🚀 go-pugleaf

Time Magazine had an article recently titled "Road Rage".

First they make a big deal about incidents of "road rage" being up 51%
in the first half of the decade (1990-1995), according to a report
from AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Of course, its typical bad
journalism, because it does not say what other time period this is
relative to, just that its up. (Kind of sounds like one of those food
labels on a package of food that says "25% less fat!" But you have no
idea what its relative to.)

OK, lets assume they mean in comparison to the previous decade. Well
throughout all of 1980-1990, I heard no hype whatsoever about "road
rage", meaning it was non-existent in practical terms. So a 51%
increase of nearly 0% road rage is still nearly 0%.

Road rage is a very subjective definition. If we take what happened on
GW Parkway awhile back, and think of such incidents in the DC area say
in the last 15 years, I guess out of a million drivers in the DC area
there were 10 such incidents where the drivers raced each others
angrily down the road and had an accident that killed someone. If we
apply the 51% rule then in the first 10 years, perhaps 4 such incident
occurred and in the last 5 years, maybe 6 occurred. But out of a
million drivers, this is nothing! So why all the hype????

The Time Magazine article went on to point out that as roads have
become more congested, so has impatience. In fact it pointed out that
nearly 80% of all drivers get angry to some degree or another every
time they drive (and I personally doubt that the other 20% never get
angry). And what are they all angry about, per the Time article?

 - congestion

 - stoplights

 - waiting for a passenger to get in the car

 - roads that narrow

 - etc

So why are roads so congested? Well the Time magazine went on to say
that since 1987 (ten years ago) there are 17% more cars on the road
driving some 35% more miles, yet our great federal and state
governments must have pocketed our tax money since they only built 1%
more roads since then (presumably including additional lanes to
existing roads). I mean if there are 17% more drivers, presume ably
most of these are new wage earners that should be increasing tax
revenues proportionately. So why not a somewhat proportional increase
in highway miles.

Anyway, I can only conclude personally that if people are angrier now
than they were 10 years ago due to congestion, etc. they have two
reasons to be angry: (1) the road conditions themselves (2) useless
politicians who failed the people.

The Time article also pointed out what annoys other drivers about
other drivers they see includes:
 - talking on cell phone (this pisses me off only when the dumb ass
   is in the passing lane causing a 20-car backup)
 - eating in the car (people shouldn't make love on the road?)
 - obscene gestures (but if people make gestures, there must be some
   justification, not so much for the gesture, but for the anger)
 - tailgating (well that includes 95% of us at rush-hour)
 - cutting off drivers (well, if we used international laws,
   there would be a lot less of this, as there would be no need to
   cut others off, not justifying it, just pointing out the
   difference these laws can make)
 - driving too fast or too slow (its kind of like the difference
   between a southerner fetching a water pail, and a New York second)
 - pedestrians who get in the way of cars (target practice?)
 - "speeding" through an intersection (make the lights long enough
   you dumb ass politicians, so everyone gets thru).