Anarchy and Cars

Stopping Road Rage

In recent months, newspapers have reported a dramatic rise in cases of "road rage". This new trendy misbehavior has now overtaken and replaced past concerns such as car-jacking and drunk driving as the primary menace to law and order on the roads. This article attempts to find the origin of this problem, its meaning, and solutions to combat it.

Why Road Rage?

The regularity and order of modern society promise to bring everyone numerous benefits, but these idealistically conceived benefits have their drawbacks when the system inevitably breaks down. This is especially disastrous when all too often the system is not repaired, yet everyone is expected to pretend as if the growing discomfort does not exist. An example of one system like this is the public highway system. It is intended to provide the convenience of allowing citizens to drive from their homes to their workplaces except that often these roads are inadequate to provide for reasonably paced transportation. The result is that people who are forced to waste a great deal of time in traffic become angry. The traffic congestion persists every day and there is no reason to think that it will become anything except worse. When some people look ahead and realize that they must endure a great deal of wasted time everyday without any possible relief, they feel distressed.

When a driver is finally overtaken by the despair that they must ultimately waste thousands of hours because of insufficient planning by the transportation department, their anger needs an outlet. The idea of holding government responsible is too abstract; besides, they're just "doing the best job they can" and everyone knows that government workers are too inept and thoughtless to intentionally inflict malice upon the rest of the population. How can you hold someone or even an organization guilty for their lack of foresight or intellectual aptitude?

A driver feels surrounded and suffocated by the swarm of other vehicles preventing him from rapid travel. When he's had enough and now seeks revenge on a broken system, he instead focuses on the closest element in the system -- other drivers -- and reasons that they must be to blame because they are immediately obstructing his travel. He returns to them a form of what has been done to him. He disregards all etiquette; he becomes more aggressive than society allows in public; he no longer retains the pretense of caring more about others than himself.

Naturally, this behavior by angry individuals is severely disliked by the majority of herd animals who cheerfully obey social order and have been trained to prefer waiting, watching, and whining. Rather than address the problem of overcongested traffic that made the individual angry, it is easier and dumber to simply attack the individual for becoming angry. Once this angry behavioral reaction is sufficiently stigmatized, anyone who does not patiently accept having their time consistently wasted can be labeled an outcast worthy of the full penalties of social ostracism including derogatory name-calling, receiving public moral reproach for their behavior, and being subject to severe legal punishment for their transgression.

Stopping Road Rage

A driver who might exhibit "road rage" is often acting irrationally by selecting other drivers as their target of anger. It is well known that most people in society are fools; leaving one to easily extrapolate that most drivers are fools. Isn't it foolish to become angry at fools? They cannot be held responsible for their stupidity - they only know how to act foolish. It seems more rational to simply disregard their behavior and pretend as though one was not inconvenienced by it. They do not know better and could not have acted otherwise. Therefore, there is no reason to react to other drivers when other drivers have made you angry with their foolish behavior, lack of courtesy, or lack of driving skills.

When "road rage" is the result of being consistently stuck in traffic congestion and realizing the inordinate amount of time wasted, other drivers are not a rational target for this displeasure. They are in the same situation as you, though they are perhaps better trained by society to not be conscious of the problem.

The problem of traffic remains with the organization that has made itself responsible for controlling all roads. In most cases, the parties responsible are the local government which collects taxes for road development and the local department of transportation which is supposed to apply the brain-power of the foremost transportation planning experts to anticipate and resolve transportation problems. Presumably, the public roads are their primary concern yet in cases of "road rage" it is overcongestion which causes people to become angry at the unnecessary delays they are supposed to passively endure.

These government organizations are really responsible for the problems. While their mission may state that they will provide for the ease of public transportation, they are really little more than bureaucracies that exist beyond the hand of public accountability. If you accept that government is supposed to be responsible for its duties, yet cannot meet its duties, then you are forced to recognize that the problem has no clear solution. Complaints about government are conveniently handled by government officials who insist that your concerns are their top priority and everything possible is being done.

Conclusions

To a great extent, the attempt by the media and government to provoke outrage at "road rage" is a distraction from the real issue that causes this behavior. Wouldn't it make infinitely more sense to inquire into the reasons that transportation systems have not adequately responded to society's growing needs, thus commonly causing distress among many drivers? Where public transportation needs are met and social stresses that require timely transportation are absent there is nothing that causes "road rage" -- and consequently these environments have no cases of road rage. But it should come as no surprise to anyone that this recently labeled behavior is nothing but denial and intellectually dishonesty which has once again been foisted on the public.

~ Charles Butane