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Road Rage: GRRRR!!! · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuff Bryant. Jerry's over there
0:16
Speaker 1: eating some super crackers, which means this is stuffy. Yeah,
0:19
Speaker 1: Jerry's following too close. Yeah, well she's sitting down at
0:23
Speaker 1: the debt. So it's okay. It's dangerous to eat super
0:27
Speaker 1: crackers right on someone's bumper, right, you could set somebody
0:30
Speaker 1: off and they may go crazy on you and shoot you.
0:32
Speaker 1: That's right. Um. I would like to just right off
0:36
Speaker 1: the bat say that. In Chuck's book Driving, there are
0:39
Speaker 1: three kinds of drivers. Okay, I thought about this. Uh,
0:43
Speaker 1: there are good drivers, Okay, it's me, which you're generally
0:47
Speaker 1: just capable, confident. You make mistakes, but you're just in
0:52
Speaker 1: control of your vehicle. Defensive driving. That's me. There are
0:57
Speaker 1: bad drivers, that's me. Uh, nervous drivers. You know, have
1:01
Speaker 1: you ever been a car with someone that just doesn't
1:03
Speaker 1: feel confident behind me? That's the worst. It's scary. It's
1:07
Speaker 1: not the worst. Actually that's coming. But also people who
1:10
Speaker 1: are just in their own like I say, they have
1:13
Speaker 1: their heads up their fannies. I say that a lot
1:16
Speaker 1: in traffic, get your head out of your Fannie r H.
1:20
Speaker 1: So that counts as a bad driver, just in your
1:22
Speaker 1: own world, basically not even thinking that there are other
1:23
Speaker 1: people around you. That is still the second one. Yeah, okay, yeah,
1:27
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not number two. And then the third
1:29
Speaker 1: is jerks. That's me and I think jerk. I think
1:32
Speaker 1: we can reach people in the first two categories with
1:35
Speaker 1: this read of this podcast, But you can't reach jerks.
1:41
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, because I definitely consider myself a
1:43
Speaker 1: jerk in traffic, you can't reach jerks. And and this
1:47
Speaker 1: reached me in a lot of voice. Well, then you're
1:49
Speaker 1: not a jerk, because jerks are ones who are like
1:52
Speaker 1: feel completely justified to like get up in front of
1:56
Speaker 1: someone and slam on the brakes if as punishment. That
1:59
Speaker 1: is jerk. So I wouldn't slam on my brakes. That's
2:03
Speaker 1: just stupid and juvenile. But I would go around somebody
2:07
Speaker 1: who cut me off and maybe cut them off, which
2:12
Speaker 1: would make me a jerk. Right, that makes you a
2:14
Speaker 1: dangerous driver? Okay, Well I agree, and I realized that
2:19
Speaker 1: that being a dangerous driver is a really stupid, dumb
2:22
Speaker 1: thing to do. And this article, Like I was already
2:27
Speaker 1: on the road. You me hate the way I drive
2:30
Speaker 1: a lot of times, right, so she's got me on
2:32
Speaker 1: shortly as far as driving goes um and so like
2:36
Speaker 1: I'm already in the mindset, but then reading this article
2:40
Speaker 1: helped drive it home even further, like, yes, this is
2:42
Speaker 1: really stupid. The thing that that the light bulb that
2:45
Speaker 1: went on over my head was like, if you drive aggressively,
2:49
Speaker 1: it's bad enough, right, it can be dangerous. It just
2:52
Speaker 1: takes a very stressful situation. It makes it worse for yourself, hand, everybody.
2:56
Speaker 1: But then one thing I hadn't considered. You might run
3:01
Speaker 1: a foul of somebody who is like a genuine psychopath
3:05
Speaker 1: that will run you off the road and kill you.
3:08
Speaker 1: It actually a weapon on you and try and shoot you. Right.
3:10
Speaker 1: There's a there's a video of cell phone video of
3:13
Speaker 1: a guy who was driving and there's a guy road
3:16
Speaker 1: raging next to him or whatever, and the guy was
3:18
Speaker 1: just filming him. And in the film, the guy pulls
3:22
Speaker 1: out a gun and all of a sudden, a puff
3:25
Speaker 1: of gray smoke comes out of the end of the
3:27
Speaker 1: gun that's being pointed at the guy shooting the video,
3:30
Speaker 1: who's driving in the other has been fired unless that
3:33
Speaker 1: gun just burped right. That guy was a doctor in Kentucky.
3:36
Speaker 1: The guy who shot at the other dude, So, um,
3:40
Speaker 1: you never know who you're going to run a foul
3:42
Speaker 1: And that was one thing I hadn't considered. That Now
3:45
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh yeah, I should probably add this to
3:47
Speaker 1: the pile of reasons why I shouldn't drive like a jerk. Well,
3:50
Speaker 1: and here's my caveat here is I think that any
3:52
Speaker 1: of those three drivers I described can be You can
3:55
Speaker 1: be any of those given certain circumstances on any given day.
3:59
Speaker 1: But what I mean by jerks or people that are
4:01
Speaker 1: just they're out of the car, they're jerks. Personality wise,
4:05
Speaker 1: they're jerks and that's just who you are, and that's
4:09
Speaker 1: not who you are. Thanks man, I'm just about to
4:11
Speaker 1: put you on the spot. But you took the initiative.
4:13
Speaker 1: How about that. So this is written by Jonathan Strickland
4:16
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, who ironically does not have a driver's license.
4:20
Speaker 1: Now he doesn't drive, but and you can tell that
4:22
Speaker 1: Strickland wrote this because he talks a lot early on
4:24
Speaker 1: about how dangerous and stressful driving is and how basically
4:29
Speaker 1: you could sort of extrapolate you're a fool if you
4:32
Speaker 1: drive a car pretty much. Yeah, that's why I don't.
4:36
Speaker 1: And um, road rage what we're talking about here is,
4:40
Speaker 1: um it's a of a fairly recent providence, which means
4:45
Speaker 1: it's kind of one of those um like since cars
4:47
Speaker 1: have been around, yeah, but even more recent than that,
4:49
Speaker 1: As far as as far as I can tell, they've
4:52
Speaker 1: traced the origin of the term back to only and
4:57
Speaker 1: it didn't really become like a nationally renowned thing until
5:00
Speaker 1: the nineties. Um. And there was this this idea that
5:04
Speaker 1: there was an epidemic of road rage going and I
5:06
Speaker 1: think a lot of people still suspect that there's plenty
5:09
Speaker 1: of road rage. But you don't hear the word like
5:11
Speaker 1: epidemic used any longer as much. I think now everybody
5:15
Speaker 1: just calls it driving. But the it's it's also contextually bound, right,
5:20
Speaker 1: there's not like a strict definition of it. No. But
5:23
Speaker 1: you also you can't have road rage without having a car.
5:26
Speaker 1: And the more and more I looked into this, more
5:28
Speaker 1: and more I realized that road rage is not you
5:31
Speaker 1: can't just extrapolate it onto other conditions. It is a
5:34
Speaker 1: very unique, very specific type of mental malady. Basically you know,
5:42
Speaker 1: like because people behave in their car, and we see
5:44
Speaker 1: this over and over when they talked to psychological experts
5:48
Speaker 1: or psychologists, Um that it. It's you behave in your
5:53
Speaker 1: car much differently like the things you would do in
5:56
Speaker 1: a car you would not think of doing, like in
5:58
Speaker 1: an elevator. Yeah, the car but stosa and you a
6:00
Speaker 1: sense of um, not invincibility, but there's a little bit
6:05
Speaker 1: there's like you can see the other person, but there's
6:07
Speaker 1: a barrier between that person that gives you the confidence
6:11
Speaker 1: in the arrogance to be like, here's my middle finger.
6:14
Speaker 1: Whereas like, like you said, if you were in an elevator,
6:17
Speaker 1: you would not do the same thing. I said, floor
6:19
Speaker 1: to get your head out of your middle finger. Right,
6:23
Speaker 1: So the car set you up for a certain sort
6:26
Speaker 1: of psychological aggressiveness. It's become okay. But it's also also
6:32
Speaker 1: when you're in a car, you're almost always plopped into
6:35
Speaker 1: a set of stressful circumstances, and so all of this
6:39
Speaker 1: together leads to a potential for road rage to just
6:45
Speaker 1: kick in. Yeah, well there's uh someone and boy what
6:48
Speaker 1: a name. Dr Leon James Um studies this a lot,
6:52
Speaker 1: and he has even known as Doctor Driving because he
6:55
Speaker 1: has been an expert witness to Congress on traffic psychology.
6:58
Speaker 1: That's all it takes to get a name like Dr Driving.
7:01
Speaker 1: I bet he never gets honked at with that vanity
7:03
Speaker 1: plate in traffic right after driving. So um he believes
7:08
Speaker 1: and I tend to agree with him that one of
7:10
Speaker 1: the big causes of road rage isn't too many people
7:14
Speaker 1: or traffic or whatever, but the way our culture views
7:18
Speaker 1: aggressive driving. And he pointed out that children who see
7:21
Speaker 1: their parents are nice and sweet folks, when they get
7:25
Speaker 1: in a car, they see them driving aggressively and yelling
7:27
Speaker 1: things and saying things. And this brings kids up with
7:30
Speaker 1: this idea that wait a minute, when I'm in this
7:32
Speaker 1: weird tin can on four wheels, or when my parents
7:36
Speaker 1: are their personality changes. Yeah, I get to flip the
7:39
Speaker 1: bird at people. Yeah, and it's fine. You can yell,
7:42
Speaker 1: scream and cuts would never do that in real life.
7:45
Speaker 1: But um so children see this and then it becomes
7:47
Speaker 1: or if you just watch TV or movies, you know
7:50
Speaker 1: aggressive driving is uh is the norm? Yeah? Have you
7:54
Speaker 1: ever seen the Transporter Yeah? Or Bullet Yeah? Or Fat
8:00
Speaker 1: st and Furious twelve or the best car chase ever?
8:03
Speaker 1: Blues Brothers. Oh, that's a tough one. No, that's it.
8:07
Speaker 1: That's the one that's tough. That's the one fridge connection.
8:13
Speaker 1: Oh go to sleep better than the Blues Brothers. You kidding,
8:19
Speaker 1: that's there's some great car chases. So so you've got
8:23
Speaker 1: you have children seeing, um, their parents acting hostily and
8:27
Speaker 1: aggressively in the car, learning that, right, do you have,
8:30
Speaker 1: like you said, fast driving being glorified to a certain degree.
8:36
Speaker 1: And then also, uh, it's married with this idea that
8:40
Speaker 1: was around for a very long time. Our friends Sigmund
8:43
Speaker 1: Freud came up with this um that if you have
8:47
Speaker 1: some sort of base emotion like anger or whatever it
8:50
Speaker 1: should be, it should be vented. Yeah, and that's not
8:53
Speaker 1: the case. They're finding. There's this thing called Catharsis theory that, um,
8:58
Speaker 1: if you have that base lee is what I just said,
9:01
Speaker 1: that like if you're if you're frustrated, you just shout
9:04
Speaker 1: and like being on your steering wheel and you'll feel better.
9:07
Speaker 1: And studies have found that no, actually you're just practicing
9:11
Speaker 1: to be a better, better at being aggressive in real life, right,
9:15
Speaker 1: And that the supposedly the best way to do it
9:17
Speaker 1: is just ruminate on it. Just basically sulk until it
9:21
Speaker 1: goes away, or meditate. Sure, a couple of other things
9:27
Speaker 1: that come into play are especially here in the United States,
9:30
Speaker 1: UM in tendency to not back down because that's cowardly.
9:34
Speaker 1: We're taught to stand firm, and um a sense of
9:38
Speaker 1: justice is that's a big one for me. Well plus also, um,
9:42
Speaker 1: all of that is psychological. You can take it even
9:45
Speaker 1: further down to the neurological and biological levels where when
9:50
Speaker 1: you are in a situation where you perceive that you
9:54
Speaker 1: are being encroached upon or threatened or something like that,
9:58
Speaker 1: your fight or flight syndrome is going to kick inch
10:01
Speaker 1: or and you're going to react badly. You're going to
10:05
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to feel aggressive because again, your flight
10:11
Speaker 1: aspect is probably diminished because you feel protected and separated
10:15
Speaker 1: from that driver by your car and their car, like
10:18
Speaker 1: this is my area. So fight is probably going to
10:22
Speaker 1: be the one that kicks in the most right and
10:24
Speaker 1: when that happens, anger kicks in. And anger is this
10:27
Speaker 1: article puts as a very seductive emotion. Yeah, that adrenaline. Um,
10:32
Speaker 1: it might not feel good in the moment, but adrenaline,
10:34
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a rush and Uh, yeah, it
10:37
Speaker 1: is seductive people. I don't know if they seek it out,
10:40
Speaker 1: but when it happens, it's not like that felt bad. No,
10:44
Speaker 1: you're like, I feel like a million bucks. I'm gonna
10:47
Speaker 1: go tell my boss what's what? But the and if
10:50
Speaker 1: you're kind of getting that like this, this seems like
10:53
Speaker 1: something of a hodgepodge or a kitchen sink of like
10:56
Speaker 1: pop psychology, it very much is what I think. One
11:00
Speaker 1: of the things that has kind of been pushed to
11:02
Speaker 1: the wayside is the idea that road rage is made
11:06
Speaker 1: up by the media or that it's is just nothing
11:09
Speaker 1: but pop psychology. It does appear to be a real thing.
11:13
Speaker 1: It's very situational and context specific. Um. And yet because
11:19
Speaker 1: it isn't fully understood all of the mechanisms and processes,
11:22
Speaker 1: there's a lot of room for morning talk show hosts
11:26
Speaker 1: to to interview fraudulent experts on it and then that
11:31
Speaker 1: become factor theory or whatever. Yeah, my my advice is
11:34
Speaker 1: to not watch those shows ever unless we're on it,
11:38
Speaker 1: and to um, if you need proof, look around driving
11:42
Speaker 1: a big city one day and just do that for
11:45
Speaker 1: an hour and you will witness some kind of road rage.
11:49
Speaker 1: Well I was I read this article from like the
11:51
Speaker 1: late nineties by this I think a sociologist or something.
11:54
Speaker 1: He was like, this is completely fabricated road rage epidemic.
11:58
Speaker 1: Road rage itself doesn't this um by by this guy,
12:02
Speaker 1: And the person who interviewed the guy went about just
12:07
Speaker 1: totally disassembling his argument. The guy, he was like strictling,
12:11
Speaker 1: he didn't drive road to train, admitted he'd never never
12:15
Speaker 1: experienced UM road rage or what it what it must
12:19
Speaker 1: be like, or what people are saying as road rage,
12:21
Speaker 1: and he was just sure it didn't exist. He did
12:24
Speaker 1: back it up a little bit with UM police reports
12:27
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, but no, road rage definitely does exist.
12:31
Speaker 1: It happens. So let's take a break, Chuckers before we
12:34
Speaker 1: go on, because I'm getting excited and I need to
12:37
Speaker 1: calm down. All right, I'm feeling calm, alright, good. Um,
12:57
Speaker 1: Let's talk about a little bit about just what goes
13:00
Speaker 1: on in a typical incident. Uh, what you're looking at
13:04
Speaker 1: is usually an almost always an escalation, a trigger and
13:09
Speaker 1: an escalation an aggressive action. One person does something, someone
13:14
Speaker 1: else does something back, like a punishment, and it escalates
13:18
Speaker 1: from there, hopefully not too much, but like you said,
13:21
Speaker 1: it can lead to murder. Well, yeah, man, there's this um.
13:25
Speaker 1: There's a guy out there who's called the um road
13:29
Speaker 1: rage Killer has apparently killed multiple people, including this guy,
13:34
Speaker 1: Timothy Davison, who was UM, who was chased for fifteen
13:38
Speaker 1: miles in Maryland, through Maryland and Pennsylvania before the road
13:42
Speaker 1: rage killer forced him off the road and then got
13:44
Speaker 1: out and shot him to death while he was in
13:47
Speaker 1: his car. This person probably thinks they're making the roads
13:50
Speaker 1: a safer place. I think they're also just a serial
13:52
Speaker 1: killer who has this an unusual m O. That too,
13:56
Speaker 1: uh So Dr James dr driving excuse me. He identified
14:01
Speaker 1: a bunch of aspects of driving that that can contribute
14:03
Speaker 1: to this, and that all makes sense. One is immobility
14:07
Speaker 1: because you're um, you're stuck there. You can't like, you know,
14:11
Speaker 1: if you're at home and you're stressed out, you can
14:12
Speaker 1: go take a jog or something. Sure, go hit the
14:15
Speaker 1: boxing bag, which is again I've been discounted the heavy bag. Um.
14:21
Speaker 1: And when you're behind the wheel of a car, you
14:23
Speaker 1: can't do that stuff unless you have a speedbag like
14:26
Speaker 1: hanging in the driver's seat. And then similarly, you're also
14:31
Speaker 1: feeling a sense of constriction right, Like, you're on the
14:35
Speaker 1: road and it's the open road, and it's a big road,
14:37
Speaker 1: but I mean, really, it's just several feet across. You
14:41
Speaker 1: gotta stay on it. Yeah, you have to stay on it.
14:43
Speaker 1: You're you're boxed in. Uh So that makes sense. Lack
14:47
Speaker 1: of control. Even if you are one of the good drivers,
14:50
Speaker 1: like I mentioned, in control of your vehicle, you cannot
14:53
Speaker 1: uh predict or have any control over the drivers around you,
14:58
Speaker 1: or traffic or can struction or whether or anything else
15:02
Speaker 1: that can add up to a cruddy commute, right. And um,
15:06
Speaker 1: what's more, you don't have the option of just abandoning
15:10
Speaker 1: your car or in traffic gets bad, So you're stuck.
15:13
Speaker 1: Oh you can if you're Michael Douglas and falling down, right.
15:15
Speaker 1: But that's what made that act so radical and kicked
15:19
Speaker 1: off and established his character. He just leaves his car
15:22
Speaker 1: in traffic. People don't do that, which contributes further to
15:26
Speaker 1: that lack of control. You're stuck there, whether you like
15:29
Speaker 1: it or not, unless you want to give up your car.
15:32
Speaker 1: For a lot of people like the cars the most
15:35
Speaker 1: expensive possession they own, and so they're not going to
15:37
Speaker 1: abandon it. So that to me, the lack of control.
15:41
Speaker 1: That is probably the most um seaconed situation or aspect
15:46
Speaker 1: of um of driving that can lead to aggression and
15:51
Speaker 1: hostility and stresses like you're if you're if you need
15:55
Speaker 1: to be somewhere, and you left in time, and you
15:57
Speaker 1: made sure that you got up early and you got
15:59
Speaker 1: out there, and everything's great on your end, but then
16:03
Speaker 1: you pull right into traffic, and you know you're going
16:05
Speaker 1: to be late. Well, that's not fair. It's not fair.
16:10
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's unjust. That's right, and it's everyone
16:14
Speaker 1: else in front of your's fault, that's right. Territoriality is
16:18
Speaker 1: a big one. Um. Like I said earlier, this is
16:20
Speaker 1: our space, and if you infringe upon that space, there's trouble. Uh.
16:25
Speaker 1: Denial and loss of objectivity is a pretty obvious one
16:28
Speaker 1: because no one it's never your fault, right you know, Yeah,
16:33
Speaker 1: it's not you, it's the other true. Yeah, although that's
16:36
Speaker 1: not true for me. I will in case I do
16:38
Speaker 1: a bone head move or when that happens, I'm always
16:41
Speaker 1: very quick to say I'm sorry. Well, I will get
16:44
Speaker 1: very mad if they they continue to yell at me.
16:47
Speaker 1: If I'm like, oh, I'm sorry about that. That was
16:48
Speaker 1: you know, my fault and then they're still yelling at me.
16:51
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they've got half right. Then then I'm like,
16:55
Speaker 1: they have a half a second to accept your apology
16:57
Speaker 1: or ignore it if they if they escalate on right, Yeah, Like,
17:01
Speaker 1: what do you want to put me in stocks and
17:03
Speaker 1: flog me? I'm saying I'm sorry here, and I do
17:06
Speaker 1: the same thing, chuck, Like if I do something stupid
17:09
Speaker 1: like I almost every time, we'll be like, sorry, throw
17:12
Speaker 1: the hand up. Sure, just the all fingers sticking up right. Unpredictability, Um,
17:20
Speaker 1: you never know what's going to happen out there, so
17:22
Speaker 1: that can make it stressful if you're not confident. Yeah,
17:25
Speaker 1: especially if you're not confident. I imagine that's a terrible
17:28
Speaker 1: way to drive. Uh. And then ambiguity. I never really
17:31
Speaker 1: thought about that, but I'm strickling points out there is
17:33
Speaker 1: no um mutually agreed upon the way to say you're sorry.
17:37
Speaker 1: I've always kind of thought it was throw the hand
17:39
Speaker 1: up a nod hand. And I think people are perceptive
17:42
Speaker 1: enough to tell when you're sarcastically waving, like when somebody
17:46
Speaker 1: wouldn't let you in even though you had your blinker on.
17:48
Speaker 1: And finally you're like, I'm forcing my way in front
17:50
Speaker 1: of you, and then you give them that sarcastic wave
17:53
Speaker 1: like thanks so much, I'm in front of you even
17:56
Speaker 1: though you didn't want me to. I think people can
17:58
Speaker 1: distinguish between that wave and like uh sorry, shoulders hunched,
18:03
Speaker 1: sorry kinda, or the appreciate it wave is a great
18:08
Speaker 1: when you're up, you're waving, you're turning about in your seat,
18:11
Speaker 1: maybe you turn your winshell wipers on and a salute
18:14
Speaker 1: to the people. Yeah, do you can tell the difference? Yeah,
18:18
Speaker 1: you know, let's let someone over. I found more and
18:20
Speaker 1: more people are intentionally don't let people in. If someone's like,
18:24
Speaker 1: oh I miss my turn, such can I get in there?
18:26
Speaker 1: And people like what kind of psychopath? What kind of sociopath? Oh,
18:31
Speaker 1: it's the same thing whether no, no, no, I would
18:36
Speaker 1: let you in, but I'm not gonna do it. The
18:38
Speaker 1: roads are lousy with those people. And you know what,
18:40
Speaker 1: when I see somebody else do that, I'm just like,
18:43
Speaker 1: I'll be like you piece of garbage to the person
18:45
Speaker 1: who wouldn't let the other person in. But then every
18:48
Speaker 1: once in a while, and I'm really shocked and just
18:50
Speaker 1: made when this happens, like, um, somebody will be trying
18:54
Speaker 1: to like go ahead of me, and I know they're
18:55
Speaker 1: gonna get in front of me, and I'll like look
18:58
Speaker 1: down and I didn't realize it, but I've been accelerating
19:02
Speaker 1: rather than just going the same speed I was before. Unconsciously,
19:06
Speaker 1: I'm like, you're not getting in front of me, so
19:08
Speaker 1: I'm like speeding up. And it's just such a horrible
19:11
Speaker 1: thing to do. When I realized it, I'll I'll stop
19:14
Speaker 1: and let them go or whatever. But um, yeah, it's
19:18
Speaker 1: almost unconscious. Sometimes some people you can tell that it's
19:21
Speaker 1: very much conscious, they're just not letting the person in.
19:24
Speaker 1: But I think sometimes it's also unconscious, like people don't
19:28
Speaker 1: they don't want to be behind somebody. Yeah, and I'll
19:32
Speaker 1: also point out to that, you know, you should let
19:34
Speaker 1: people over and stuff, just to be nice and pay
19:36
Speaker 1: it forward. But um, for why is that so funny?
19:43
Speaker 1: Think it funny? Oh, I didn't even see that movie.
19:46
Speaker 1: That's a real term. You wouldn't say you wouldn't use
19:48
Speaker 1: that term if you've seen the movie. Um. But sometimes
19:52
Speaker 1: if someone has you know, missed their turn and they're
19:56
Speaker 1: blocking an entire row of traffic that is trying to turn,
20:00
Speaker 1: sometimes you just gotta be like you missed your turn,
20:03
Speaker 1: Like take the right turn around and start over, Like
20:07
Speaker 1: there's forty people behind you that didn't miss their turn.
20:10
Speaker 1: They're trying to take that right. Man. Totally agreed. And
20:13
Speaker 1: those people are like, Nope, I'm just gonna sit here
20:16
Speaker 1: or blocking the box and an intersection, Yeah, you just
20:20
Speaker 1: sets everybody back big fines in New York City. Not
20:24
Speaker 1: not in Atlanta. It's a free for all here in Atlanta.
20:27
Speaker 1: Anybody can pull into an intersection at any time and
20:29
Speaker 1: block as much traffic as they want. And it's partially
20:34
Speaker 1: um the traffic planners are partially responsible for this chuck.
20:39
Speaker 1: There are plenty of dumb lights out there in dumb
20:42
Speaker 1: intersection systems that need to be improved. But is you
20:48
Speaker 1: just you don't block the box. If everybody agrees not
20:50
Speaker 1: to block the box, then traffic will actually move a
20:53
Speaker 1: lot faster for everybody. Yeah, well, actually take a step back.
20:56
Speaker 1: The real rule is don't enter and in section if
21:01
Speaker 1: you cannot get completely through the intersection. Well that's the thing.
21:04
Speaker 1: Don't block the box. Yeah, but sometimes people think like, oh,
21:07
Speaker 1: well I think I see traffic moving, I'll just go
21:09
Speaker 1: ahead and get out there. Then that light turns and
21:11
Speaker 1: then you're sitting in there like a jerk. What we
21:14
Speaker 1: need is just driver lest cars do the thinking for
21:17
Speaker 1: us or people without their heads up their fannies. Um,
21:22
Speaker 1: all right, so is it road rage? Is it aggressive driving?
21:26
Speaker 1: It's hard to determine that because, um, you ask a
21:31
Speaker 1: hundred people and you're gonna get a hundred different answers.
21:34
Speaker 1: Like some people say, like, no driving, driving forty and
21:39
Speaker 1: a thirty is fine, that's not aggressive. Yeah. Supposedly forty
21:43
Speaker 1: seven percent of Americans consider driving ten miles an hour
21:47
Speaker 1: or more over the speed limit to be a type
21:49
Speaker 1: of aggressive driving. That's part of the problem is you
21:52
Speaker 1: have wildly different opinions on what aggressive driving is, right, So, um,
21:57
Speaker 1: not only do you have different opinions on that aggressive
22:00
Speaker 1: driving is if even if people all agree, yeah, like
22:04
Speaker 1: tailing somebody is following way too closely is aggressive driving?
22:09
Speaker 1: I think pretty much everyone can agree on that, there's
22:12
Speaker 1: still no quantifiable way to say that. Is it like
22:15
Speaker 1: three ft is it a car length? Well, car length,
22:18
Speaker 1: like there's their actual laws that say the amount of
22:22
Speaker 1: car links you're supposed to behind someone, how many, Well,
22:24
Speaker 1: it depends on your state. What state Georgia Uh, well,
22:29
Speaker 1: I haven't taken the driver's test thirty something years, but
22:33
Speaker 1: if I remember, like if they teach you in Driver's ed,
22:35
Speaker 1: like two car links is safe and unless it's raining,
22:39
Speaker 1: and then you're supposed to increase it by one. But
22:41
Speaker 1: I mean there are rules that's not just indeterminate. People
22:46
Speaker 1: don't follow them, but like that's where you'll get a
22:49
Speaker 1: ticket if you rear end someone. Right, once you rear
22:52
Speaker 1: end somebody, But people very rarely get pulled over for
22:55
Speaker 1: just for following, of course, not unless you're following a
22:58
Speaker 1: cop too closely. Okay, agreed? Like people, there's no real
23:03
Speaker 1: definition necessarily of road rage, although Strickling points out that
23:07
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people say what would constitute aggressive
23:11
Speaker 1: driving is road rage? Um, and he kind of sticks
23:15
Speaker 1: to the definition of road rages when aggressive driving triggers
23:21
Speaker 1: a situation where people are committing acts of violence against
23:25
Speaker 1: one another, either using their cars or because their cars
23:28
Speaker 1: are around their cars. Yeah, I guess my definition would
23:31
Speaker 1: be more than one interaction, like one person cutting someone
23:36
Speaker 1: off and like flipping a bird not nice, But I
23:39
Speaker 1: don't know if that's road rage. But if then that
23:42
Speaker 1: person reacts to them back, and you have a a
23:48
Speaker 1: situation going on between two people. That's road rage. To
23:51
Speaker 1: my definition of road rage is when you are when
23:55
Speaker 1: something just sets you off and you go with it,
23:57
Speaker 1: even if you're not, like even if the person doesn't
24:00
Speaker 1: see you, or you're not trying to get the person
24:03
Speaker 1: to see you, but like you're pounding on your steering
24:05
Speaker 1: wheel because somebody cut you off or they didn't use
24:09
Speaker 1: their blinker. They're sitting there on their cell phone at
24:11
Speaker 1: a green light or something like that, and you're you're
24:14
Speaker 1: just that moment of basically temporary insanity that can just
24:20
Speaker 1: be a one off. To me, it doesn't even have
24:22
Speaker 1: to necessarily overtly include two people. It can be one
24:26
Speaker 1: person being set off by the behavior of another person.
24:29
Speaker 1: That to me is road rage. Yeah, I've I've gotten
24:32
Speaker 1: much worse, I have to admit about. You know, when
24:35
Speaker 1: the light turned screen, it used to be just a
24:37
Speaker 1: polite lot like someone doesn't notice just a little the
24:40
Speaker 1: light screen. But now the person is invariably looking down
24:44
Speaker 1: at their phone, and I don't just do a kind
24:46
Speaker 1: little beep anymore. Yeah, I give him a hawk. And
24:49
Speaker 1: the other day, oh man, I had a lady sitting
24:52
Speaker 1: at the green light, on her phone texting. I could
24:55
Speaker 1: see her hot good at her. She flips me off
25:00
Speaker 1: and continued like I'm gonna finish my text. My god,
25:05
Speaker 1: oh dude, I had to like channel every like you know,
25:09
Speaker 1: catch Stephens song on the planet running through my head.
25:13
Speaker 1: They're not good nuts because I fall into the trap too.
25:15
Speaker 1: I'm not perfect that I was. I was so angry
25:18
Speaker 1: at the injustice of her to being like, no, no, no,
25:21
Speaker 1: I know it's green. Shut up, I'm gonna finish this text.
25:24
Speaker 1: Or similarly, I'll notice people who are, um, it's not
25:28
Speaker 1: quite that hostile, but like you'll beep and they'll look
25:32
Speaker 1: up and they'll see like, oh, it's green, and then
25:35
Speaker 1: there they start to do both. They're still on their phone,
25:38
Speaker 1: but then they start to drive, but they're going like
25:41
Speaker 1: a half a mile an hour, and it's not that
25:43
Speaker 1: much better than flipping you off and sitting there continuing
25:46
Speaker 1: to text. At least that lady knew where she stood. Yeah,
25:49
Speaker 1: maybe I should give her credit for just being herself,
25:52
Speaker 1: you know. Um alright, so dr driving Um he lifted some.
25:57
Speaker 1: He divides aggressive driving up into three areas that I
26:00
Speaker 1: think are pretty emblematic of what you see every day.
26:03
Speaker 1: There's impatience and inattentiveness, which is sort of what I
26:08
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier. You're rolling through stop signs, you're
26:11
Speaker 1: blocking the box, You're you're sitting there on your cell phone,
26:15
Speaker 1: you're speeding. Um, you have your head up, your Fannie
26:17
Speaker 1: or your your other excuses. I'm super late. I'm sorry,
26:22
Speaker 1: but I'm really late. Yeah. These are almost two two sides,
26:26
Speaker 1: two opposite sides of the same coin. Um, but they are.
26:30
Speaker 1: They constitute doctor Driving's lowest level of aggressive driving or
26:36
Speaker 1: road rage, depending on your definition. Right. Don't you find
26:39
Speaker 1: that a little disconcerting that after all these years, we
26:42
Speaker 1: still don't have a distinct definition for road rage and
26:46
Speaker 1: that there's a guy named doctor Driving at the vanguard
26:48
Speaker 1: of the study of this. Yeah, uh, alright, escalates into
26:55
Speaker 1: number two, which is a power struggle. And this is big,
26:59
Speaker 1: you know, this is a big deal. This is when
27:01
Speaker 1: you are, um flipping someone off, they're flipping you off.
27:06
Speaker 1: You've rolled your window down, You're making that eye contact
27:09
Speaker 1: that they don't recommend you make. Um, I'm much more
27:12
Speaker 1: passive aggressive. I'd never make the eye contact. Right, do
27:15
Speaker 1: you like scratch the side of your face? It's just
27:17
Speaker 1: your middle finger. No, No, I don't do that. I
27:20
Speaker 1: don't flip anyone the bird. That's just I'm just like,
27:23
Speaker 1: you never know who that person is. Yeah, Like I
27:27
Speaker 1: don't want to have someone run me off the road
27:29
Speaker 1: and try and kill me basically, right, See, that never
27:32
Speaker 1: even occurred to me. And I'm a passive, aggressive Southerner.
27:35
Speaker 1: That's really probably why um tailgating people cutting them off
27:41
Speaker 1: acts of retaliation, and basically he says that this is
27:45
Speaker 1: people with an unhealthy mentality when you think that you're
27:49
Speaker 1: the target of someone else, like that person is after me,
27:53
Speaker 1: which can be the case my That happens to me
27:56
Speaker 1: a lot. Like anyone who's driving slow in front of
27:59
Speaker 1: me in the fast lane is purposefully not getting over
28:03
Speaker 1: because they don't feel like they have to and it
28:06
Speaker 1: doesn't matter that I'm behind them. They just they don't
28:10
Speaker 1: have to do it. They don't care that there it's
28:12
Speaker 1: their right to be in the fast lane just as
28:14
Speaker 1: much as mine, even though they're driving slower. That is
28:18
Speaker 1: the one of the greatest challenges in my entire life,
28:21
Speaker 1: is just dealing the lane. Yeah, yeah, that's one of
28:24
Speaker 1: your big peeves. You know. Georgia has a law now
28:27
Speaker 1: where you can be fine for driving slow in the
28:31
Speaker 1: fast lane. Yeah. We we actually talked about that on
28:33
Speaker 1: an episode, and I think we were we were talking
28:36
Speaker 1: it up and we got some mail from people like
28:38
Speaker 1: that's a ridiculous, dangerous law. I'm like, no, that's a
28:42
Speaker 1: great law. Our response to all of them work, get
28:44
Speaker 1: out of the left lane problem solved, so that one's mine,
28:48
Speaker 1: where it's like, I have to remember, there's nothing personal
28:53
Speaker 1: and even if that guy is like, well, it's my
28:54
Speaker 1: specific right to be on the fast lane to jerk,
28:57
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with me. The person doesn't
29:00
Speaker 1: know me. It's not anything to do with my day.
29:03
Speaker 1: And um we I was reading this thing in Pacific Standard.
29:07
Speaker 1: Did you read the article. It's called the Psychology and
29:10
Speaker 1: Biology of road Rage, And they were talking about how
29:13
Speaker 1: it's potentially one of the things that people with road
29:17
Speaker 1: rage have is called intermittent explosive disorder, where you basically
29:22
Speaker 1: disproportionately rage towards a stimulus, right, yeah, to any given stimulus.
29:27
Speaker 1: So they were saying, like, I got the impression like
29:30
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a stretch. They were saying that
29:32
Speaker 1: people with I E. D Um. It doesn't necessarily mean
29:36
Speaker 1: that if you have road rage, you have I E D.
29:38
Speaker 1: But they were saying that road rage could be a
29:40
Speaker 1: symptom of I E D. But the thing that I
29:43
Speaker 1: got that's part of this Internet intermittent explosive disorder. The
29:47
Speaker 1: thing that stuck out to me was hostile hostile attribution bias. Yes,
29:52
Speaker 1: that seems to come up a lot in road rage. Yeah,
29:54
Speaker 1: and I think, um, I guarantee you that's tied to
29:58
Speaker 1: narcissistic personality disorder. It just sort of goes hand in
30:02
Speaker 1: hand basically, like they're the injury or threat is not
30:07
Speaker 1: an accident. It is purposeful um and personal right. But
30:12
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. When somebody's driving fast in front
30:14
Speaker 1: of me, me being a narcissist, apparently I have to
30:18
Speaker 1: I have to say, like as whatever I can just
30:21
Speaker 1: go around him, doesn't matter, even if they are like
30:23
Speaker 1: I know who you are, I know you're in front
30:28
Speaker 1: of It really changes nothing. Now we're still going seventy
30:32
Speaker 1: eight miles an hour down the highway in metal boxes,
30:35
Speaker 1: which means safety first, no matter what. Yes, So do
30:39
Speaker 1: you get up in front of him and then do
30:40
Speaker 1: the old Dallas them with your winch of wiper fluid? No?
30:44
Speaker 1: I don't do that. I've seen people do that before, Like,
30:47
Speaker 1: all right, I guess I gotta turn on my wipers
30:49
Speaker 1: for a second. Now. I have never taken that as
30:53
Speaker 1: a hostile act, although I'm sure people do do the thing.
30:56
Speaker 1: I've seen people do that. No, Like someone will cut
30:58
Speaker 1: you off and they'll get in front on the high
31:00
Speaker 1: way and squirt their because it speed. Yeah, no, I
31:04
Speaker 1: know what you mean. Children basically acting like children. I
31:06
Speaker 1: will um. I have gotten to the point now I've
31:10
Speaker 1: gotten way better, Chuck, I really am have learned to
31:14
Speaker 1: just keep my aggressive driving and check um and just
31:20
Speaker 1: let it go, let it go, and like I'll still
31:23
Speaker 1: be a spark there, but I've gotten to a point
31:25
Speaker 1: where I can be like, it doesn't matter, just go
31:28
Speaker 1: around them right until it bleeds, until it work their
31:33
Speaker 1: way all the way through. See you come in the mornings,
31:35
Speaker 1: you're just bloody in the face. But if it's really bad,
31:39
Speaker 1: if somebody is clearly just being like an arrogant jerk,
31:42
Speaker 1: like this is my fast lane to my taxes paid
31:45
Speaker 1: for this, I don't have to get around you. And
31:46
Speaker 1: it's a real thing. I've got this thing now. Where
31:50
Speaker 1: as I'm passing them, pass them slowly and calmly and
31:53
Speaker 1: everything safe. But I'll just be like staring forward with
31:58
Speaker 1: this huge overbite. Likely this is the slight and it
32:05
Speaker 1: works really great. That's pretty good, and it feels pretty
32:07
Speaker 1: good to me too. It feels more clever than like
32:09
Speaker 1: shooting someone in the bird. You know, anyone can throw
32:12
Speaker 1: out a middle finger, unless I guess you don't have
32:14
Speaker 1: the middle finger. You know, it's a problem. So the
32:19
Speaker 1: final bit, the final category is recklessness and road rage,
32:22
Speaker 1: and that's when it escalates to full on violence. I'm
32:25
Speaker 1: gonna use my car's weapon or I have a weapon. Yeah,
32:28
Speaker 1: And the same Pacific Standard article UM reference to an
32:34
Speaker 1: article in the journal Sexy Sexy Journal UM Accident Analysis
32:39
Speaker 1: and Prevention and found that UM, the presence of a
32:43
Speaker 1: gun increases road raging aggressive driving behavior, like even if
32:49
Speaker 1: even if the person doesn't pull it out, just knowing
32:52
Speaker 1: it's in the glove compartment makes it more likely to
32:54
Speaker 1: be hostile. Yeah, it says they're more likely to make
32:57
Speaker 1: obscene gestures at motorists and follow aggressively behind the car
33:00
Speaker 1: ours And they're saying, does that mean that you have
33:03
Speaker 1: a gun, you are going to drive more aggressively? They
33:05
Speaker 1: can't say that, of course, or do you or are you?
33:08
Speaker 1: Or if you're in an aggressive driver, you're just more
33:11
Speaker 1: likely to be the same type of person I have
33:13
Speaker 1: a gun, right, exactly interesting study though, for sure. Um,
33:19
Speaker 1: and and that that same guy actually what's his name
33:22
Speaker 1: or this other dude, Emil Cakaro, he's a or Cakaro,
33:26
Speaker 1: he's a professor. He's a professor at a University of Chicago.
33:32
Speaker 1: And he makes a great point. His advice is, don't
33:35
Speaker 1: assume the other person is like you, yeah, like they
33:40
Speaker 1: may be crazy. Don't assume they don't have a gun. Yeah,
33:43
Speaker 1: don't assume that they're rational and reasonable and that like
33:47
Speaker 1: it can stop escalating at some point. Yeah, That's what
33:50
Speaker 1: I tell Emily all the time. I'm like, I trust you,
33:52
Speaker 1: I said, but you don't. You don't know if you
33:55
Speaker 1: flick someone off like that may be it for you.
33:58
Speaker 1: And that would really be upsetting if I lost you
34:01
Speaker 1: to road rage because you hung some crazy guy bird Like,
34:04
Speaker 1: that's the most senseless, one of the more senseless ways
34:07
Speaker 1: to die. Didn't you say yes? Okay? Which which leads
34:12
Speaker 1: definitely up there, which leads to preventing rage Chuck, which
34:16
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about right after this. All right, Josh,
34:34
Speaker 1: we've we've vented a lot here today. I know, even
34:38
Speaker 1: though they say that's not healthy, I do feel a
34:41
Speaker 1: cathar boy. Pair this with our traffic podcast and that's
34:44
Speaker 1: that's driving goodness. That was the breaking bubble, Yeah, the
34:48
Speaker 1: break bubble. So how can you avoid road rage? Everyone
34:51
Speaker 1: makes mistakes behind the wheel? Um, you can. And actually
34:57
Speaker 1: there was a little sidebar in here about these guys
34:58
Speaker 1: that came up with the vehicle signaling system to say
35:02
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It's not a bad idea because horns, depending
35:07
Speaker 1: on the horn in your car, it can sound aggressive itself,
35:11
Speaker 1: even when you do not mean it that one yea,
35:13
Speaker 1: Even that tap tap the wrong horn sounds like honk
35:16
Speaker 1: honk yep. But like, yeah, that wouldn't be a bad
35:21
Speaker 1: idea to have a little light that pops up that
35:22
Speaker 1: says sorry, and then if they don't forgive you another
35:25
Speaker 1: one that pops up. This is I said I was sorry,
35:28
Speaker 1: one last chance. But people will figure out how to
35:32
Speaker 1: use those sarcastically, like cutting someone off and slamming on
35:36
Speaker 1: the brakes while flashing I'm sorry. Someone will someone would
35:40
Speaker 1: use it like that. I would have three lights when
35:42
Speaker 1: that says I'm sorry to that said I just said
35:44
Speaker 1: I was sorry, and three that says you're dead to me,
35:47
Speaker 1: And then they would have one that says I don't care.
35:49
Speaker 1: But then like the to me would burn out without
35:51
Speaker 1: you knowing it. It would just say you're dead. Yeah
35:54
Speaker 1: you go, oh god, the road rage killer. All right,
35:57
Speaker 1: so everyone makes mistakes. Hold on, I did read an
35:59
Speaker 1: article all about I think afford Um executive who's in
36:05
Speaker 1: charge of the horn, like trying to figure out how
36:08
Speaker 1: to make different types of horns. So like in Europe
36:12
Speaker 1: apparently they have horns available to them. Yeah, that wasn't
36:17
Speaker 1: just Europe, that was Europe in that you just did.
36:20
Speaker 1: So what are you saying? It can become like when
36:22
Speaker 1: you go to buy a car, I said, I want
36:23
Speaker 1: this kind of horn, Yeah, or you it comes equipped
36:27
Speaker 1: with a horn that has different functions and capabilities for
36:30
Speaker 1: different situations. That's a great idea. Like supposedly Tesla has
36:33
Speaker 1: one that's like muted for use with pedestrians so you
36:38
Speaker 1: don't scare the Jesus out of them. Yeah sure. Um,
36:41
Speaker 1: so there's there's other ones, like a chirping one that's
36:44
Speaker 1: supposed to be friendlier, right, and then there's the the
36:48
Speaker 1: Semitruck air horn, which you can get it foot in
36:51
Speaker 1: your car that liquefies your ear canal. Yeah. My problem
36:56
Speaker 1: was with the rental cars. Their horns are always lame.
36:59
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, any like not even much of a sound. Supposedly,
37:03
Speaker 1: Hyundai released the Sonata and like it was a great car,
37:07
Speaker 1: but everybody hated the horn because they they found it
37:09
Speaker 1: to be too wimpy. They had to like rerelease it
37:12
Speaker 1: with a better horn. I believe it. Um, do you
37:16
Speaker 1: remember did you watch a Little Miss Sunshine? No? I
37:18
Speaker 1: never saw. It's a good movie. There's a running gag
37:21
Speaker 1: that they're old beat up. B W Van has a
37:24
Speaker 1: horn that will go off occasionally, just without but it
37:27
Speaker 1: sounded exactly like my old VW Beetle had a horn
37:31
Speaker 1: that was like you cut in and out and it
37:35
Speaker 1: would for a time, whenever I took a hard left turn,
37:38
Speaker 1: it would it would go off, but it wasn't allowed.
37:40
Speaker 1: It was just like it sounded like a dying person
37:43
Speaker 1: gasping for air. A death rattle, Yeah, a death rattle horn. Um,
37:47
Speaker 1: that's a good movie. You should check that out. Death
37:49
Speaker 1: rattle a little well, that death rattle too, and three
37:53
Speaker 1: and then little miss Sunshine, you should check out pay
37:56
Speaker 1: It Forward to see why you should stop saying pay
37:58
Speaker 1: it forward, I have no desire um. Alright, So everyone
38:02
Speaker 1: makes mistakes back to that, but you can avoid this
38:06
Speaker 1: escalation and conflict if a you don't know, you don't
38:12
Speaker 1: do the eye contact deal. They say, that's like, just
38:15
Speaker 1: like a wild animal, don't look him in the eyes.
38:18
Speaker 1: Or wait, I thought they said, do look him in
38:20
Speaker 1: the eyes to stare him down. On what animal? Yeah, alright,
38:25
Speaker 1: like if it's a rat, stare it down. Okay, but
38:29
Speaker 1: it's a sign of aggression. Pull up someone and you
38:31
Speaker 1: look him hard in the eye, that's yeah, exactly. Keep
38:36
Speaker 1: control of your temper. That's a no brainer. Um, someone,
38:41
Speaker 1: it is a no brainer. But that's tough to do.
38:43
Speaker 1: Sit it is, especially if you're justice spells are ringing
38:46
Speaker 1: like mine. Do like that person shouldn't get away with us, right,
38:51
Speaker 1: lady in front of me, should not get have gotten
38:54
Speaker 1: away with that? Alright? Uh, they didn't have done surveys
38:57
Speaker 1: even that showed that drivers don't think that they're being
39:01
Speaker 1: They think they're being assertive and not aggressive, so that
39:03
Speaker 1: basically there can be a lot of mixed uh communication,
39:07
Speaker 1: and your goal is to just I don't care what
39:09
Speaker 1: they're doing. I'm not going to match what they're doing.
39:13
Speaker 1: You're It's also called being the bigger person, you know,
39:17
Speaker 1: just let it, let it go, don't let them make
39:20
Speaker 1: you hit the gas pedal. Just think about all the
39:22
Speaker 1: gas you'll save by not driving aggressively. In in return, Yeah,
39:27
Speaker 1: and Strictlan points out that will seem unnatural to you
39:30
Speaker 1: even to just say, you know what they're driving like that,
39:34
Speaker 1: it's not my problem. They're they're a sad, angry person. Well,
39:38
Speaker 1: he also points out that they're probably under as much
39:41
Speaker 1: stress as you are. They may be late because apparently
39:44
Speaker 1: UM in follow ups to UM two aggressive driving incidents
39:49
Speaker 1: and road rage into the incidents, people frequently say they
39:53
Speaker 1: were all they were under stress outside of their car.
39:57
Speaker 1: Already work, stress, life, stress, that kind of stuff, right,
40:00
Speaker 1: So when you carry that into the extraordinarily stressful, unnatural
40:05
Speaker 1: situation of driving a car, especially in traffic, UM it can.
40:10
Speaker 1: It can. Also you're just already set up for it.
40:13
Speaker 1: So if you step back and think maybe that person
40:16
Speaker 1: is having a rough time in their life, it will
40:18
Speaker 1: make it easier for you to just let it go
40:21
Speaker 1: and be the bigger person. Yeah, it's a win win,
40:25
Speaker 1: And we've all been there, and I think you can admit, like,
40:28
Speaker 1: if you're just having a great day and everything's coming up, Josh,
40:32
Speaker 1: you're probably much more laid back behind the wheel, you know.
40:34
Speaker 1: But if you're super uptight about something, I think all
40:37
Speaker 1: of us fall into that trap, you know. So, so
40:40
Speaker 1: there are steps you can take to prevent falling into
40:43
Speaker 1: that trap. There's one in here that cracks me up,
40:46
Speaker 1: but it's totally true. Listening to relaxing music. I listened
40:50
Speaker 1: to easy listening music, like basically radio the Botomy, and
40:55
Speaker 1: it actually helps quite a bit. Really, Yeah, he says,
40:57
Speaker 1: concentrating on breathing. I can't do that. Yeah, I mean,
41:00
Speaker 1: that's get bored anytime I try to just focus on
41:03
Speaker 1: my breathing. Yeah, you either get at that or not. Right,
41:06
Speaker 1: So I've opted for relaxing music instead. Uh. He recommends
41:11
Speaker 1: to get enough sleep. Um, I guess it makes sense.
41:15
Speaker 1: Here's one that's you have to give yourself plenty of
41:18
Speaker 1: time to where you're going. Sure, don't leave late and
41:20
Speaker 1: expect to just have a pleasurable ride, right, um right,
41:24
Speaker 1: you just can't you expect the worst expect that, you know,
41:28
Speaker 1: and if you show up five minutes early, whatever, that's fine. Um,
41:32
Speaker 1: people love punctual people. That's nice, right, Um if you
41:37
Speaker 1: if it's out of your hands, though, then you should say, Okay,
41:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like not, oh god, I need to
41:43
Speaker 1: cut through all this, which is kind of like you
41:46
Speaker 1: mean is rolling on the ground laughing right now hearing
41:49
Speaker 1: me say that, because I'm like, we have to go
41:51
Speaker 1: to the airport. First of all, we have to leave
41:52
Speaker 1: two and a half hours before our flight, and I
41:54
Speaker 1: have to drive like a maniac on the way to
41:56
Speaker 1: get there, even if we have plenty of time, because
41:59
Speaker 1: there's a you got a deadline. Yeah, you don't want
42:04
Speaker 1: to miss that flight. Nope, I get it. I get
42:06
Speaker 1: super stressed with when I know I have to fly
42:09
Speaker 1: that day because you don't know. You can look at
42:12
Speaker 1: the traffic map, but sometimes it feels like you can't
42:15
Speaker 1: leave early enough. You know. I've actually gotten a lot
42:18
Speaker 1: more relaxed on that too. I think about it. You
42:20
Speaker 1: miss like this little walking valume for me. Right, She
42:23
Speaker 1: totally chilled me out in traffic. She chilled me out
42:25
Speaker 1: about like missing a flight and all that stuff. So yeah,
42:29
Speaker 1: I have chilled out tremendously. I still do drive aggressively sometimes.
42:34
Speaker 1: That's right. I'm gonna work in progress, Chuck, I do too,
42:36
Speaker 1: my friend, it happens. Uh. And we've already talked about
42:39
Speaker 1: avoiding venting on that can actually increase your sense of
42:43
Speaker 1: danger in frustration instead of calming you down and you're
42:47
Speaker 1: and they're screaming and yelling that that's really not alleviating anything.
42:51
Speaker 1: You know. I do know I can tell you afterwards.
42:55
Speaker 1: Whenever I do it, I feel terrible about myself, Like
42:58
Speaker 1: I was just like quite and just that. Go. Now
43:00
Speaker 1: you look like a jackass to anybody who saw you
43:03
Speaker 1: like going? Yeah, And um, you feel like a jackass too,
43:07
Speaker 1: don't you. Yes, I do. That's what I say to myself. Uh.
43:13
Speaker 1: So let's talk a few statistics here to close, shall we?
43:16
Speaker 1: Oh wait, there's dr driving does point out one thing
43:19
Speaker 1: that I think is probably right. One of the best
43:22
Speaker 1: ways to deal with road rage, to prevent road rage,
43:25
Speaker 1: is to teach little kids from an early age how
43:28
Speaker 1: to drive safely, how to avoid road rage, that kind
43:31
Speaker 1: of stuff. And I remember going to Safety City. Did
43:34
Speaker 1: you ever go to Safety City? If you've heard of it?
43:36
Speaker 1: Never heard of it. It It might have just been like
43:37
Speaker 1: an Ohio thing, but we had a dangerous city. It
43:41
Speaker 1: was that sounds kind of fun. Um. Safety city was
43:47
Speaker 1: the opposite of that. There were dangerous there, but it
43:49
Speaker 1: was all like plastic miniature stuff. So like there's a
43:52
Speaker 1: jail in the center town and like it's like a
43:56
Speaker 1: tiny city, okay, um with like streets and sidewalks and
44:02
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and then buildings and all that, and
44:04
Speaker 1: then you're on your big wheel riding around learning what
44:07
Speaker 1: traffic laws are like. Really, so it's to teach kids
44:10
Speaker 1: how to drive, yes, but also how to cross the
44:12
Speaker 1: streets safely all that stuff. But you learn about the
44:16
Speaker 1: danger of walking out in front of a car by
44:18
Speaker 1: being a car yourself and having one of your peers
44:20
Speaker 1: walk out in front of you, and like the first
44:22
Speaker 1: couple of times you try to run them down, but
44:24
Speaker 1: then you learn like, no, that's not cool because they
44:26
Speaker 1: send you to jail. Was that part of school? I
44:29
Speaker 1: don't remember what it was. I was pretty young. I
44:31
Speaker 1: just remember my dad taking me to it and being
44:34
Speaker 1: like a decent drive away from our home. So I'm
44:37
Speaker 1: not exactly sure where it was when I went to it.
44:40
Speaker 1: I just remember it was I got to bring my
44:42
Speaker 1: big wheel, and I thought it was pretty great. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah,
44:45
Speaker 1: it's funny to think about parents of uh and it
44:48
Speaker 1: still happens today, But it seems like in the seventies
44:51
Speaker 1: and stuff like what was going on in the car
44:54
Speaker 1: was like, oh man, far from teaching experience. Yeah, we
44:57
Speaker 1: were looking at like old um child safety seats. Yeah,
45:01
Speaker 1: they looked like they were worse than nothing. Yeah, like
45:04
Speaker 1: this metal bar that would just cut you in two
45:07
Speaker 1: if you hit it like fast enough. I mean like
45:09
Speaker 1: these things couldn't have been safe, like an old rusty
45:12
Speaker 1: spring like pointed at your temple. Yeah, it's just bad news. Yeah.
45:16
Speaker 1: I got a you know, mistakenly flew in on this
45:19
Speaker 1: last tour to Baltimore instead of Washington, d C. So
45:23
Speaker 1: I had to take a cab. I was gonna take
45:25
Speaker 1: like a bus in a train, but I was like, na,
45:27
Speaker 1: I'm running late, I need to get in a cab.
45:29
Speaker 1: And I got in a cab to go from Baltimore
45:31
Speaker 1: to d C. And it was the grumpiest oldest cab
45:35
Speaker 1: driver I've ever met in my life. This guy was
45:37
Speaker 1: in his mid seventies and immediately started honking at the
45:41
Speaker 1: cab in front of him at the airport and dude,
45:45
Speaker 1: this it was the perfect guy for what I needed,
45:47
Speaker 1: because he drove like a bad out of hades to
45:50
Speaker 1: get me there on time. And uh it was. It
45:53
Speaker 1: was comical and scary and awesome. Uh yeah, yeah. Yeah.
46:00
Speaker 1: People who don't put their seatbell on because they're in
46:02
Speaker 1: a cab. It's it's like, here's your brain. Yeah. I
46:06
Speaker 1: used to not wear much in the back seat, but
46:07
Speaker 1: I've gotten better about that. You need to. Yeah. I
46:10
Speaker 1: always figure like I'll just hit the seat in front
46:12
Speaker 1: of me, right, maybe so, but you might go flying
46:16
Speaker 1: over the seat and kick the person in the front
46:18
Speaker 1: seat to death. It's not just you kick him to death. Yeah.
46:23
Speaker 1: Uh can we talk stats? Yeah, you dug out this. Uh.
46:28
Speaker 1: Cities that are the most courteous and least courteous last
46:32
Speaker 1: year Auto Vantage survey. They did one in two thousand nine,
46:36
Speaker 1: and they did one in two thousand fourteen, and this
46:38
Speaker 1: varies from year to year, But in two thousand fourteen
46:41
Speaker 1: they listed Houston, Texas at our own Atlanta number two
46:46
Speaker 1: least courteous, Baltimore d C in Boston as least courteous,
46:51
Speaker 1: and that change from two thousand nine, which was New York, Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta.
46:57
Speaker 1: The only holdover was Atlanta, all right in Minneapolis, which
47:01
Speaker 1: surprises me. Yeah, and then how the mighty have fallen?
47:04
Speaker 1: Baltimore in two thousand nine was the third most courteous.
47:09
Speaker 1: In two thousand and fourteen, it was the third least
47:11
Speaker 1: courteous out of like twenty five major cities. It makes
47:14
Speaker 1: me wonder what kind of study this is. To be honest,
47:16
Speaker 1: so they survey drivers who drive in rush hour traffic
47:23
Speaker 1: at least three times a week and then ask them
47:26
Speaker 1: questions that pertain to like aggressive driving and driving courtesy.
47:30
Speaker 1: Yeah it's not I mean it was a phone survey
47:32
Speaker 1: and each participant spent about six minutes or whatever. But um,
47:37
Speaker 1: I mean it's about as legitimate as this these kind
47:40
Speaker 1: of things get because it's the study of road rage
47:43
Speaker 1: and apparently no one's serious about it. Most Doctor Driving
47:47
Speaker 1: and he can't even be serious enough to just call
47:49
Speaker 1: himself Dr James. Well he used to be Mr. Driving,
47:52
Speaker 1: so he's definitely taking a little more serious. Um, he
47:55
Speaker 1: went back to school. Most Courteous Cities last year, where
47:59
Speaker 1: Portland isn't a or one, Pittsburgh st Louis. But Portland
48:03
Speaker 1: was also number one in two thousand nine, so they're
48:06
Speaker 1: there are chill people out there. That's been my experience. Uh, Portland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis,
48:11
Speaker 1: San Francisco, in Charlotte, North Carolina as the most courteous cities.
48:16
Speaker 1: So how about that? Yep? You got anything else? Uh? There?
48:21
Speaker 1: I know one thing I did see, though, I was
48:23
Speaker 1: surprised um Strickland sites study that found that women and
48:28
Speaker 1: men are pretty close in aggressive driving behaviors self reported
48:33
Speaker 1: aggressive driving in road rage experiences. It's like percent of
48:37
Speaker 1: men but forty four percent of women. I would have
48:40
Speaker 1: guessed the disparity would have been a little more, but
48:42
Speaker 1: apparently road rage strikes both genders equally. I definitely see
48:46
Speaker 1: angry women out there, um and angry dudes. It's both. Yeah, yep,
48:53
Speaker 1: so that's road rage, dude. If you guys want to
48:55
Speaker 1: know even more about roadbrage, type those words into the
48:59
Speaker 1: search part how stuff works dot com? And since I
49:01
Speaker 1: said search parts, time for listener mail. Yeah, and if
49:05
Speaker 1: we didn't impart it, settle down out there. It's dangerous.
49:09
Speaker 1: We're all trying to get by here. Everybody's got their
49:12
Speaker 1: own life stresses that they're bringing of the road a
49:14
Speaker 1: little more courteous. They didn't mean it to you personally,
49:17
Speaker 1: so don't take it personally. Josh and Chuck and Jerry.
49:23
Speaker 1: I've seen her drive? Oh yeah, I've never seen Jerry drive.
49:26
Speaker 1: Is she like an aggressive driver? Now? Jerry drives very safely.
49:29
Speaker 1: Remember she takes crazy routes. I remember that, like I've
49:33
Speaker 1: cutting through this parking lot because this light stinks. And
49:36
Speaker 1: oh yeah, but I think that's the commute route she
49:40
Speaker 1: has just she had mastered it from Buckhead. I will
49:43
Speaker 1: do that too. Oh yeah, me too. Um, all right,
49:47
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this wild signal from a pro. Oh cool,
49:50
Speaker 1: Hey guys, I'm a radio astronomer. Actually, yeah right, Actually
49:55
Speaker 1: my sub field is radio transients, i e. Radio signals
49:58
Speaker 1: detected once and ever again. Wait, is this person going
50:02
Speaker 1: to debunk the wild signal right here? No, it's actually
50:04
Speaker 1: a nice email. I felt like I had to right
50:07
Speaker 1: in about the wild signal. I'm really glad I listened
50:09
Speaker 1: to the episode. She almost didn't, because you guys really
50:12
Speaker 1: did a great job nicely balancing the science and speculation.
50:16
Speaker 1: So thank you. And when I get asked in the future,
50:17
Speaker 1: I'll be shure to refer people to your wonderful coverage. Well,
50:20
Speaker 1: thank you. I thought i'd give a few more details
50:22
Speaker 1: on it if you're interested. Um. On the it might
50:25
Speaker 1: be real side of things, it's also worth mentioning that
50:27
Speaker 1: the Big Ear telescope used to look at two points
50:30
Speaker 1: on the sky at the same time, separated by a
50:32
Speaker 1: small distance, like two separate pixels. The wild signal was
50:36
Speaker 1: detected in one but not the other, which is another
50:38
Speaker 1: good indication that it might indeed be coming from space.
50:41
Speaker 1: On the it might be nothing side, however, some recent
50:44
Speaker 1: work that I've done actually showed that some unexplainable signals
50:48
Speaker 1: that we've detected at a radio telescope in Australia turned
50:51
Speaker 1: out to be coming from microwave ovens at the telescope site.
50:57
Speaker 1: Man made signals can sometimes interfere with radiote theoscopes and
51:00
Speaker 1: ways we don't expect, so it's hard to know something
51:02
Speaker 1: like that could have also produced a WILD signal. It's
51:05
Speaker 1: hard to say either way. I don't have a strong opinion,
51:07
Speaker 1: to be honest, I mainly study things called fast radio bursts.
51:10
Speaker 1: But I just wanted to say great job and thanks
51:13
Speaker 1: for making my job easier rock On, Thank you rock On,
51:17
Speaker 1: and that is from Emily Petrov, originally from Portland's Thank
51:20
Speaker 1: you Emily, Oh courteous driver, probably now living in Melbourne.
51:24
Speaker 1: I don't know about Melbourne's driving and moving to the
51:27
Speaker 1: Netherlands in January. If I passed my PhD defense in October,
51:30
Speaker 1: oh man, good luck, Emily, way to go. I hope
51:34
Speaker 1: to see you in the Netherlands. Are you know in
51:37
Speaker 1: my mind? Got you? Uh? If you want to tell
51:42
Speaker 1: us that we did a fantastic job on something that
51:45
Speaker 1: you're an expert in, we'd love to hear from you
51:48
Speaker 1: for a change. Yeah. You can tweet to us at
51:51
Speaker 1: s y s K podcast. You can join us on
51:54
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
51:56
Speaker 1: send us an email to stuff podcast at how stuff
51:58
Speaker 1: Works dot com, and in the meantime you can hang
52:01
Speaker 1: out with us that are super dope home on the web.
52:03
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
52:10
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
52:13
Speaker 1: dot com.