Latest / Drawn of History / Anger Expert on Why People Get Road Rage(M4A_128K)

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Anger Expert on Why People Get Road Rage(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Why do people, why is road rage such a thing?
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Why is that?
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Driving is just the absolute perfect scenario for leading
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: to anger. Everything about it. I mean, truly, if you
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: were an evil genius and you wanted to create a
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: situation that was going to make people mad, you would
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: create one that looked like driving. Right.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: We've got to get from here to here. Yep.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I got goals and there's people in the way of
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: those goals. Those people who are blocking them are anonymous
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: to me. So I can think or say whatever I want.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I can call them a total fucking idiot. And I
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: don't know. They might be a genius, and I'll have
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: no idea. There's all these unwritten rules of the road.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's written rules, but then there's also like
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: what speed should you be.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Going, right? Right, so there's vagueness in there too, which can.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a thing I often ask my students is,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: what speed should you go on the interstate? And because
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: nobody says, you know, the speed limit, it's always five over,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: 10 over, 15 over, right? And so if you and
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I are on the road and we have different, what's
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: your answer to that?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: My answer, probably 11 miles over. Okay.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: So I'm pretty close to that. I'm like nine, right?
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I tend to set the cruise at nine over. So
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: if you and I encounter each other on the road
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: and you're behind me, well, you get mad because I'm
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: not obeying your, you know, arbitrary rule, right? And I
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: get mad because you're a hazard, right? You're trying, you're
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: riding my bumper or whatever, because, hey, I'm already going
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: fast enough. So these arbitrary rules set people off. All
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: of that ends up, and then on top of that,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: it's kind of a nerve wracking situation. We don't actually
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: think of it. We've been driving long enough that we
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: forget how anxiety provoking it actually is, but it's dangerous, right?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: And And so like real harm can, can, can happen.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: And so all of that tends to exacerbate that, that,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: that likelihood of getting angry when people slow us down
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: or get in the way. And then add to it
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: that the consequences are so significant of people running people
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  Speaker 2: off the road when they get mad, people.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Just things like that. Like, that those consequences, we
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: see those, right? I mean, they're very visible. In fact,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: we have seen more road rage-related shootings in the last
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: two years than ever before, that people are getting aggressive. Oh, yeah.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: If I'm aggressive, dude, and I have a gun, it's
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: anybody's ballgame, dude.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: There we go.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Very unfortunate, very senseless. Visitors witnessed deadly Myrtle Beach road
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: rage shooting.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: They call it Murder Beach now, I think. Every place
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: is starting to be called like Murder something. But, yeah,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: people are just shooting. They just– I had a friend
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: in New Orleans that died in a road rage. Yeah,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: it's crazy. It's really crazy. But it is. It's that
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: intense moment. But as a driver, if you can play
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: it out in your head like you were saying earlier,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: how do I want this to play out? The truth
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: is you probably want that guy to get a flat
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: tire sometime the next day or whatever. That's fine. But
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: right now, you want to get to where you're going.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: And honestly, most of the time in those situations, I
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: want to get as far from that person as possible. Like,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I don't want to interact with them.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't be following them. What is this? Somebody
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: road raging? Oh, this guy punched open a back window.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: That's hard to do.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: That is hard to do. Uh-oh.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, this seems like a.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, she just popped the trunk, boy. Dang, bro. She's carrying. Oh,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: she gots a hatchet.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: What?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, and he hit her. Those are children. That's wild.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: But it is crazy. That one guy, he acted like
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: they were crazy for coming after him after he went
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and hit their window.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Broke their, yeah.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: But it's crazy. You would think you'd just leave. If
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: somebody broke your window, that dude. Yeah. That guy or whatever.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: These incidents are everywhere now. I mean, you scroll through,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's the part of it. So I had
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: a weird interaction right outside my kid's school one day
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: where I was parked waiting for pickup and this woman
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: came and she parked her car in front of me
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  Speaker 2: and she was backing up and I got a little
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: anxious that she didn't realize how close she was. And
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: so I honked, but it wasn't, I mean, to me,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: this is what a horn is for actually, right? It's
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: like to alert someone like, hey, you're, you might hit me. Not,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: not because I was mad. I wasn't, but wow, it
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  Speaker 2: made her mad. Like she was really mad that I'd
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: honked at her. But what was interesting is that she
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: got out of the car and she came over to
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: talk to me and she immediately started recording. Like she,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: she took her phone out and started like videoing the situation.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: I think thinking that we might, things might escalate and
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: wanting it captured if it, if it did. And I
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: think that like, which I do wonder sometimes what is,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Do phones, and I don't have an answer to this,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: do phones de-escalate situations or do they escalate them?
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Right. Once the show is on, now do I have
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: to perform? Right.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: I had a soccer coach come yell at me one day.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Not just me, like yell at the fans at a game.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: And I've often, I mean, he was out of control.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I've often wondered, what would have happened if I had
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: just taken my phone out and started recording? Would he
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: have been like, uh-oh? I should back away or what?
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Right. Or that would just exacerbate.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And I don't know, dude.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Because that's interesting. It's almost like art imitates life
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: or whatever. It's like, we're just like, if we're watching
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: something violent happen and then we get involved in something violent,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the first thing to do then a lot of times
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: wouldn't even be to help. It would be to record.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Right. Because that's what we just saw. If we just
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: saw something recorded.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Right. It makes me, I mean, I truly wonder, is that,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, there must be circumstances where that's the smart
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: thing to do, where that is going to deescalate. Right.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: You know, where people are going to start to sort
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: of say like, oh, I don't want to be, I
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: don't want to be famous.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think if someone is probably urinating in your
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: yard or something, then you definitely, I'm going to record
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: you and I'm like, oh, I'm not going to be
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: doing this on that camera, on the camera. I'm going
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: to put my pants up or whatever.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: But I think if it's somebody who's just like, I
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: don't know. That's a good question.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I think part of the question is how rational are
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: they in that moment, right? You know what I mean?
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Right. They might be doing it as a safety mechanism. Yep.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I'm going to make sure things don't get out of
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  Speaker 1: control here.
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  Speaker 2: Right, right. Yep.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, road rage commonly characterized by aggressive driving is
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a factor in more than 50% of all car crashes
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  Speaker 1: that end in fatality, according to AAA. In fact, in
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: a separate years-long study, road rage episodes resulted in about
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: 30 deaths and 1,800 injuries per year.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Wow. You know, it's funny. One of the things that
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: I oftentimes talk to people about, and it's like, so
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: I did a TED Talk on anger a few, whatever.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen it.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Back a while ago. And so like the premise of
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: that talk is that anger is good for you. There
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: it is. That anger is good for you in all
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: these different ways. One circumstance that I would not advocate
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: anger is behind the wheel. It feels like there's no
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: good outcome, that it just puts you in a dangerous
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: spot and better to just back away and let it go.