RE: Road rage (long, but not boring).

["James A. Desveaux" <desveaux@ucla.edu>]

(For those who want to skip the anecdotes and cut to the chase, go to the
last two paragraphs.)

Interesting string, this is.  I'd like to add a brief comment or two.  The
lister's point about people doing things in cars they wouldn't dare consider
anywhere else is a good one.  While in grad school I worked as a toll
collector on the SF Bay Bridge and on two other bridges.  I saw many many
instances of people nearly out of control.  Unlike most of my colleagues,
who behaved as flesh and blood robots, I took a dim and sometimes humorous
view of all this.  Generally, a uniform bigger than most of them with a
badge brought them up short.  Rule of thumb was, if they open the door and
get out of the car on their own steam, they're fair game.  If you go for
them first, it's your job.  One of the more amusing and satisfying moments
was one swing shift on the San Mateo Bridge when one of my fellow toll
collectors--a Viet Nam vet with a nasty temper--jumped out of his booth,
yanked open the door of a red van with punks inside, and worked over the
driver pretty nicely.  He lost his job.  I nearly got run over on the same
bridge during a shift change when a driver yelled at me to get the hell out
of the way.  He was rushing home to watch the Oakland Raiders in the super
bowl (this was about 20 yrs ago).

Consider this.  In Southern California I see drivers crossing the double
yellow carpool lines with impunity.  I almost never see someone using a turn
signal these days.  Red lights mean nothing in Los Angeles.  For those
visiting, I advise you to count to 5 after the light turns green before
chancing the intersection.

What's this mean?  My guess is that behavior on the road is a nice
reflection of generally boorish and undisciplined behavior in society
overall.  My former colleague James Q. Wilson has made this point
eloquently.  At the end of Peter Jennings' 'The Century', Wilson argues that
the future will depend on how courteous and considerate people are at the
individual level.  Speaking for myself, I'm much less bothered by drivers
speeding and driving in potentially dangerous ways if they signal and
indicate a reasonable degree of concern for others, and competence behind
the wheel.  When that doesn't happen, I too feel a sense of rage.  Last
night I'm driving home on the San Diego fwy going up the Sepulveda Pass.  A
woman in a late-80s Honda pulls into my lane (second from left) when there's
nobody else in front of her in her lane.  I pull into the fast lane and pass
her (I'm driving my '80 Toyota pickup).  When I'm in front of her, I pull
into the second lane again.  On the downside of the grade, I look in my
rearview mirror, and she's two inches from my bumper, in light traffic with
plenty of opportunity to go around.  She appears not to be pissed off, or
behaving in a way to intentionally anger me, but she's succeeding
nonetheless.  Her car is a real shitbox, all banged up on the right side,
one brake light burned out, etc.  This youngish woman weighs, I'd guess, 110
lbs, but drives as if she's a longshoreman ready to take on the world (same
goes for the male equivalent, I realize).

What's the solution?  Double the budget for the CHP, and for local traffic
enforcement, and CHANGE THE INCENTIVE STRUCTURE FOR COPS.  Instead of trying
to nail people for going a couple of miles over the speed limit, start going
after people for unsafe driving.  Unfortunately, this takes more work and
better training for cops, and there appears to be zero incentive for that.
For the libertarians out there, sorry, unfettered individualism doesn't work
on the highway, unless you price gasoline and cars so that 95% of people
can't afford to drive (and there's no rule that says rich people are better
drivers).

Every moron who crosses a double yellow line with impunity, and runs a red
light without worry, because his or her appointment is more important than
the collective rights of the rest of us, has a whole cast of similar
characters emboldened to engage in the same behavior.

- Jim