. You can yell,
(07:42):
scream and cuts would never do that in real life.
But um so children see this and then it becomes
or if you just watch TV or movies, you know
aggressive driving is uh is the norm? Yeah? Have you
ever seen the Transporter Yeah? Or Bullet Yeah? Or Fat
st and Furious twelve or the best car chase ever?
(08:03):
Blues Brothers. Oh, that's a tough one. No, that's it.
That's the one that's tough. That's the one fridge connection.
Oh go to sleep better than the Blues Brothers. You kidding,
that's there's some great car chases. So so you've got
you have children seeing, um, their parents acting hostily and
(08:27):
aggressively in the car, learning that, right, do you have,
like you said, fast driving being glorified to a certain degree.
And then also, uh, it's married with this idea that
was around for a very long time. Our friends Sigmund
Freud came up with this um that if you have
some sort of base emotion like anger or whatever it
(08:50):
should be, it should be vented. Yeah, and that's not
the case. They're finding. There's this thing called Catharsis theory that, um,
if you have that base lee is what I just said,
that like if you're if you're frustrated, you just shout
and like being on your steering wheel and you'll feel better.
And studies have found that no, actually you're just practicing
(09:11):
to be a better, better at being aggressive in real life, right,
And that the supposedly the best way to do it
is just ruminate on it. Just basically sulk until it
goes away, or meditate. Sure, a couple of other things
that come into play are especially here in the United States,
UM in tendency to not back down because that's cowardly.
(09:34):
We're taught to stand firm, and um a sense of
justice is that's a big one for me. Well plus also, um,
all of that is psychological. You can take it even
further down to the neurological and biological levels where when
you are in a situation where you perceive that you
are being encroached upon or threatened or something like that,
(09:58):
your fight or flight syndrome is going to kick inch
or and you're going to react badly. You're going to
have the opportunity to feel aggressive because again, your flight
aspect is probably diminished because you feel protected and separated
from that driver by your car and their car, like
this is my area. So fight is probably going to
(10:22):
be the one that kicks in the most right and
when that happens, anger kicks in. And anger is this
article puts as a very seductive emotion. Yeah, that adrenaline. Um,
it might not feel good in the moment, but adrenaline,
you know, it's it's a rush and Uh, yeah, it
is seductive people. I don't know if they seek it out,
but when it happens, it's not like that felt bad. No,
(10:44):
you're like, I feel like a million bucks. I'm gonna
go tell my boss what's what? But the and if
you're kind of getting that like this, this seems like
something of a hodgepodge or a kitchen sink of like
pop psychology, it very much is what I think. One
of the things that has kind of been pushed to
the wayside is the idea that road rage is made
(11:06):
up by the media or that it's is just nothing
but pop psychology. It does appear to be a real thing.
It's very situational and context specific. Um. And yet because
it isn't fully understood all of the mechanisms and processes,
there's a lot of room for morning talk show hosts
(11:26):
to to interview fraudulent experts on it and then that
become factor theory or whatever. Yeah, my my advice is
to not watch those shows ever unless we're on it,
and to um, if you need proof, look around driving
a big city one day and just do that for
an hour and you will witness some kind of road rage.
(11:49):
Well I was I read this article from like the
late nineties by this I think a sociologist or something.
He was like, this is completely fabricated road rage epidemic.
Road rage itself doesn't this um by by this guy,
And the person who interviewed the guy went about just
totally disassembling his argument. The guy, he was like strictling,
(12:11):
he didn't drive road to train, admitted he'd never never
experienced UM road rage or what it what it must
be like, or what people are saying as road rage,
and he was just sure it didn't exist. He did
back it up a little bit with UM police reports
and all that stuff, but no, road rage definitely does exist.
It happens. So let's take a break, Chuckers before we
(12:34):
go on, because I'm getting excited and I need to
calm down. All right, I'm feeling calm, alright, good. Um,
(12:57):
Let's talk about a little bit about just what goes
on in a typical incident. Uh, what you're looking at
is usually an almost always an escalation, a trigger and
an escalation an aggressive action. One person does something, someone
else does something back, like a punishment, and it escalates
(13:18):
from there, hopefully not too much, but like you said,
it can lead to murder. Well, yeah, man, there's this um.
There's a guy out there who's called the um road
rage Killer has apparently killed multiple people, including this guy,
Timothy Davison, who was UM, who was chased for fifteen
(13:38):
miles in Maryland, through Maryland and Pennsylvania before the road
rage killer forced him off the road and then got
out and shot him to death while he was in
his car. This person probably thinks they're making the roads
a safer place. I think they're also just a serial
killer who has this an unusual m O. That too,
uh So Dr James dr driving excuse me. He identified
(14:01):
a bunch of aspects of driving that that can contribute
to this, and that all makes sense. One is immobility
because you're um, you're stuck there. You can't like, you know,
if you're at home and you're stressed out, you can
go take a jog or something. Sure, go hit the
boxing bag, which is again I've been discounted the heavy bag. Um.
(14:21):
And when you're behind the wheel of a car, you
can't do that stuff unless you have a speedbag like
hanging in the driver's seat. And then similarly, you're also
feeling a sense of constriction right, Like, you're on the
road and it's the open road, and it's a big road,
but I mean, really, it's just several feet across. You
gotta stay on it. Yeah, you have to stay on it.
(14:43):
You're you're boxed in. Uh So that makes sense. Lack
of control. Even if you are one of the good drivers,
like I mentioned, in control of your vehicle, you cannot
uh predict or have any control over the drivers around you,
or traffic or can struction or whether or anything else
that can add up to a cruddy commute, right. And um,
(15:06):
what's more, you don't have the option of just abandoning
your car or in traffic gets bad, So you're stuck.
Oh you can if you're Michael Douglas and falling down, right.
But that's what made that act so radical and kicked
off and established his character. He just leaves his car
in traffic. People don't do that, which contributes further to
(15:26):
that lack of control. You're stuck there, whether you like
it or not, unless you want to give up your car.
For a lot of people like the cars the most
expensive possession they own, and so they're not going to
abandon it. So that to me, the lack of control.
That is probably the most um seaconed situation or aspect
of um of driving that can lead to aggression and
(15:51):
hostility and stresses like you're if you're if you need
to be somewhere, and you left in time, and you
made sure that you got up early and you got
out there, and everything's great on your end, but then
you pull right into traffic, and you know you're going
to be late. Well, that's not fair. It's not fair.
It's just it's it's unjust. That's right, and it's everyone
(16:14):
else in front of your's fault, that's right. Territoriality is
a big one. Um. Like I said earlier, this is
our space, and if you infringe upon that space, there's trouble. Uh.
Denial and loss of objectivity is a pretty obvious one
because no one it's never your fault, right you know, Yeah,
it's not you, it's the other true. Yeah, although that's
(16:36):
not true for me. I will in case I do
a bone head move or when that happens, I'm always
very quick to say I'm sorry. Well, I will get
very mad if they they continue to yell at me.
If I'm like, oh, I'm sorry about that. That was
you know, my fault and then they're still yelling at me.
Oh yeah, they've got half right. Then then I'm like,
they have a half a second to accept your apology
(16:57):
or ignore it if they if they escalate on right, Yeah, Like,
what do you want to put me in stocks and
flog me? I'm saying I'm sorry here, and I do
the same thing, chuck, Like if I do something stupid
like I almost every time, we'll be like, sorry, throw
the hand up. Sure, just the all fingers sticking up right. Unpredictability, Um,
(17:20):
you never know what's going to happen out there, so
that can make it stressful if you're not confident. Yeah,
especially if you're not confident. I imagine that's a terrible
way to drive. Uh. And then ambiguity. I never really
thought about that, but I'm strickling points out there is
no um mutually agreed upon the way to say you're sorry.
I've always kind of thought it was throw the hand
up a nod hand. And I think people are perceptive
(17:42):
enough to tell when you're sarcastically waving, like when somebody
wouldn't let you in even though you had your blinker on.
And finally you're like, I'm forcing my way in front
of you, and then you give them that sarcastic wave
like thanks so much, I'm in front of you even
though you didn't want me to. I think people can
distinguish between that wave and like uh sorry, shoulders hunched,
(18:03):
sorry kinda, or the appreciate it wave is a great
when you're up, you're waving, you're turning about in your seat,
maybe you turn your winshell wipers on and a salute
to the people. Yeah, do you can tell the difference? Yeah,
you know, let's let someone over. I found more and
more people are intentionally don't let people in. If someone's like,
(18:24):
oh I miss my turn, such can I get in there?
And people like what kind of psychopath? What kind of sociopath? Oh,
it's the same thing whether no, no, no, I would
let you in, but I'm not gonna do it. The
roads are lousy with those people. And you know what,
when I see somebody else do that, I'm just like,
I'll be like you piece of garbage to the person
(18:45):
who wouldn't let the other person in. But then every
once in a while, and I'm really shocked and just
made when this happens, like, um, somebody will be trying
to like go ahead of me, and I know they're
gonna get in front of me, and I'll like look
down and I didn't realize it, but I've been accelerating
rather than just going the same speed I was before. Unconsciously,
(19:06):
I'm like, you're not getting in front of me, so
I'm like speeding up. And it's just such a horrible
thing to do. When I realized it, I'll I'll stop
and let them go or whatever. But um, yeah, it's
almost unconscious. Sometimes some people you can tell that it's
very much conscious, they're just not letting the person in.
But I think sometimes it's also unconscious, like people don't
(19:28):
they don't want to be behind somebody. Yeah, and I'll
also point out to that, you know, you should let
people over and stuff, just to be nice and pay
it forward. But um, for why is that so funny?
Think it funny? Oh, I didn't even see that movie.
That's a real term. You wouldn't say you wouldn't use
that term if you've seen the movie. Um. But sometimes
(19:52):
if someone has you know, missed their turn and they're
blocking an entire row of traffic that is trying to turn,
sometimes you just gotta be like you missed your turn,
Like take the right turn around and start over, Like
there's forty people behind you that didn't miss their turn.
They're trying to take that right. Man. Totally agreed. And
(20:13):
those people are like, Nope, I'm just gonna sit here
or blocking the box and an intersection, Yeah, you just
sets everybody back big fines in New York City. Not
not in Atlanta. It's a free for all here in Atlanta.
Anybody can pull into an intersection at any time and
block as much traffic as they want. And it's partially
(20:34):
um the traffic planners are partially responsible for this chuck.
There are plenty of dumb lights out there in dumb
intersection systems that need to be improved. But is you
just you don't block the box. If everybody agrees not
to block the box, then traffic will actually move a
lot faster for everybody. Yeah, well, actually take a step back.
(20:56):
The real rule is don't enter and in section if
you cannot get completely through the intersection. Well that's the thing.
Don't block the box. Yeah, but sometimes people think like, oh,
well I think I see traffic moving, I'll just go
ahead and get out there. Then that light turns and
then you're sitting in there like a jerk. What we
need is just driver lest cars do the thinking for
(21:17):
us or people without their heads up their fannies. Um,
all right, so is it road rage? Is it aggressive driving?
It's hard to determine that because, um, you ask a
hundred people and you're gonna get a hundred different answers.
Like some people say, like, no driving, driving forty and
(21:39):
a thirty is fine, that's not aggressive. Yeah. Supposedly forty
seven percent of Americans consider driving ten miles an hour
or more over the speed limit to be a type
of aggressive driving. That's part of the problem is you
have wildly different opinions on what aggressive driving is, right, So, um,
not only do you have different opinions on that aggressive
(22:00):
driving is if even if people all agree, yeah, like
tailing somebody is following way too closely is aggressive driving?
I think pretty much everyone can agree on that, there's
still no quantifiable way to say that. Is it like
three ft is it a car length? Well, car length,
like there's their actual laws that say the amount of
(22:22):
car links you're supposed to behind someone, how many, Well,
it depends on your state. What state Georgia Uh, well,
I haven't taken the driver's test thirty something years, but
if I remember, like if they teach you in Driver's ed,
like two car links is safe and unless it's raining,
and then you're supposed to increase it by one. But
I mean there are rules that's not just indeterminate. People
(22:46):
don't follow them, but like that's where you'll get a
ticket if you rear end someone. Right, once you rear
end somebody, But people very rarely get pulled over for
just for following, of course, not unless you're following a
cop too closely. Okay, agreed? Like people, there's no real
definition necessarily of road rage, although Strickling points out that
(23:07):
there's a lot of people say what would constitute aggressive
driving is road rage? Um, and he kind of sticks
to the definition of road rages when aggressive driving triggers
a situation where people are committing acts of violence against
one another, either using their cars or because their cars
(23:28):
are around their cars. Yeah, I guess my definition would
be more than one interaction, like one person cutting someone
off and like flipping a bird not nice, But I
don't know if that's road rage. But if then that
person reacts to them back, and you have a a
situation going on between two people. That's road rage. To
(23:51):
my definition of road rage is when you are when
something just sets you off and you go with it,
even if you're not, like even if the person doesn't
see you, or you're not trying to get the person
to see you, but like you're pounding on your steering
wheel because somebody cut you off or they didn't use
their blinker. They're sitting there on their cell phone at
a green light or something like that, and you're you're
(24:14):
just that moment of basically temporary insanity that can just
be a one off. To me, it doesn't even have
to necessarily overtly include two people. It can be one
person being set off by the behavior of another person.
That to me is road rage. Yeah, I've I've gotten
much worse, I have to admit about. You know, when
(24:35):
the light turned screen, it used to be just a
polite lot like someone doesn't notice just a little the
light screen. But now the person is invariably looking down
at their phone, and I don't just do a kind
little beep anymore. Yeah, I give him a hawk. And
the other day, oh man, I had a lady sitting
at the green light, on her phone texting. I could
(24:55):
see her hot good at her. She flips me off
and continued like I'm gonna finish my text. My god,
oh dude, I had to like channel every like you know,
catch Stephens song on the planet running through my head.
They're not good nuts because I fall into the trap too.
I'm not perfect that I was. I was so angry
(25:18):
at the injustice of her to being like, no, no, no,
I know it's green. Shut up, I'm gonna finish this text.
Or similarly, I'll notice people who are, um, it's not
quite that hostile, but like you'll beep and they'll look
up and they'll see like, oh, it's green, and then
there they start to do both. They're still on their phone,
but then they start to drive, but they're going like
(25:41):
a half a mile an hour, and it's not that
much better than flipping you off and sitting there continuing
to text. At least that lady knew where she stood. Yeah,
maybe I should give her credit for just being herself,
you know. Um alright, so dr driving Um he lifted some.
He divides aggressive driving up into three areas that I
think are pretty emblematic of what you see every day.
(26:03):
There's impatience and inattentiveness, which is sort of what I
was talking about earlier. You're rolling through stop signs, you're
blocking the box, You're you're sitting there on your cell phone,
you're speeding. Um, you have your head up, your Fannie
or your your other excuses. I'm super late. I'm sorry,
but I'm really late. Yeah. These are almost two two sides,
(26:26):
two opposite sides of the same coin. Um, but they are.
They constitute doctor Driving's lowest level of aggressive driving or
road rage, depending on your definition. Right. Don't you find
that a little disconcerting that after all these years, we
still don't have a distinct definition for road rage and
that there's a guy named doctor Driving at the vanguard
(26:48):
of the study of this. Yeah, uh, alright, escalates into
number two, which is a power struggle. And this is big,
you know, this is a big deal. This is when
you are, um flipping someone off, they're flipping you off.
You've rolled your window down, You're making that eye contact
(27:09):
that they don't recommend you make. Um, I'm much more
passive aggressive. I'd never make the eye contact. Right, do
you like scratch the side of your face? It's just
your middle finger. No, No, I don't do that. I
don't flip anyone the bird. That's just I'm just like,
you never know who that person is. Yeah, Like I
don't want to have someone run me off the road
(27:29):
and try and kill me basically, right, See, that never
even occurred to me. And I'm a passive, aggressive Southerner.
That's really probably why um tailgating people cutting them off
acts of retaliation, and basically he says that this is
people with an unhealthy mentality when you think that you're
(27:49):
the target of someone else, like that person is after me,
which can be the case my That happens to me
a lot. Like anyone who's driving slow in front of
me in the fast lane is purposefully not getting over
because they don't feel like they have to and it
doesn't matter that I'm behind them. They just they don't
(28:10):
have to do it. They don't care that there it's
their right to be in the fast lane just as
much as mine, even though they're driving slower. That is
the one of the greatest challenges in my entire life,
is just dealing the lane. Yeah, yeah, that's one of
your big peeves. You know. Georgia has a law now
where you can be fine for driving slow in the
(28:31):
fast lane. Yeah. We we actually talked about that on
an episode, and I think we were we were talking
it up and we got some mail from people like
that's a ridiculous, dangerous law. I'm like, no, that's a
great law. Our response to all of them work, get
out of the left lane problem solved, so that one's mine,
where it's like, I have to remember, there's nothing personal
(28:53):
and even if that guy is like, well, it's my
specific right to be on the fast lane to jerk,
it has nothing to do with me. The person doesn't
know me. It's not anything to do with my day.
And um we I was reading this thing in Pacific Standard.
Did you read the article. It's called the Psychology and
Biology of road Rage, And they were talking about how
it's potentially one of the things that people with road
(29:17):
rage have is called intermittent explosive disorder, where you basically
disproportionately rage towards a stimulus, right, yeah, to any given stimulus.
So they were saying, like, I got the impression like
it's a bit of a stretch. They were saying that
people with I E. D Um. It doesn't necessarily mean
that if you have road rage, you have I E D.
(29:38):
But they were saying that road rage could be a
symptom of I E D. But the thing that I
got that's part of this Internet intermittent explosive disorder. The
thing that stuck out to me was hostile hostile attribution bias. Yes,
that seems to come up a lot in road rage. Yeah,
and I think, um, I guarantee you that's tied to
narcissistic personality disorder. It just sort of goes hand in
(30:02):
hand basically, like they're the injury or threat is not
an accident. It is purposeful um and personal right. But
that's what I'm saying. When somebody's driving fast in front
of me, me being a narcissist, apparently I have to
I have to say, like as whatever I can just
go around him, doesn't matter, even if they are like
(30:23):
I know who you are, I know you're in front
of It really changes nothing. Now we're still going seventy
eight miles an hour down the highway in metal boxes,
which means safety first, no matter what. Yes, So do
you get up in front of him and then do
the old Dallas them with your winch of wiper fluid? No?
(30:44):
I don't do that. I've seen people do that before, Like,
all right, I guess I gotta turn on my wipers
for a second. Now. I have never taken that as
a hostile act, although I'm sure people do do the thing.
I've seen people do that. No, Like someone will cut
you off and they'll get in front on the high
way and squirt their because it speed. Yeah, no, I
know what you mean. Children basically acting like children. I
(31:06):
will um. I have gotten to the point now I've
gotten way better, Chuck, I really am have learned to
just keep my aggressive driving and check um and just
let it go, let it go, and like I'll still
be a spark there, but I've gotten to a point
where I can be like, it doesn't matter, just go
(31:28):
around them right until it bleeds, until it work their
way all the way through. See you come in the mornings,
you're just bloody in the face. But if it's really bad,
if somebody is clearly just being like an arrogant jerk,
like this is my fast lane to my taxes paid
for this, I don't have to get around you. And
it's a real thing. I've got this thing now. Where
(31:50):
as I'm passing them, pass them slowly and calmly and
everything safe. But I'll just be like staring forward with
this huge overbite. Likely this is the slight and it
works really great. That's pretty good, and it feels pretty
good to me too. It feels more clever than like
shooting someone in the bird. You know, anyone can throw
(32:12):
out a middle finger, unless I guess you don't have
the middle finger. You know, it's a problem. So the
final bit, the final category is recklessness and road rage,
and that's when it escalates to full on violence. I'm
gonna use my car's weapon or I have a weapon. Yeah,
And the same Pacific Standard article UM reference to an
(32:34):
article in the journal Sexy Sexy Journal UM Accident Analysis
and Prevention and found that UM, the presence of a
gun increases road raging aggressive driving behavior, like even if
even if the person doesn't pull it out, just knowing
it's in the glove compartment makes it more likely to
(32:54):
be hostile. Yeah, it says they're more likely to make
obscene gestures at motorists and follow aggressively behind the car
ours And they're saying, does that mean that you have
a gun, you are going to drive more aggressively? They
can't say that, of course, or do you or are you?
Or if you're in an aggressive driver, you're just more
likely to be the same type of person I have
a gun, right, exactly interesting study though, for sure. Um,
(33:19):
and and that that same guy actually what's his name
or this other dude, Emil Cakaro, he's a or Cakaro,
he's a professor. He's a professor at a University of Chicago.
And he makes a great point. His advice is, don't
assume the other person is like you, yeah, like they
(33:40):
may be crazy. Don't assume they don't have a gun. Yeah,
don't assume that they're rational and reasonable and that like
it can stop escalating at some point. Yeah, That's what
I tell Emily all the time. I'm like, I trust you,
I said, but you don't. You don't know if you
flick someone off like that may be it for you.
And that would really be upsetting if I lost you
(34:01):
to road rage because you hung some crazy guy bird Like,
that's the most senseless, one of the more senseless ways
to die. Didn't you say yes? Okay? Which which leads
definitely up there, which leads to preventing rage Chuck, which
we're gonna talk about right after this. All right, Josh,
(34:34):
we've we've vented a lot here today. I know, even
though they say that's not healthy, I do feel a
cathar boy. Pair this with our traffic podcast and that's
that's driving goodness. That was the breaking bubble, Yeah, the
break bubble. So how can you avoid road rage? Everyone
makes mistakes behind the wheel? Um, you can. And actually
(34:57):
there was a little sidebar in here about these guys
that came up with the vehicle signaling system to say
I'm sorry. It's not a bad idea because horns, depending
on the horn in your car, it can sound aggressive itself,
even when you do not mean it that one yea,
Even that tap tap the wrong horn sounds like honk
honk yep. But like, yeah, that wouldn't be a bad
(35:21):
idea to have a little light that pops up that
says sorry, and then if they don't forgive you another
one that pops up. This is I said I was sorry,
one last chance. But people will figure out how to
use those sarcastically, like cutting someone off and slamming on
the brakes while flashing I'm sorry. Someone will someone would
use it like that. I would have three lights when
(35:42):
that says I'm sorry to that said I just said
I was sorry, and three that says you're dead to me,
And then they would have one that says I don't care.
But then like the to me would burn out without
you knowing it. It would just say you're dead. Yeah
you go, oh god, the road rage killer. All right,
so everyone makes mistakes. Hold on, I did read an
article all about I think afford Um executive who's in
(36:05):
charge of the horn, like trying to figure out how
to make different types of horns. So like in Europe
apparently they have horns available to them. Yeah, that wasn't
just Europe, that was Europe in that you just did.
So what are you saying? It can become like when
you go to buy a car, I said, I want
this kind of horn, Yeah, or you it comes equipped
(36:27):
with a horn that has different functions and capabilities for
different situations. That's a great idea. Like supposedly Tesla has
one that's like muted for use with pedestrians so you
don't scare the Jesus out of them. Yeah sure. Um,
so there's there's other ones, like a chirping one that's
supposed to be friendlier, right, and then there's the the
(36:48):
Semitruck air horn, which you can get it foot in
your car that liquefies your ear canal. Yeah. My problem
was with the rental cars. Their horns are always lame.
Oh yeah, any like not even much of a sound. Supposedly,
Hyundai released the Sonata and like it was a great car,
but everybody hated the horn because they they found it
(37:09):
to be too wimpy. They had to like rerelease it
with a better horn. I believe it. Um, do you
remember did you watch a Little Miss Sunshine? No? I
never saw. It's a good movie. There's a running gag
that they're old beat up. B W Van has a
horn that will go off occasionally, just without but it
sounded exactly like my old VW Beetle had a horn
(37:31):
that was like you cut in and out and it
would for a time, whenever I took a hard left turn,
it would it would go off, but it wasn't allowed.
It was just like it sounded like a dying person
gasping for air. A death rattle, Yeah, a death rattle horn. Um,
that's a good movie. You should check that out. Death
rattle a little well, that death rattle too, and three
(37:53):
and then little miss Sunshine, you should check out pay
It Forward to see why you should stop saying pay
it forward, I have no desire um. Alright, So everyone
makes mistakes back to that, but you can avoid this
escalation and conflict if a you don't know, you don't
do the eye contact deal. They say, that's like, just
(38:15):
like a wild animal, don't look him in the eyes.
Or wait, I thought they said, do look him in
the eyes to stare him down. On what animal? Yeah, alright,
like if it's a rat, stare it down. Okay, but
it's a sign of aggression. Pull up someone and you
look him hard in the eye, that's yeah, exactly. Keep
(38:36):
control of your temper. That's a no brainer. Um, someone,
it is a no brainer. But that's tough to do.
Sit it is, especially if you're justice spells are ringing
like mine. Do like that person shouldn't get away with us, right,
lady in front of me, should not get have gotten
away with that? Alright? Uh, they didn't have done surveys
(38:57):
even that showed that drivers don't think that they're being
They think they're being assertive and not aggressive, so that
basically there can be a lot of mixed uh communication,
and your goal is to just I don't care what
they're doing. I'm not going to match what they're doing.
You're It's also called being the bigger person, you know,
just let it, let it go, don't let them make
(39:20):
you hit the gas pedal. Just think about all the
gas you'll save by not driving aggressively. In in return, Yeah,
and Strictlan points out that will seem unnatural to you
even to just say, you know what they're driving like that,
it's not my problem. They're they're a sad, angry person. Well,
he also points out that they're probably under as much
(39:41):
stress as you are. They may be late because apparently
UM in follow ups to UM two aggressive driving incidents
and road rage into the incidents, people frequently say they
were all they were under stress outside of their car.
Already work, stress, life, stress, that kind of stuff, right,
So when you carry that into the extraordinarily stressful, unnatural
(40:05):
situation of driving a car, especially in traffic, UM it can.
It can. Also you're just already set up for it.
So if you step back and think maybe that person
is having a rough time in their life, it will
make it easier for you to just let it go
and be the bigger person. Yeah, it's a win win,
(40:25):
And we've all been there, and I think you can admit, like,
if you're just having a great day and everything's coming up, Josh,
you're probably much more laid back behind the wheel, you know.
But if you're super uptight about something, I think all
of us fall into that trap, you know. So, so
there are steps you can take to prevent falling into
that trap. There's one in here that cracks me up,
(40:46):
but it's totally true. Listening to relaxing music. I listened
to easy listening music, like basically radio the Botomy, and
it actually helps quite a bit. Really, Yeah, he says,
concentrating on breathing. I can't do that. Yeah, I mean,
that's get bored anytime I try to just focus on
my breathing. Yeah, you either get at that or not. Right,
(41:06):
So I've opted for relaxing music instead. Uh. He recommends
to get enough sleep. Um, I guess it makes sense.
Here's one that's you have to give yourself plenty of
time to where you're going. Sure, don't leave late and
expect to just have a pleasurable ride, right, um right,
you just can't you expect the worst expect that, you know,
(41:28):
and if you show up five minutes early, whatever, that's fine. Um,
people love punctual people. That's nice, right, Um if you
if it's out of your hands, though, then you should say, Okay,
I'm gonna be like not, oh god, I need to
cut through all this, which is kind of like you
mean is rolling on the ground laughing right now hearing
(41:49):
me say that, because I'm like, we have to go
to the airport. First of all, we have to leave
two and a half hours before our flight, and I
have to drive like a maniac on the way to
get there, even if we have plenty of time, because
there's a you got a deadline. Yeah, you don't want
to miss that flight. Nope, I get it. I get
super stressed with when I know I have to fly
(42:09):
that day because you don't know. You can look at
the traffic map, but sometimes it feels like you can't
leave early enough. You know. I've actually gotten a lot
more relaxed on that too. I think about it. You
miss like this little walking valume for me. Right, She
totally chilled me out in traffic. She chilled me out
about like missing a flight and all that stuff. So yeah,
I have chilled out tremendously. I still do drive aggressively sometimes.
(42:34):
That's right. I'm gonna work in progress, Chuck, I do too,
my friend, it happens. Uh. And we've already talked about
avoiding venting on that can actually increase your sense of
danger in frustration instead of calming you down and you're
and they're screaming and yelling that that's really not alleviating anything.
You know. I do know I can tell you afterwards.
(42:55):
Whenever I do it, I feel terrible about myself, Like
I was just like quite and just that. Go. Now
you look like a jackass to anybody who saw you
like going? Yeah, And um, you feel like a jackass too,
don't you. Yes, I do. That's what I say to myself. Uh.
So let's talk a few statistics here to close, shall we?
(43:16):
Oh wait, there's dr driving does point out one thing
that I think is probably right. One of the best
ways to deal with road rage, to prevent road rage,
is to teach little kids from an early age how
to drive safely, how to avoid road rage, that kind
of stuff. And I remember going to Safety City. Did
you ever go to Safety City? If you've heard of it?
(43:36):
Never heard of it. It It might have just been like
an Ohio thing, but we had a dangerous city. It
was that sounds kind of fun. Um. Safety city was
the opposite of that. There were dangerous there, but it
was all like plastic miniature stuff. So like there's a
jail in the center town and like it's like a
tiny city, okay, um with like streets and sidewalks and
(44:02):
all that stuff, and then buildings and all that, and
then you're on your big wheel riding around learning what
traffic laws are like. Really, so it's to teach kids
how to drive, yes, but also how to cross the
streets safely all that stuff. But you learn about the
danger of walking out in front of a car by
being a car yourself and having one of your peers
walk out in front of you, and like the first
(44:22):
couple of times you try to run them down, but
then you learn like, no, that's not cool because they
send you to jail. Was that part of school? I
don't remember what it was. I was pretty young. I
just remember my dad taking me to it and being
like a decent drive away from our home. So I'm
not exactly sure where it was when I went to it.
I just remember it was I got to bring my
big wheel, and I thought it was pretty great. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah,
(44:45):
it's funny to think about parents of uh and it
still happens today, But it seems like in the seventies
and stuff like what was going on in the car
was like, oh man, far from teaching experience. Yeah, we
were looking at like old um child safety seats. Yeah,
they looked like they were worse than nothing. Yeah, like
this metal bar that would just cut you in two
(45:07):
if you hit it like fast enough. I mean like
these things couldn't have been safe, like an old rusty
spring like pointed at your temple. Yeah, it's just bad news. Yeah.
I got a you know, mistakenly flew in on this
last tour to Baltimore instead of Washington, d C. So
I had to take a cab. I was gonna take
like a bus in a train, but I was like, na,
I'm running late, I need to get in a cab.
(45:29):
And I got in a cab to go from Baltimore
to d C. And it was the grumpiest oldest cab
driver I've ever met in my life. This guy was
in his mid seventies and immediately started honking at the
cab in front of him at the airport and dude,
this it was the perfect guy for what I needed,
because he drove like a bad out of hades to
(45:50):
get me there on time. And uh it was. It
was comical and scary and awesome. Uh yeah, yeah. Yeah.
People who don't put their seatbell on because they're in
a cab. It's it's like, here's your brain. Yeah. I
used to not wear much in the back seat, but
I've gotten better about that. You need to. Yeah. I
(46:10):
always figure like I'll just hit the seat in front
of me, right, maybe so, but you might go flying
over the seat and kick the person in the front
seat to death. It's not just you kick him to death. Yeah.
Uh can we talk stats? Yeah, you dug out this. Uh.
Cities that are the most courteous and least courteous last
(46:32):
year Auto Vantage survey. They did one in two thousand nine,
and they did one in two thousand fourteen, and this
varies from year to year, But in two thousand fourteen
they listed Houston, Texas at our own Atlanta number two
least courteous, Baltimore d C in Boston as least courteous,
and that change from two thousand nine, which was New York, Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta.
(46:57):
The only holdover was Atlanta, all right in Minneapolis, which
surprises me. Yeah, and then how the mighty have fallen?
Baltimore in two thousand nine was the third most courteous.
In two thousand and fourteen, it was the third least
courteous out of like twenty five major cities. It makes
me wonder what kind of study this is. To be honest,
so they survey drivers who drive in rush hour traffic
(47:23):
at least three times a week and then ask them
questions that pertain to like aggressive driving and driving courtesy.
Yeah it's not I mean it was a phone survey
and each participant spent about six minutes or whatever. But um,
I mean it's about as legitimate as this these kind
of things get because it's the study of road rage
(47:43):
and apparently no one's serious about it. Most Doctor Driving
and he can't even be serious enough to just call
himself Dr James. Well he used to be Mr. Driving,
so he's definitely taking a little more serious. Um, he
went back to school. Most Courteous Cities last year, where
Portland isn't a or one, Pittsburgh st Louis. But Portland
(48:03):
was also number one in two thousand nine, so they're
there are chill people out there. That's been my experience. Uh, Portland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis,
San Francisco, in Charlotte, North Carolina as the most courteous cities.
So how about that? Yep? You got anything else? Uh? There?
I know one thing I did see, though, I was
surprised um Strickland sites study that found that women and
(48:28):
men are pretty close in aggressive driving behaviors self reported
aggressive driving in road rage experiences. It's like percent of
men but forty four percent of women. I would have
guessed the disparity would have been a little more, but
apparently road rage strikes both genders equally. I definitely see
angry women out there, um and angry dudes. It's both. Yeah, yep,
(48:53):
so that's road rage, dude. If you guys want to
know even more about roadbrage, type those words into the
search part how stuff works dot com? And since I
said search parts, time for listener mail. Yeah, and if
we didn't impart it, settle down out there. It's dangerous.
We're all trying to get by here. Everybody's got their
own life stresses that they're bringing of the road a
(49:14):
little more courteous. They didn't mean it to you personally,
so don't take it personally. Josh and Chuck and Jerry.
I've seen her drive? Oh yeah, I've never seen Jerry drive.
Is she like an aggressive driver? Now? Jerry drives very safely.
Remember she takes crazy routes. I remember that, like I've
cutting through this parking lot because this light stinks. And
(49:36):
oh yeah, but I think that's the commute route she
has just she had mastered it from Buckhead. I will
do that too. Oh yeah, me too. Um, all right,
I'm gonna call this wild signal from a pro. Oh cool,
Hey guys, I'm a radio astronomer. Actually, yeah right, Actually
my sub field is radio transients, i e. Radio signals
(49:58):
detected once and ever again. Wait, is this person going
to debunk the wild signal right here? No, it's actually
a nice email. I felt like I had to right
in about the wild signal. I'm really glad I listened
to the episode. She almost didn't, because you guys really
did a great job nicely balancing the science and speculation.
So thank you. And when I get asked in the future,
I'll be shure to refer people to your wonderful coverage. Well,
(50:20):
thank you. I thought i'd give a few more details
on it if you're interested. Um. On the it might
be real side of things, it's also worth mentioning that
the Big Ear telescope used to look at two points
on the sky at the same time, separated by a
small distance, like two separate pixels. The wild signal was
detected in one but not the other, which is another
good indication that it might indeed be coming from space.
(50:41):
On the it might be nothing side, however, some recent
work that I've done actually showed that some unexplainable signals
that we've detected at a radio telescope in Australia turned
out to be coming from microwave ovens at the telescope site.
Man made signals can sometimes interfere with radiote theoscopes and
ways we don't expect, so it's hard to know something
(51:02):
like that could have also produced a WILD signal. It's
hard to say either way. I don't have a strong opinion,
to be honest, I mainly study things called fast radio bursts.
But I just wanted to say great job and thanks
for making my job easier rock On, Thank you rock On,
and that is from Emily Petrov, originally from Portland's Thank
you Emily, Oh courteous driver, probably now living in Melbourne.
(51:24):
I don't know about Melbourne's driving and moving to the
Netherlands in January. If I passed my PhD defense in October,
oh man, good luck, Emily, way to go. I hope
to see you in the Netherlands. Are you know in
my mind? Got you? Uh? If you want to tell
us that we did a fantastic job on something that
(51:45):
you're an expert in, we'd love to hear from you
for a change. Yeah. You can tweet to us at
s y s K podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
send us an email to stuff podcast at how stuff
Works dot com, and in the meantime you can hang
out with us that are super dope home on the web.
Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
(52:10):
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
dot com.
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuff Bryant. Jerry's over there
eating some super crackers, which means this is stuffy. Yeah,
Jerry's following too close. Yeah, well she's sitting down at
(00:23):
the debt. So it's okay. It's dangerous to eat super
crackers right on someone's bumper, right, you could set somebody
off and they may go crazy on you and shoot you.
That's right. Um. I would like to just right off
the bat say that. In Chuck's book Driving, there are
three kinds of drivers. Okay, I thought about this. Uh,
(00:43):
there are good drivers, Okay, it's me, which you're generally
just capable, confident. You make mistakes, but you're just in
control of your vehicle. Defensive driving. That's me. There are
bad drivers, that's me. Uh, nervous drivers. You know, have
you ever been a car with someone that just doesn't
feel confident behind me? That's the worst. It's scary. It's
(01:07):
not the worst. Actually that's coming. But also people who
are just in their own like I say, they have
their heads up their fannies. I say that a lot
in traffic, get your head out of your Fannie r H.
So that counts as a bad driver, just in your
own world, basically not even thinking that there are other
people around you. That is still the second one. Yeah, okay, yeah,
I'm not I'm not number two. And then the third
(01:29):
is jerks. That's me and I think jerk. I think
we can reach people in the first two categories with
this read of this podcast, But you can't reach jerks.
I don't know, man, because I definitely consider myself a
jerk in traffic, you can't reach jerks. And and this
reached me in a lot of voice. Well, then you're
(01:49):
not a jerk, because jerks are ones who are like
feel completely justified to like get up in front of
someone and slam on the brakes if as punishment. That
is jerk. So I wouldn't slam on my brakes. That's
just stupid and juvenile. But I would go around somebody
who cut me off and maybe cut them off, which
(02:12):
would make me a jerk. Right, that makes you a
dangerous driver? Okay, Well I agree, and I realized that
that being a dangerous driver is a really stupid, dumb
thing to do. And this article, Like I was already
on the road. You me hate the way I drive
a lot of times, right, so she's got me on
shortly as far as driving goes um and so like
(02:36):
I'm already in the mindset, but then reading this article
helped drive it home even further, like, yes, this is
really stupid. The thing that that the light bulb that
went on over my head was like, if you drive aggressively,
it's bad enough, right, it can be dangerous. It just
takes a very stressful situation. It makes it worse for yourself, hand, everybody.
(02:56):
But then one thing I hadn't considered. You might run
a foul of somebody who is like a genuine psychopath
that will run you off the road and kill you.
It actually a weapon on you and try and shoot you. Right.
There's a there's a video of cell phone video of
a guy who was driving and there's a guy road
raging next to him or whatever, and the guy was
(03:18):
just filming him. And in the film, the guy pulls
out a gun and all of a sudden, a puff
of gray smoke comes out of the end of the
gun that's being pointed at the guy shooting the video,
who's driving in the other has been fired unless that
gun just burped right. That guy was a doctor in Kentucky.
The guy who shot at the other dude, So, um,
(03:40):
you never know who you're going to run a foul
And that was one thing I hadn't considered. That Now
I'm like, oh yeah, I should probably add this to
the pile of reasons why I shouldn't drive like a jerk. Well,
and here's my caveat here is I think that any
of those three drivers I described can be You can
be any of those given certain circumstances on any given day.
But what I mean by jerks or people that are
(04:01):
just they're out of the car, they're jerks. Personality wise,
they're jerks and that's just who you are, and that's
not who you are. Thanks man, I'm just about to
put you on the spot. But you took the initiative.
How about that. So this is written by Jonathan Strickland
of tech Stuff, who ironically does not have a driver's license.
Now he doesn't drive, but and you can tell that
(04:22):
Strickland wrote this because he talks a lot early on
about how dangerous and stressful driving is and how basically
you could sort of extrapolate you're a fool if you
drive a car pretty much. Yeah, that's why I don't.
And um, road rage what we're talking about here is,
um it's a of a fairly recent providence, which means
(04:45):
it's kind of one of those um like since cars
have been around, yeah, but even more recent than that,
As far as as far as I can tell, they've
traced the origin of the term back to only and
it didn't really become like a nationally renowned thing until
the nineties. Um. And there was this this idea that
there was an epidemic of road rage going and I
(05:06):
think a lot of people still suspect that there's plenty
of road rage. But you don't hear the word like
epidemic used any longer as much. I think now everybody
just calls it driving. But the it's it's also contextually bound, right,
there's not like a strict definition of it. No. But
you also you can't have road rage without having a car.
And the more and more I looked into this, more
(05:28):
and more I realized that road rage is not you
can't just extrapolate it onto other conditions. It is a
very unique, very specific type of mental malady. Basically you know,
like because people behave in their car, and we see
this over and over when they talked to psychological experts
or psychologists, Um that it. It's you behave in your
(05:53):
car much differently like the things you would do in
a car you would not think of doing, like in
an elevator. Yeah, the car but stosa and you a
sense of um, not invincibility, but there's a little bit
there's like you can see the other person, but there's
a barrier between that person that gives you the confidence
in the arrogance to be like, here's my middle finger.
(06:14):
Whereas like, like you said, if you were in an elevator,
you would not do the same thing. I said, floor
to get your head out of your middle finger. Right,
So the car set you up for a certain sort
of psychological aggressiveness. It's become okay. But it's also also
when you're in a car, you're almost always plopped into
(06:35):
a set of stressful circumstances, and so all of this
together leads to a potential for road rage to just
kick in. Yeah, well there's uh someone and boy what
a name. Dr Leon James Um studies this a lot,
and he has even known as Doctor Driving because he
has been an expert witness to Congress on traffic psychology.
(06:58):
That's all it takes to get a name like Dr Driving.
I bet he never gets honked at with that vanity
plate in traffic right after driving. So um he believes
and I tend to agree with him that one of
the big causes of road rage isn't too many people
or traffic or whatever, but the way our culture views
aggressive driving. And he pointed out that children who see
(07:21):
their parents are nice and sweet folks, when they get
in a car, they see them driving aggressively and yelling
things and saying things. And this brings kids up with
this idea that wait a minute, when I'm in this
weird tin can on four wheels, or when my parents
are their personality changes. Yeah, I get to flip the
bird at people. Yeah, and it's fine. You can yell,
(07:42):
scream and cuts would never do that in real life.
But um so children see this and then it becomes
or if you just watch TV or movies, you know
aggressive driving is uh is the norm? Yeah? Have you
ever seen the Transporter Yeah? Or Bullet Yeah? Or Fat
st and Furious twelve or the best car chase ever?
(08:03):
Blues Brothers. Oh, that's a tough one. No, that's it.
That's the one that's tough. That's the one fridge connection.
Oh go to sleep better than the Blues Brothers. You kidding,
that's there's some great car chases. So so you've got
you have children seeing, um, their parents acting hostily and
(08:27):
aggressively in the car, learning that, right, do you have,
like you said, fast driving being glorified to a certain degree.
And then also, uh, it's married with this idea that
was around for a very long time. Our friends Sigmund
Freud came up with this um that if you have
some sort of base emotion like anger or whatever it
(08:50):
should be, it should be vented. Yeah, and that's not
the case. They're finding. There's this thing called Catharsis theory that, um,
if you have that base lee is what I just said,
that like if you're if you're frustrated, you just shout
and like being on your steering wheel and you'll feel better.
And studies have found that no, actually you're just practicing
(09:11):
to be a better, better at being aggressive in real life, right,
And that the supposedly the best way to do it
is just ruminate on it. Just basically sulk until it
goes away, or meditate. Sure, a couple of other things
that come into play are especially here in the United States,
UM in tendency to not back down because that's cowardly.
(09:34):
We're taught to stand firm, and um a sense of
justice is that's a big one for me. Well plus also, um,
all of that is psychological. You can take it even
further down to the neurological and biological levels where when
you are in a situation where you perceive that you
are being encroached upon or threatened or something like that,
(09:58):
your fight or flight syndrome is going to kick inch
or and you're going to react badly. You're going to
have the opportunity to feel aggressive because again, your flight
aspect is probably diminished because you feel protected and separated
from that driver by your car and their car, like
this is my area. So fight is probably going to
(10:22):
be the one that kicks in the most right and
when that happens, anger kicks in. And anger is this
article puts as a very seductive emotion. Yeah, that adrenaline. Um,
it might not feel good in the moment, but adrenaline,
you know, it's it's a rush and Uh, yeah, it
is seductive people. I don't know if they seek it out,
but when it happens, it's not like that felt bad. No,
(10:44):
you're like, I feel like a million bucks. I'm gonna
go tell my boss what's what? But the and if
you're kind of getting that like this, this seems like
something of a hodgepodge or a kitchen sink of like
pop psychology, it very much is what I think. One
of the things that has kind of been pushed to
the wayside is the idea that road rage is made
(11:06):
up by the media or that it's is just nothing
but pop psychology. It does appear to be a real thing.
It's very situational and context specific. Um. And yet because
it isn't fully understood all of the mechanisms and processes,
there's a lot of room for morning talk show hosts
(11:26):
to to interview fraudulent experts on it and then that
become factor theory or whatever. Yeah, my my advice is
to not watch those shows ever unless we're on it,
and to um, if you need proof, look around driving
a big city one day and just do that for
an hour and you will witness some kind of road rage.
(11:49):
Well I was I read this article from like the
late nineties by this I think a sociologist or something.
He was like, this is completely fabricated road rage epidemic.
Road rage itself doesn't this um by by this guy,
And the person who interviewed the guy went about just
totally disassembling his argument. The guy, he was like strictling,
(12:11):
he didn't drive road to train, admitted he'd never never
experienced UM road rage or what it what it must
be like, or what people are saying as road rage,
and he was just sure it didn't exist. He did
back it up a little bit with UM police reports
and all that stuff, but no, road rage definitely does exist.
It happens. So let's take a break, Chuckers before we
(12:34):
go on, because I'm getting excited and I need to
calm down. All right, I'm feeling calm, alright, good. Um,
(12:57):
Let's talk about a little bit about just what goes
on in a typical incident. Uh, what you're looking at
is usually an almost always an escalation, a trigger and
an escalation an aggressive action. One person does something, someone
else does something back, like a punishment, and it escalates
(13:18):
from there, hopefully not too much, but like you said,
it can lead to murder. Well, yeah, man, there's this um.
There's a guy out there who's called the um road
rage Killer has apparently killed multiple people, including this guy,
Timothy Davison, who was UM, who was chased for fifteen
(13:38):
miles in Maryland, through Maryland and Pennsylvania before the road
rage killer forced him off the road and then got
out and shot him to death while he was in
his car. This person probably thinks they're making the roads
a safer place. I think they're also just a serial
killer who has this an unusual m O. That too,
uh So Dr James dr driving excuse me. He identified
(14:01):
a bunch of aspects of driving that that can contribute
to this, and that all makes sense. One is immobility
because you're um, you're stuck there. You can't like, you know,
if you're at home and you're stressed out, you can
go take a jog or something. Sure, go hit the
boxing bag, which is again I've been discounted the heavy bag. Um.
(14:21):
And when you're behind the wheel of a car, you
can't do that stuff unless you have a speedbag like
hanging in the driver's seat. And then similarly, you're also
feeling a sense of constriction right, Like, you're on the
road and it's the open road, and it's a big road,
but I mean, really, it's just several feet across. You
gotta stay on it. Yeah, you have to stay on it.
(14:43):
You're you're boxed in. Uh So that makes sense. Lack
of control. Even if you are one of the good drivers,
like I mentioned, in control of your vehicle, you cannot
uh predict or have any control over the drivers around you,
or traffic or can struction or whether or anything else
that can add up to a cruddy commute, right. And um,
(15:06):
what's more, you don't have the option of just abandoning
your car or in traffic gets bad, So you're stuck.
Oh you can if you're Michael Douglas and falling down, right.
But that's what made that act so radical and kicked
off and established his character. He just leaves his car
in traffic. People don't do that, which contributes further to
(15:26):
that lack of control. You're stuck there, whether you like
it or not, unless you want to give up your car.
For a lot of people like the cars the most
expensive possession they own, and so they're not going to
abandon it. So that to me, the lack of control.
That is probably the most um seaconed situation or aspect
of um of driving that can lead to aggression and
(15:51):
hostility and stresses like you're if you're if you need
to be somewhere, and you left in time, and you
made sure that you got up early and you got
out there, and everything's great on your end, but then
you pull right into traffic, and you know you're going
to be late. Well, that's not fair. It's not fair.
It's just it's it's unjust. That's right, and it's everyone
(16:14):
else in front of your's fault, that's right. Territoriality is
a big one. Um. Like I said earlier, this is
our space, and if you infringe upon that space, there's trouble. Uh.
Denial and loss of objectivity is a pretty obvious one
because no one it's never your fault, right you know, Yeah,
it's not you, it's the other true. Yeah, although that's
(16:36):
not true for me. I will in case I do
a bone head move or when that happens, I'm always
very quick to say I'm sorry. Well, I will get
very mad if they they continue to yell at me.
If I'm like, oh, I'm sorry about that. That was
you know, my fault and then they're still yelling at me.
Oh yeah, they've got half right. Then then I'm like,
they have a half a second to accept your apology
(16:57):
or ignore it if they if they escalate on right, Yeah, Like,
what do you want to put me in stocks and
flog me? I'm saying I'm sorry here, and I do
the same thing, chuck, Like if I do something stupid
like I almost every time, we'll be like, sorry, throw
the hand up. Sure, just the all fingers sticking up right. Unpredictability, Um,
(17:20):
you never know what's going to happen out there, so
that can make it stressful if you're not confident. Yeah,
especially if you're not confident. I imagine that's a terrible
way to drive. Uh. And then ambiguity. I never really
thought about that, but I'm strickling points out there is
no um mutually agreed upon the way to say you're sorry.
I've always kind of thought it was throw the hand
up a nod hand. And I think people are perceptive
(17:42):
enough to tell when you're sarcastically waving, like when somebody
wouldn't let you in even though you had your blinker on.
And finally you're like, I'm forcing my way in front
of you, and then you give them that sarcastic wave
like thanks so much, I'm in front of you even
though you didn't want me to. I think people can
distinguish between that wave and like uh sorry, shoulders hunched,
(18:03):
sorry kinda, or the appreciate it wave is a great
when you're up, you're waving, you're turning about in your seat,
maybe you turn your winshell wipers on and a salute
to the people. Yeah, do you can tell the difference? Yeah,
you know, let's let someone over. I found more and
more people are intentionally don't let people in. If someone's like,
(18:24):
oh I miss my turn, such can I get in there?
And people like what kind of psychopath? What kind of sociopath? Oh,
it's the same thing whether no, no, no, I would
let you in, but I'm not gonna do it. The
roads are lousy with those people. And you know what,
when I see somebody else do that, I'm just like,
I'll be like you piece of garbage to the person
(18:45):
who wouldn't let the other person in. But then every
once in a while, and I'm really shocked and just
made when this happens, like, um, somebody will be trying
to like go ahead of me, and I know they're
gonna get in front of me, and I'll like look
down and I didn't realize it, but I've been accelerating
rather than just going the same speed I was before. Unconsciously,
(19:06):
I'm like, you're not getting in front of me, so
I'm like speeding up. And it's just such a horrible
thing to do. When I realized it, I'll I'll stop
and let them go or whatever. But um, yeah, it's
almost unconscious. Sometimes some people you can tell that it's
very much conscious, they're just not letting the person in.
But I think sometimes it's also unconscious, like people don't
(19:28):
they don't want to be behind somebody. Yeah, and I'll
also point out to that, you know, you should let
people over and stuff, just to be nice and pay
it forward. But um, for why is that so funny?
Think it funny? Oh, I didn't even see that movie.
That's a real term. You wouldn't say you wouldn't use
that term if you've seen the movie. Um. But sometimes
(19:52):
if someone has you know, missed their turn and they're
blocking an entire row of traffic that is trying to turn,
sometimes you just gotta be like you missed your turn,
Like take the right turn around and start over, Like
there's forty people behind you that didn't miss their turn.
They're trying to take that right. Man. Totally agreed. And
(20:13):
those people are like, Nope, I'm just gonna sit here
or blocking the box and an intersection, Yeah, you just
sets everybody back big fines in New York City. Not
not in Atlanta. It's a free for all here in Atlanta.
Anybody can pull into an intersection at any time and
block as much traffic as they want. And it's partially
(20:34):
um the traffic planners are partially responsible for this chuck.
There are plenty of dumb lights out there in dumb
intersection systems that need to be improved. But is you
just you don't block the box. If everybody agrees not
to block the box, then traffic will actually move a
lot faster for everybody. Yeah, well, actually take a step back.
(20:56):
The real rule is don't enter and in section if
you cannot get completely through the intersection. Well that's the thing.
Don't block the box. Yeah, but sometimes people think like, oh,
well I think I see traffic moving, I'll just go
ahead and get out there. Then that light turns and
then you're sitting in there like a jerk. What we
need is just driver lest cars do the thinking for
(21:17):
us or people without their heads up their fannies. Um,
all right, so is it road rage? Is it aggressive driving?
It's hard to determine that because, um, you ask a
hundred people and you're gonna get a hundred different answers.
Like some people say, like, no driving, driving forty and
(21:39):
a thirty is fine, that's not aggressive. Yeah. Supposedly forty
seven percent of Americans consider driving ten miles an hour
or more over the speed limit to be a type
of aggressive driving. That's part of the problem is you
have wildly different opinions on what aggressive driving is, right, So, um,
not only do you have different opinions on that aggressive
(22:00):
driving is if even if people all agree, yeah, like
tailing somebody is following way too closely is aggressive driving?
I think pretty much everyone can agree on that, there's
still no quantifiable way to say that. Is it like
three ft is it a car length? Well, car length,
like there's their actual laws that say the amount of
(22:22):
car links you're supposed to behind someone, how many, Well,
it depends on your state. What state Georgia Uh, well,
I haven't taken the driver's test thirty something years, but
if I remember, like if they teach you in Driver's ed,
like two car links is safe and unless it's raining,
and then you're supposed to increase it by one. But
I mean there are rules that's not just indeterminate. People
(22:46):
don't follow them, but like that's where you'll get a
ticket if you rear end someone. Right, once you rear
end somebody, But people very rarely get pulled over for
just for following, of course, not unless you're following a
cop too closely. Okay, agreed? Like people, there's no real
definition necessarily of road rage, although Strickling points out that
(23:07):
there's a lot of people say what would constitute aggressive
driving is road rage? Um, and he kind of sticks
to the definition of road rages when aggressive driving triggers
a situation where people are committing acts of violence against
one another, either using their cars or because their cars
(23:28):
are around their cars. Yeah, I guess my definition would
be more than one interaction, like one person cutting someone
off and like flipping a bird not nice, But I
don't know if that's road rage. But if then that
person reacts to them back, and you have a a
situation going on between two people. That's road rage. To
(23:51):
my definition of road rage is when you are when
something just sets you off and you go with it,
even if you're not, like even if the person doesn't
see you, or you're not trying to get the person
to see you, but like you're pounding on your steering
wheel because somebody cut you off or they didn't use
their blinker. They're sitting there on their cell phone at
a green light or something like that, and you're you're
(24:14):
just that moment of basically temporary insanity that can just
be a one off. To me, it doesn't even have
to necessarily overtly include two people. It can be one
person being set off by the behavior of another person.
That to me is road rage. Yeah, I've I've gotten
much worse, I have to admit about. You know, when
(24:35):
the light turned screen, it used to be just a
polite lot like someone doesn't notice just a little the
light screen. But now the person is invariably looking down
at their phone, and I don't just do a kind
little beep anymore. Yeah, I give him a hawk. And
the other day, oh man, I had a lady sitting
at the green light, on her phone texting. I could
(24:55):
see her hot good at her. She flips me off
and continued like I'm gonna finish my text. My god,
oh dude, I had to like channel every like you know,
catch Stephens song on the planet running through my head.
They're not good nuts because I fall into the trap too.
I'm not perfect that I was. I was so angry
(25:18):
at the injustice of her to being like, no, no, no,
I know it's green. Shut up, I'm gonna finish this text.
Or similarly, I'll notice people who are, um, it's not
quite that hostile, but like you'll beep and they'll look
up and they'll see like, oh, it's green, and then
there they start to do both. They're still on their phone,
but then they start to drive, but they're going like
(25:41):
a half a mile an hour, and it's not that
much better than flipping you off and sitting there continuing
to text. At least that lady knew where she stood. Yeah,
maybe I should give her credit for just being herself,
you know. Um alright, so dr driving Um he lifted some.
He divides aggressive driving up into three areas that I
think are pretty emblematic of what you see every day.
(26:03):
There's impatience and inattentiveness, which is sort of what I
was talking about earlier. You're rolling through stop signs, you're
blocking the box, You're you're sitting there on your cell phone,
you're speeding. Um, you have your head up, your Fannie
or your your other excuses. I'm super late. I'm sorry,
but I'm really late. Yeah. These are almost two two sides,
(26:26):
two opposite sides of the same coin. Um, but they are.
They constitute doctor Driving's lowest level of aggressive driving or
road rage, depending on your definition. Right. Don't you find
that a little disconcerting that after all these years, we
still don't have a distinct definition for road rage and
that there's a guy named doctor Driving at the vanguard
(26:48):
of the study of this. Yeah, uh, alright, escalates into
number two, which is a power struggle. And this is big,
you know, this is a big deal. This is when
you are, um flipping someone off, they're flipping you off.
You've rolled your window down, You're making that eye contact
(27:09):
that they don't recommend you make. Um, I'm much more
passive aggressive. I'd never make the eye contact. Right, do
you like scratch the side of your face? It's just
your middle finger. No, No, I don't do that. I
don't flip anyone the bird. That's just I'm just like,
you never know who that person is. Yeah, Like I
don't want to have someone run me off the road
(27:29):
and try and kill me basically, right, See, that never
even occurred to me. And I'm a passive, aggressive Southerner.
That's really probably why um tailgating people cutting them off
acts of retaliation, and basically he says that this is
people with an unhealthy mentality when you think that you're
(27:49):
the target of someone else, like that person is after me,
which can be the case my That happens to me
a lot. Like anyone who's driving slow in front of
me in the fast lane is purposefully not getting over
because they don't feel like they have to and it
doesn't matter that I'm behind them. They just they don't
(28:10):
have to do it. They don't care that there it's
their right to be in the fast lane just as
much as mine, even though they're driving slower. That is
the one of the greatest challenges in my entire life,
is just dealing the lane. Yeah, yeah, that's one of
your big peeves. You know. Georgia has a law now
where you can be fine for driving slow in the
(28:31):
fast lane. Yeah. We we actually talked about that on
an episode, and I think we were we were talking
it up and we got some mail from people like
that's a ridiculous, dangerous law. I'm like, no, that's a
great law. Our response to all of them work, get
out of the left lane problem solved, so that one's mine,
where it's like, I have to remember, there's nothing personal
(28:53):
and even if that guy is like, well, it's my
specific right to be on the fast lane to jerk,
it has nothing to do with me. The person doesn't
know me. It's not anything to do with my day.
And um we I was reading this thing in Pacific Standard.
Did you read the article. It's called the Psychology and
Biology of road Rage, And they were talking about how
it's potentially one of the things that people with road
(29:17):
rage have is called intermittent explosive disorder, where you basically
disproportionately rage towards a stimulus, right, yeah, to any given stimulus.
So they were saying, like, I got the impression like
it's a bit of a stretch. They were saying that
people with I E. D Um. It doesn't necessarily mean
that if you have road rage, you have I E D.
(29:38):
But they were saying that road rage could be a
symptom of I E D. But the thing that I
got that's part of this Internet intermittent explosive disorder. The
thing that stuck out to me was hostile hostile attribution bias. Yes,
that seems to come up a lot in road rage. Yeah,
and I think, um, I guarantee you that's tied to
narcissistic personality disorder. It just sort of goes hand in
(30:02):
hand basically, like they're the injury or threat is not
an accident. It is purposeful um and personal right. But
that's what I'm saying. When somebody's driving fast in front
of me, me being a narcissist, apparently I have to
I have to say, like as whatever I can just
go around him, doesn't matter, even if they are like
(30:23):
I know who you are, I know you're in front
of It really changes nothing. Now we're still going seventy
eight miles an hour down the highway in metal boxes,
which means safety first, no matter what. Yes, So do
you get up in front of him and then do
the old Dallas them with your winch of wiper fluid? No?
(30:44):
I don't do that. I've seen people do that before, Like,
all right, I guess I gotta turn on my wipers
for a second. Now. I have never taken that as
a hostile act, although I'm sure people do do the thing.
I've seen people do that. No, Like someone will cut
you off and they'll get in front on the high
way and squirt their because it speed. Yeah, no, I
know what you mean. Children basically acting like children. I
(31:06):
will um. I have gotten to the point now I've
gotten way better, Chuck, I really am have learned to
just keep my aggressive driving and check um and just
let it go, let it go, and like I'll still
be a spark there, but I've gotten to a point
where I can be like, it doesn't matter, just go
(31:28):
around them right until it bleeds, until it work their
way all the way through. See you come in the mornings,
you're just bloody in the face. But if it's really bad,
if somebody is clearly just being like an arrogant jerk,
like this is my fast lane to my taxes paid
for this, I don't have to get around you. And
it's a real thing. I've got this thing now. Where
(31:50):
as I'm passing them, pass them slowly and calmly and
everything safe. But I'll just be like staring forward with
this huge overbite. Likely this is the slight and it
works really great. That's pretty good, and it feels pretty
good to me too. It feels more clever than like
shooting someone in the bird. You know, anyone can throw
(32:12):
out a middle finger, unless I guess you don't have
the middle finger. You know, it's a problem. So the
final bit, the final category is recklessness and road rage,
and that's when it escalates to full on violence. I'm
gonna use my car's weapon or I have a weapon. Yeah,
And the same Pacific Standard article UM reference to an
(32:34):
article in the journal Sexy Sexy Journal UM Accident Analysis
and Prevention and found that UM, the presence of a
gun increases road raging aggressive driving behavior, like even if
even if the person doesn't pull it out, just knowing
it's in the glove compartment makes it more likely to
(32:54):
be hostile. Yeah, it says they're more likely to make
obscene gestures at motorists and follow aggressively behind the car
ours And they're saying, does that mean that you have
a gun, you are going to drive more aggressively? They
can't say that, of course, or do you or are you?
Or if you're in an aggressive driver, you're just more
likely to be the same type of person I have
a gun, right, exactly interesting study though, for sure. Um,
(33:19):
and and that that same guy actually what's his name
or this other dude, Emil Cakaro, he's a or Cakaro,
he's a professor. He's a professor at a University of Chicago.
And he makes a great point. His advice is, don't
assume the other person is like you, yeah, like they
(33:40):
may be crazy. Don't assume they don't have a gun. Yeah,
don't assume that they're rational and reasonable and that like
it can stop escalating at some point. Yeah, That's what
I tell Emily all the time. I'm like, I trust you,
I said, but you don't. You don't know if you
flick someone off like that may be it for you.
And that would really be upsetting if I lost you
(34:01):
to road rage because you hung some crazy guy bird Like,
that's the most senseless, one of the more senseless ways
to die. Didn't you say yes? Okay? Which which leads
definitely up there, which leads to preventing rage Chuck, which
we're gonna talk about right after this. All right, Josh,
(34:34):
we've we've vented a lot here today. I know, even
though they say that's not healthy, I do feel a
cathar boy. Pair this with our traffic podcast and that's
that's driving goodness. That was the breaking bubble, Yeah, the
break bubble. So how can you avoid road rage? Everyone
makes mistakes behind the wheel? Um, you can. And actually
(34:57):
there was a little sidebar in here about these guys
that came up with the vehicle signaling system to say
I'm sorry. It's not a bad idea because horns, depending
on the horn in your car, it can sound aggressive itself,
even when you do not mean it that one yea,
Even that tap tap the wrong horn sounds like honk
honk yep. But like, yeah, that wouldn't be a bad
(35:21):
idea to have a little light that pops up that
says sorry, and then if they don't forgive you another
one that pops up. This is I said I was sorry,
one last chance. But people will figure out how to
use those sarcastically, like cutting someone off and slamming on
the brakes while flashing I'm sorry. Someone will someone would
use it like that. I would have three lights when
(35:42):
that says I'm sorry to that said I just said
I was sorry, and three that says you're dead to me,
And then they would have one that says I don't care.
But then like the to me would burn out without
you knowing it. It would just say you're dead. Yeah
you go, oh god, the road rage killer. All right,
so everyone makes mistakes. Hold on, I did read an
article all about I think afford Um executive who's in
(36:05):
charge of the horn, like trying to figure out how
to make different types of horns. So like in Europe
apparently they have horns available to them. Yeah, that wasn't
just Europe, that was Europe in that you just did.
So what are you saying? It can become like when
you go to buy a car, I said, I want
this kind of horn, Yeah, or you it comes equipped
(36:27):
with a horn that has different functions and capabilities for
different situations. That's a great idea. Like supposedly Tesla has
one that's like muted for use with pedestrians so you
don't scare the Jesus out of them. Yeah sure. Um,
so there's there's other ones, like a chirping one that's
supposed to be friendlier, right, and then there's the the
(36:48):
Semitruck air horn, which you can get it foot in
your car that liquefies your ear canal. Yeah. My problem
was with the rental cars. Their horns are always lame.
Oh yeah, any like not even much of a sound. Supposedly,
Hyundai released the Sonata and like it was a great car,
but everybody hated the horn because they they found it
(37:09):
to be too wimpy. They had to like rerelease it
with a better horn. I believe it. Um, do you
remember did you watch a Little Miss Sunshine? No? I
never saw. It's a good movie. There's a running gag
that they're old beat up. B W Van has a
horn that will go off occasionally, just without but it
sounded exactly like my old VW Beetle had a horn
(37:31):
that was like you cut in and out and it
would for a time, whenever I took a hard left turn,
it would it would go off, but it wasn't allowed.
It was just like it sounded like a dying person
gasping for air. A death rattle, Yeah, a death rattle horn. Um,
that's a good movie. You should check that out. Death
rattle a little well, that death rattle too, and three
(37:53):
and then little miss Sunshine, you should check out pay
It Forward to see why you should stop saying pay
it forward, I have no desire um. Alright, So everyone
makes mistakes back to that, but you can avoid this
escalation and conflict if a you don't know, you don't
do the eye contact deal. They say, that's like, just
(38:15):
like a wild animal, don't look him in the eyes.
Or wait, I thought they said, do look him in
the eyes to stare him down. On what animal? Yeah, alright,
like if it's a rat, stare it down. Okay, but
it's a sign of aggression. Pull up someone and you
look him hard in the eye, that's yeah, exactly. Keep
(38:36):
control of your temper. That's a no brainer. Um, someone,
it is a no brainer. But that's tough to do.
Sit it is, especially if you're justice spells are ringing
like mine. Do like that person shouldn't get away with us, right,
lady in front of me, should not get have gotten
away with that? Alright? Uh, they didn't have done surveys
(38:57):
even that showed that drivers don't think that they're being
They think they're being assertive and not aggressive, so that
basically there can be a lot of mixed uh communication,
and your goal is to just I don't care what
they're doing. I'm not going to match what they're doing.
You're It's also called being the bigger person, you know,
just let it, let it go, don't let them make
(39:20):
you hit the gas pedal. Just think about all the
gas you'll save by not driving aggressively. In in return, Yeah,
and Strictlan points out that will seem unnatural to you
even to just say, you know what they're driving like that,
it's not my problem. They're they're a sad, angry person. Well,
he also points out that they're probably under as much
(39:41):
stress as you are. They may be late because apparently
UM in follow ups to UM two aggressive driving incidents
and road rage into the incidents, people frequently say they
were all they were under stress outside of their car.
Already work, stress, life, stress, that kind of stuff, right,
So when you carry that into the extraordinarily stressful, unnatural
(40:05):
situation of driving a car, especially in traffic, UM it can.
It can. Also you're just already set up for it.
So if you step back and think maybe that person
is having a rough time in their life, it will
make it easier for you to just let it go
and be the bigger person. Yeah, it's a win win,
(40:25):
And we've all been there, and I think you can admit, like,
if you're just having a great day and everything's coming up, Josh,
you're probably much more laid back behind the wheel, you know.
But if you're super uptight about something, I think all
of us fall into that trap, you know. So, so
there are steps you can take to prevent falling into
that trap. There's one in here that cracks me up,
(40:46):
but it's totally true. Listening to relaxing music. I listened
to easy listening music, like basically radio the Botomy, and
it actually helps quite a bit. Really, Yeah, he says,
concentrating on breathing. I can't do that. Yeah, I mean,
that's get bored anytime I try to just focus on
my breathing. Yeah, you either get at that or not. Right,
(41:06):
So I've opted for relaxing music instead. Uh. He recommends
to get enough sleep. Um, I guess it makes sense.
Here's one that's you have to give yourself plenty of
time to where you're going. Sure, don't leave late and
expect to just have a pleasurable ride, right, um right,
you just can't you expect the worst expect that, you know,
(41:28):
and if you show up five minutes early, whatever, that's fine. Um,
people love punctual people. That's nice, right, Um if you
if it's out of your hands, though, then you should say, Okay,
I'm gonna be like not, oh god, I need to
cut through all this, which is kind of like you
mean is rolling on the ground laughing right now hearing
(41:49):
me say that, because I'm like, we have to go
to the airport. First of all, we have to leave
two and a half hours before our flight, and I
have to drive like a maniac on the way to
get there, even if we have plenty of time, because
there's a you got a deadline. Yeah, you don't want
to miss that flight. Nope, I get it. I get
super stressed with when I know I have to fly
(42:09):
that day because you don't know. You can look at
the traffic map, but sometimes it feels like you can't
leave early enough. You know. I've actually gotten a lot
more relaxed on that too. I think about it. You
miss like this little walking valume for me. Right, She
totally chilled me out in traffic. She chilled me out
about like missing a flight and all that stuff. So yeah,
I have chilled out tremendously. I still do drive aggressively sometimes.
(42:34):
That's right. I'm gonna work in progress, Chuck, I do too,
my friend, it happens. Uh. And we've already talked about
avoiding venting on that can actually increase your sense of
danger in frustration instead of calming you down and you're
and they're screaming and yelling that that's really not alleviating anything.
You know. I do know I can tell you afterwards.
(42:55):
Whenever I do it, I feel terrible about myself, Like
I was just like quite and just that. Go. Now
you look like a jackass to anybody who saw you
like going? Yeah, And um, you feel like a jackass too,
don't you. Yes, I do. That's what I say to myself. Uh.
So let's talk a few statistics here to close, shall we?
(43:16):
Oh wait, there's dr driving does point out one thing
that I think is probably right. One of the best
ways to deal with road rage, to prevent road rage,
is to teach little kids from an early age how
to drive safely, how to avoid road rage, that kind
of stuff. And I remember going to Safety City. Did
you ever go to Safety City? If you've heard of it?
(43:36):
Never heard of it. It It might have just been like
an Ohio thing, but we had a dangerous city. It
was that sounds kind of fun. Um. Safety city was
the opposite of that. There were dangerous there, but it
was all like plastic miniature stuff. So like there's a
jail in the center town and like it's like a
tiny city, okay, um with like streets and sidewalks and
(44:02):
all that stuff, and then buildings and all that, and
then you're on your big wheel riding around learning what
traffic laws are like. Really, so it's to teach kids
how to drive, yes, but also how to cross the
streets safely all that stuff. But you learn about the
danger of walking out in front of a car by
being a car yourself and having one of your peers
walk out in front of you, and like the first
(44:22):
couple of times you try to run them down, but
then you learn like, no, that's not cool because they
send you to jail. Was that part of school? I
don't remember what it was. I was pretty young. I
just remember my dad taking me to it and being
like a decent drive away from our home. So I'm
not exactly sure where it was when I went to it.
I just remember it was I got to bring my
big wheel, and I thought it was pretty great. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah,
(44:45):
it's funny to think about parents of uh and it
still happens today, But it seems like in the seventies
and stuff like what was going on in the car
was like, oh man, far from teaching experience. Yeah, we
were looking at like old um child safety seats. Yeah,
they looked like they were worse than nothing. Yeah, like
this metal bar that would just cut you in two
(45:07):
if you hit it like fast enough. I mean like
these things couldn't have been safe, like an old rusty
spring like pointed at your temple. Yeah, it's just bad news. Yeah.
I got a you know, mistakenly flew in on this
last tour to Baltimore instead of Washington, d C. So
I had to take a cab. I was gonna take
like a bus in a train, but I was like, na,
I'm running late, I need to get in a cab.
(45:29):
And I got in a cab to go from Baltimore
to d C. And it was the grumpiest oldest cab
driver I've ever met in my life. This guy was
in his mid seventies and immediately started honking at the
cab in front of him at the airport and dude,
this it was the perfect guy for what I needed,
because he drove like a bad out of hades to
(45:50):
get me there on time. And uh it was. It
was comical and scary and awesome. Uh yeah, yeah. Yeah.
People who don't put their seatbell on because they're in
a cab. It's it's like, here's your brain. Yeah. I
used to not wear much in the back seat, but
I've gotten better about that. You need to. Yeah. I
(46:10):
always figure like I'll just hit the seat in front
of me, right, maybe so, but you might go flying
over the seat and kick the person in the front
seat to death. It's not just you kick him to death. Yeah.
Uh can we talk stats? Yeah, you dug out this. Uh.
Cities that are the most courteous and least courteous last
(46:32):
year Auto Vantage survey. They did one in two thousand nine,
and they did one in two thousand fourteen, and this
varies from year to year, But in two thousand fourteen
they listed Houston, Texas at our own Atlanta number two
least courteous, Baltimore d C in Boston as least courteous,
and that change from two thousand nine, which was New York, Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta.
(46:57):
The only holdover was Atlanta, all right in Minneapolis, which
surprises me. Yeah, and then how the mighty have fallen?
Baltimore in two thousand nine was the third most courteous.
In two thousand and fourteen, it was the third least
courteous out of like twenty five major cities. It makes
me wonder what kind of study this is. To be honest,
so they survey drivers who drive in rush hour traffic
(47:23):
at least three times a week and then ask them
questions that pertain to like aggressive driving and driving courtesy.
Yeah it's not I mean it was a phone survey
and each participant spent about six minutes or whatever. But um,
I mean it's about as legitimate as this these kind
of things get because it's the study of road rage
(47:43):
and apparently no one's serious about it. Most Doctor Driving
and he can't even be serious enough to just call
himself Dr James. Well he used to be Mr. Driving,
so he's definitely taking a little more serious. Um, he
went back to school. Most Courteous Cities last year, where
Portland isn't a or one, Pittsburgh st Louis. But Portland
(48:03):
was also number one in two thousand nine, so they're
there are chill people out there. That's been my experience. Uh, Portland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis,
San Francisco, in Charlotte, North Carolina as the most courteous cities.
So how about that? Yep? You got anything else? Uh? There?
I know one thing I did see, though, I was
surprised um Strickland sites study that found that women and
(48:28):
men are pretty close in aggressive driving behaviors self reported
aggressive driving in road rage experiences. It's like percent of
men but forty four percent of women. I would have
guessed the disparity would have been a little more, but
apparently road rage strikes both genders equally. I definitely see
angry women out there, um and angry dudes. It's both. Yeah, yep,
(48:53):
so that's road rage, dude. If you guys want to
know even more about roadbrage, type those words into the
search part how stuff works dot com? And since I
said search parts, time for listener mail. Yeah, and if
we didn't impart it, settle down out there. It's dangerous.
We're all trying to get by here. Everybody's got their
own life stresses that they're bringing of the road a
(49:14):
little more courteous. They didn't mean it to you personally,
so don't take it personally. Josh and Chuck and Jerry.
I've seen her drive? Oh yeah, I've never seen Jerry drive.
Is she like an aggressive driver? Now? Jerry drives very safely.
Remember she takes crazy routes. I remember that, like I've
cutting through this parking lot because this light stinks. And
(49:36):
oh yeah, but I think that's the commute route she
has just she had mastered it from Buckhead. I will
do that too. Oh yeah, me too. Um, all right,
I'm gonna call this wild signal from a pro. Oh cool,
Hey guys, I'm a radio astronomer. Actually, yeah right, Actually
my sub field is radio transients, i e. Radio signals
(49:58):
detected once and ever again. Wait, is this person going
to debunk the wild signal right here? No, it's actually
a nice email. I felt like I had to right
in about the wild signal. I'm really glad I listened
to the episode. She almost didn't, because you guys really
did a great job nicely balancing the science and speculation.
So thank you. And when I get asked in the future,
I'll be shure to refer people to your wonderful coverage. Well,
(50:20):
thank you. I thought i'd give a few more details
on it if you're interested. Um. On the it might
be real side of things, it's also worth mentioning that
the Big Ear telescope used to look at two points
on the sky at the same time, separated by a
small distance, like two separate pixels. The wild signal was
detected in one but not the other, which is another
good indication that it might indeed be coming from space.
(50:41):
On the it might be nothing side, however, some recent
work that I've done actually showed that some unexplainable signals
that we've detected at a radio telescope in Australia turned
out to be coming from microwave ovens at the telescope site.
Man made signals can sometimes interfere with radiote theoscopes and
ways we don't expect, so it's hard to know something
(51:02):
like that could have also produced a WILD signal. It's
hard to say either way. I don't have a strong opinion,
to be honest, I mainly study things called fast radio bursts.
But I just wanted to say great job and thanks
for making my job easier rock On, Thank you rock On,
and that is from Emily Petrov, originally from Portland's Thank
you Emily, Oh courteous driver, probably now living in Melbourne.
(51:24):
I don't know about Melbourne's driving and moving to the
Netherlands in January. If I passed my PhD defense in October,
oh man, good luck, Emily, way to go. I hope
to see you in the Netherlands. Are you know in
my mind? Got you? Uh? If you want to tell
us that we did a fantastic job on something that
(51:45):
you're an expert in, we'd love to hear from you
for a change. Yeah. You can tweet to us at
s y s K podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
send us an email to stuff podcast at how stuff
Works dot com, and in the meantime you can hang
out with us that are super dope home on the web.
Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
(52:10):
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
dot com.
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