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ROAD RAGE AND
AGGRESSIVE DRIVING
Steering Clear of Highway Warfare
Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane
Nahl
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Facing the
Culture of Disrespect
Media reports and driver
opinion surveys illustrate the need to place aggressive driving within a cultural context
to answer the question: Why is this happening and why is it on the rise? At the 1996
National Women's Political Caucus, Sharon Rodine discussed the need for greater
"civility in society." She noted that culture influences the level of
intolerance and violence by promoting and supporting the acceptance of aggressive
behavior. It's essential, she said, to differentiate between "stupid acts" and
"stupid people" by looking beyond facile polarization and stereotypes. And the
President warned us about the decline of sportsmanship, where "winning ugly" has
become the popular model, and unrepentant bullies deliberately contribute to an atmosphere
of unsportsmanlike behavior with profanity, kicking trash cans, insulting referees, making
ugly shows of defiance, participating in field brawls, and denigrating fans in media
interviews. One of the most commercially successful event on TV is violent looking
wrestling, where enthusiastic crowds, including children, applaud the insults and enraged
acts of wrestlers.
A culture of rage also
prevails in the driving arena. Everyone knows about it, and everybody talks about it. It's
estimated that there are billions of road rage exchanges annually among the 177 million
U.S. drivers, not including the 1200 yearly road rage assault and battery deaths reported
by police. But the vast majority of the billions of road rage exchanges, each lasting mere
seconds or minutes, don't end up with shootings and battering. Nevertheless, it's
appropriate to designate these hostile mini-exchanges as instances of road rage because
each involves the two symptoms that define road rage: (a) the feeling of rage accompanied
by mental violence, and (b) the desire to punish and retaliate.
Few of us can claim to
be free of hostile encounters when we drive. Mostly, the incidents don't break out into
the open or are ignored. We get used to them and consider them normal. But we run a risk
each time because it's not possible to predict which little incident will turn violent.
The cumulative effect of our daily encounters with pervasive hostility toughens our hide,
and promotes a culture of mutual disrespect on highways.
Deborah Tannen examines
the dynamics of the culture of disrespect in every day life.12 Tannen's
analysis of the problem of contentiousness in society is applicable to driving. The
adversarial attitude common in driving is similar to disputes and disagreements in the
workplace, in the family, and in personal relationships. Aggressiveness among motorists
adds a dysfunctional element to driving as a social institution or activity. Some drivers
go overboard in applying the defensive driving principle, emphasizing suspiciousness and a
readiness to criticize or expect the worst of others.
Tannen's view of how
social disputes are sequenced and practiced in daily life leads to an obvious
recommendation: society, must find constructive ways to resolve disputes and differences.
One of the prominent characteristics of "the argument culture" is the use of war
metaphors. On the highway front it's common to hurl expletives like, stupid fool, road
warrior, Sunday driver, Mad Max, maniac, slimeball, airhead, and worse. When a driver
enters our lane, immediately ahead of us in order to get to an off ramp, we have a choice
of labels for this action. We can call the action "cutting me off" or
"entering my lane." Often the latter is more accurate, but we prefer the former.
Why? The argument culture inspires a knee-jerk defensive response that makes opposition
the norm. According to Tannen:
Everywhere we turn,
there is evidence that, in public discourse, we prize contentiousness and aggression more
than cooperation and conciliation. Headlines blare about the Star Wars, the Mommy Wars,
the Baby Wars, the Mammography Wars; everything is posed in terms of battles and duels,
winners and losers, conflicts and disputes.
This generation will be
characterized as the "Age of Rage," typified in popular book titles and
headlines that herald, and accurately reflect, society's deep involvement in the rage
experience:
·
The Culture of Rage
·
The Culture of Criticism
·
The Culture of Violence
·
The Culture of
Disrespect
·
The Culture of
Aggression
·
The Culture of Cynicism
·
The Culture of Fear
·
The Argument Culture
Deborah Tannen writes
that young men drive more aggressively because in driving they express a "ritual
opposition in their struggles for status." Drivers have become specialized in a
mental driving economy that keeps track of how many times their "face" (or ego)
has been ritually "injured" (or disrespected) by an exchange with another
driver. In this status-seeking mentality, the actions of other drivers take on dramatic
and symbolic meanings that either insult us ("Who does he think he is?") or make
us feel superior ("Gotcha!"). But in a diverse and congested highway community,
the sense of entitlement to drive the way we want engenders unfair and unrealistic
expectations of other drivers. Since the roads are also shared by inexperienced,
unfamiliar, impaired, and unsure drivers, it's unreasonable and unrealistic to demand that
all drivers engage in one style or level of driving. This despotic orientation leads to a
deprecating attitude about the intelligence, motives, the capacity of others, and
self-righteousness that permits us to become anonymous vigilantes. Since this harsh
approach to driver relations is a culturally transmitted norm, we all practice it to some
extent, under circumstances that vary with individual background and personality. But we
pay a price in terms of diminished quality of life because disrespect increases risk,
danger, stress, defensiveness, and dehumanization.
Ned Megargee's
research in criminal psychology resulted in a classification system for prison inmates
based on studies of aggressive and violent behavior.13 His research determined
that violent behavior is the outcome of a number of factors converging to produce the
aggressive response. The source of all aggressive behavior lies in an individual's
motivational structure, or "the sum of the forces that drive an individual to commit
a violent act." Human motives that often accompany aggression include greed,
jealousy, hate, anger, revenge, need for status, need for acceptance, lust for control,
lust for excitement, and thrillseeking. The presence of any of these motives leads an
individual to build up a repertoire of aggressive and violent behaviors, performed
repeatedly under favorable conditions, when inhibitions are weakened.
The more violent
behaviors are reinforced or rewarded through success and avoidance of punishment, the
stronger the "habit strength" of the behavior the more frequently it occurs.
That's why the best predictor of future violence is past violent behavior.
Megargee wholeheartedly
agrees that how children are raised--the values they're exposed to by parents, peer groups
or the media--can have an incalculable effect on their inhibitions against criminal
behavior and violence. The "family values" crowd has it right when they argue
that such things as a cohesive neighborhood, an intact family and religious instruction
can contribute enormously to a child's sense of propriety. "Chances are, if the
environment you grow up in disapproves of violence, you're going to disapprove of it as an
adult. If your neighborhood approves of violence, that's the attitude you tend to take
with you as you grow up. There's little debate about that."13
Though Megargee doesn't
discuss aggressive driving and road rage, it's clear that his research and theory apply.
Think of millions of parents driving aggressively in the presence of millions of children,
all future drivers.
But even adults with
strong senses of right and wrong can suffer lapses of moral inhibitions several ways. One
of the most effective means is by seeing others commit crimes with impunity. By seeing
repeated examples of criminals going unpunished, with miscreants benefiting from their
misdeeds, individuals of even the stoutest moral character are likely to experience an
erosion of their inhibitions over time.13
Few of us are ready to
accept the idea that our daily aggressive driving behaviors fall in the
"criminal" category making us "miscreants," yet aggressive driving is
a criminal misdemeanor and felony in several states, and does go "unpunished" in
most cases, contributing to erosion of inhibitions over time. Megargee warns, "it's a
lot easier to lose your inhibitions than it is to foster them."13 The
hostility experienced daily on streets creates a subculture of aggressiveness that couples
disrespect with lowered inhibitions, adding up to oppositional driving styles.
Daily, millions of
motorists have to manage hundreds of social exchanges with strangers who influence each
other when to brake, when to speed up, when to yield. Most driver interactions are minor,
lasting only a second or two, yet their spirit of execution has a cumulative impact on our
moods, feelings, and thoughts, sometimes lasting for hours through the day. Some drivers
report that after driving to work, their mood negatively affects their productivity and
exchanges with co-workers:
When I'm in a bad mood
and I have to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I'm not a very friendly person. I usually
get very aggressive and angry at anyone and everyone for everything. For instance, the
person could have the blinker on and assume that I'm letting them in, so the car merges
into my lane and because I'm in a bad mood, I'll say something derogatory even though the
person waves to thank me. When I'm in this kind of mood, it's really difficult for me to
lessen the negative. (Middle-aged woman, Michigan)
Negative thoughts behind
the wheel act like mental pollutants, decreasing the enjoyment of driving and increasing
its noxious by-products--stress, higher blood pressure, frustration, pessimism, and less
effective mental productivity that influences health, workplace, and family life. For
millions, driving has become an emotional irritant that daily contaminates their mood.
According to research in the U.S. and Sweden, the longer the commute, the higher the blood
pressure, and commuters facing congested drives have a greater incidence of absenteeism.
Men and women alike, of all ages, ethnic, and income groups, experience frustration on
crowded freeways and at red lights. While this is an understandable reaction to
congestion, few realize that frustration in traffic is a learned habit, and therefore it
can be unlearned.
Learned negativity is
characteristic of this generation's driving norms. For years we imbibe our parents'
attitudes as we ride with them. Watching drivers behaving badly on TV, enjoying it and
getting away without consequences, further reinforces the norm of aggressiveness. When
teenagers obtain that coveted driver's license and claim their independence, the
negativity they've imbibed in childhood takes over and fortifies the culture of
disrespect. And we are passing it on to the next generation--unless we decide to do
something about it. Social methods have been used to counteract the stressful effects of
negative thoughts. For example, commuters who switch to ride sharing arrangements show a
significant reduction in blood pressure within a few days. Ride-sharers, both as drivers
and passengers, are less bothered by congestion, possibly because socializing shifts their
focus away from what other drivers are doing or not doing. This book presents self-change
methods that substitute habitual negativity with learned optimism and a positive outlook
behind the wheel.
original
here |
How the
Way We Talk Can Make or Break Family Relationships Throughout Our Lives 
Anger,
Aggression and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach
