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Road Rage Linked To Automobile Bumper Stickers
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jun 17, 2008 04:57 AM
from the jesus-loves-you-now-back-off dept.
from the jesus-loves-you-now-back-off dept.
Ponca City, We Love You sends news of a study by Colorado State University psychologist William Szlemko that recorded whether people had added seat covers, bumper stickers, special paint jobs, stereos, or plastic dashboard toys to their cars. Szlemko found a link between road rage and the number of personalized items on or in people's vehicles. "The number of territory markers predicted road rage better than vehicle value, condition, or any of the things that we normally associate with aggressive driving,' says Szlemko. What's more, only the number of bumper stickers, and not their content, predicted road rage... Szlemko suggests that this territoriality may encourage road rage because drivers are simultaneously in a private space (their car) and a public one (the road). 'We think they are forgetting that the public road is not theirs, and are exhibiting territorial behavior that normally would only be acceptable in personal space,' the researcher says.
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in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:in other news (Score:5, Funny)
I think I saw that phrase on a bumper sticker....
Parent
Re:in other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, though, I have no bumper stickers, seat covers, personalized anything on my car. However, I'm prone to curse at idiots in traffic (they can't hear me, of course) especially when they threaten my life.
Tami always bitches about my "road rage" even though it has no effect except to let me let off steam. Is this road rage, or do you have to do something like zoom around someone and cut them off, flip them the bird, or otherwise let them know that they have annoyed you for it to be road rage?
I think Tami doesn't know the difference between rage and annoyance.
Parent
Re:in other news (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no bumper stickers. After having been on the receiving end of three road rage attacks/incidents, involving people following me and physically threatening violence, I now carry a
Parent
Re:in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Action is not the defining characteristic of road rage. Action is the end result regarding road rage. Long before Johnny decides he's had enough and he's gonna take what he deems to be appropriate action for his emotional state on the road, he's been yelling, swerving, swearing, and in general expressing his displeasure at not getting his way on the road. People experience and express road rage long before they ever take any "action".
Of course, "action" can be defined as many different things. Is waving a gun at you through my driver's side window considered to be an action? I'm not leaving my personal space, I'm not driving erratically, I'm not swearing or cursing you out, and I'm not tailgating you. I'm just pissed that you passed me on the right and swerved in front of me. So I decide to remind you that this kind of activity might get you shot if it continues, by waving my gun at you. Is what I have done road rage? You bet. I can even get arrested for it.
If you have been on the receiving end of three road rage attacks/incidents... you need to reexamine how you drive. I always drive the speed limit, and although I'm usually the only one on the road doing so, I've never in my 39 years (23 on the road) been on the receiving end of a road rage attack. Sure, people might have gotten angry at me driving 55 or 65 or 35, etc... but nobody honked or yelled or shook a fist. You are apparently driving in a manner that not only pisses people off, but is annoying enough to prompt people into taking action against you. But just be aware. If three people ACTUALLY took action against you, how many more WANTED to take action against you?
Road "ragers" say it is the fault of the morons on the road who can't drive properly. Victims of road rage blame it on the person expressing the rage. Neither party realizes that they are both at fault and both need fix their attitudes and actions while on the road. The rest of us are tired of the nonsense.
Parent
Re:in other news (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:in other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Heaven forbid they saw something you didn't while you were doing your asinine maneuvers? It's a good thing that both police and insurance would put you at fault. Maybe one day after you go to jail for involuntary manslaughter you will realize you are just being a giant douche.
Parent
Re:in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Suddenly, it is not a big deal to have hemophilia or cancer prone genes. Most often, when you see a dangerous gene in fairly large numbers in a population, it also conveys a benefit. For instance, the genes linked to sickle cell anemia also provide resistance to malaria.
So you can shut up about natural selection. You have unnatural ideas about it, based on wrong headed 'genetic superiority' arguments. You have no idea what good effects those negative genes might also be providing, but you'd gladly do away with them rather than do away with the conditions that make them a liability.
Do you like playing god because you feel inherently superior?
Parent
Re:in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
There *IS* one uber-predator. Look in the mirror.
Parent
Re:in other news (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Not hard (Score:5, Funny)
And for societal win,
To irresponsible retard:
A safe, simple Schwinn
Burma Shave
Re:Not hard (Score:4, Insightful)
If a bicycle proves too great a burden, then let a man walk.
And if he can't walk without being a menace, let him sit in the corner.
I'm speaking in hyperbole, but the whole dependent mentality of no-one being accountable for crappy behavior is one of the more destructive threads in society.
Parent
No stickers in the UK (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No stickers in the UK (Score:5, Funny)
They pull out in front of you, drive at <speed limit> - 5 mph, and wonder why you're driving up their sanctimonious arse honking and flashing!
Bastards, the lot of them.
And they always double park on a Sunday when they get their weekly dose of self-flagellation.
Did Jesus say 'Pick up thy bed and drive'? I think not :P
Parent
Re:No stickers in the UK (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:No stickers in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
You do realise that what you're doing is qualified as "road rage", don't you? At least a light form. You're trying to teach them a lesson, by annoying them even more.
Parent
Re:No stickers in the UK (Score:5, Insightful)
Being tailgated is a dangerous situation - if you're forced to brake for any reason they will cause a nasty accident. The average tailgater is also a speeder, so even putting your foot down isn't going to shake them. Your only other choice is to slow down - not to force them to stop tailgating, but to improve your reaction time and lessen the chance you'll have to break suddenly and kill them.
Parent
Re:No stickers in the UK (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:No stickers in the UK (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it is: the correct method dealing with them is to encourage them to overtake you. Slowing down, keeping right (okay, left in the UK), etc.... What VoidCrow does after that is roadrage. He overtakes them, and gives them the taste of their behaviour. I doubt that such behaviour is encouraged in driving schools. In mine it wasn't: letting them pass, yes. Giving them a taste oof their own medicine is self-justice and a driving school advocating such things isn't doing you any good.
Parent
Seen (Score:5, Insightful)
Other people's stickers? (Score:4, Funny)
Not everyone can control their impulses.
Re:Other people's stickers? (Score:5, Funny)
except you miss.
Parent
Re:Other people's stickers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that about sums it up, doesn't it? Your actual desire, when someone else expresses their opinion, is to be violent. My desire, when I see a car loaded up with "random acts of beauty," "peace happens," and "war is not the answer" stickers is to actually talk to the platitude-dealing pollyanna involved and get a sense of how they think, for exmaple, that their random acts of beauty and kindness might change a local Taliban franchise's boss into someone who no longer likes to kill women showing up to work as a teacher and showing young girls how to read. How was "war not the answer" when Germany was rolling over Europe? How exactly was peace going to "happen" in the Balkans as Muslims were being ethnically "cleansed" from their villages with Serbian machine guns?
Unlike you, whose first instinct - however well reigned in for fear of being caught - is to vandalize the property of someone you hate, I'm more inclined to either roll my eyes, or actually communicate. I do appreciate your so nicely illustrating the shrill, tantrum-like thought process that drives so much of the politics on the left. It's entirely about rudderless emotions, drama, and cheap, sophomoric, fair-weather outrage that's anything but constructive... and shows that the pretense of disliking partisanship is completely disengenuous. It's true of you, and it's true of the current presidential candidate from the left. Hot air. It's not about getting anything done, it's entirely about how much you don't like someone else. "Change We Can Believe In" is the most empty bit of meaningless rhetoric I've ever heard, since it avoids, at all costs, any actual specificity lest the people that utter it get caught showing the real foundation of their idealogy. No need to of course, since the portrait you painted of how your brain works when exposed to nothing more than the name of a political opponent handily demonstrates the actual nature of most political thinking on the left: it's about actual hate, or about craven pandering to that hate as a way to power.
Parent
Re:Other people's stickers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Nothing says "peace" and "harmony" and "can't we all just get along" like smashing the windows of a local retail shop during your anti-war rally, and burning giant puppet effigies to show what you'd really do to people you hate if you could get away with it. Yes, hate is tolerated and even encouraged, as long as it's in the name of warm, fuzzy, friendly political correctness anchored in leftist, populist platitudes. Why these idiots - so often theoretically college educated - can't see the fantastic irony of hating in the name of tolerance, and being randomly violent in the name of peace, I'll never know. Unless it's because, most of the time, they're just muddle-headed poseurs with no critical thinking skills and they're actually attending protests to get dates, shock their parents, and come up with something new for MySpace because people are getting tired of just looking at pictures of them being drunk at parties.
Parent
Re:Other people's stickers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Idiot.
Parent
Re:Other people's stickers? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see, because the local coffee shop is an agent of foreign colonial tyrrany, being run in a country in which you have no representative democracy or constitional checks and balances. Yes, nothing has changed since the founding of our nation! We must still destroy the property and livelihoods of our neighbors in order to show how we must sever ties with the overseas monarchy that sets taxes on which we have no voice, stations troops in our homes, and prevents us from manufacturing goods on our own shores. Yes, I see now that you have a keen grasp on it.
Parent
Very helpful (Score:5, Funny)
Makes me wish I had a bumper (Score:5, Funny)
"The size of ones genitals is inversely proportional to the size of ones vehicle"
The best part is that SUV drivers would run out of fuel before they could even catch up!
i always wonder about people (Score:5, Interesting)
i'm talking about the people with 4-5 bumper stickers, all stridently ideological
of course you are entitled to be proud of your beliefs, but if you are radioactively evangelical about them, then i am 100% certain that your mind is completely closed and your brain dead hack partisanship is total
on the other hand, you can be assured no one will want to borrow or steal your car... although these bumper sticker hordes are usually stuck on a 15 year old rust eaten subcompact
Ixthus + Volvo badge (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ixthus + Volvo badge (Score:5, Interesting)
The Hummer covered in American flags and ribbon magnets for every armed service (because, y'know, the driver was in the Army, Marines and Air Force simultaneously) and the Forester with the "SMASH FAITH-BASED FASCISM" and "HOW MANY IRAQIS PER GALLON" stickers (because, y'know, Subarus burn rage, not gasoline like those awful SUVs) are equally likely to make a right turn through the bike lane without looking.
Parent
yeah, but did they study ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Did they study the effects of drifting along and not passing while in the passing lane on a limited access highway (a 2 point ticket, called disrupting the flow of traffic, in most states)?
I mean, really, if you did these things on foot you'd get, "Um, excuse me" and "right behindja," and "sorry there, ah, commin through."
The real source of road rage is not being able to say, "excuse me." It frustrates humans because we need to be able to express ourselves. We're pack animals and the cars isolate us.
My hunch is that inconsiderate behavior is a better predictor than bumper stickers. I haven't done a study though. Could be wrong. (Ignore my sig it's a joke.)
Re:yeah, but did they study ... (Score:5, Interesting)
You can sort of test this yourself while walking. While walking down the street, step in front of another pedestrian (cut them off) and then keep walking, you'll hear negative comments. Do the same thing, but then apologize and the person you cut off will act like it was their fault.
Parent
Re:yeah, but did they study ... (Score:5, Interesting)
- Move over you spineless git!
- hey dickwad, you almost hit me
- Hi there
- careful, you're about to hit something
- I just passed out and slumped into my steering wheel
You try talking for a while with just a mono-tone "Hey" you'll find it's very difficult to be understood
Parent
No no no no (Score:5, Funny)
Driving a white Buick 25mph under the speed limit.
Slowing down when I'm behind you and speeding up when I try to pass.
Being shorter than the dashboard.
Zoning out at a green light.
Goosing the throttle on your Harley you fat fuck.
A ricer wing bigger than Mexico.
Passing me on a one lane highway ramp.
Stopping, yes stopping at the end of a merge ramp on to the highway you redneck motherfucker.
Waiting for a half mile of no traffic in both directions to make a left turn.
Green light, asshole, it's not getting any greener.
Re:what about the obvious ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:what about the obvious ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:what about the obvious ? (Score:5, Interesting)
I also have a severe problem with the definition of road rage too. A while back, I had my 4 year old nephew in the car and some jack ass thought that the speed limit (45, on a 2 lane residential area) was too slow and passed me on the double yellow line going around a curve. At the time I noticed him over taking me another car was coming around the corner and he shot back into my lane forcing me to slam on the brakes and run onto the shoulder in order to avoid an accident. Well, that cause me to fish tail a little but the car remained under control and no accident occurred.
Up the road, was an intersection with a 4 way stop. I jumped out of the car and proceeded to ask him what the hell was going on and we started arguing when I told him how to drive and where to pull he head from. A cop was sitting at the cross intersection and turn on his lights and all. He was saying I was having a problem with road rage when he was radioing in for backup. About that time, a car came up behind us and the driver walked up to talk to the cop. I was handcuffed and told to stand by my car. The car going to other direction thought I actually had an accident and turned around for fear of being hit with a leaving the scene of an accident. When he saw us talking to the cop, he gave them his side of events and the cop had me write a statement then let me go. I assume they cited the other guy. But I was going to be hit with some road rage charge for telling a person who almost killed me (and my nephew) to watch what the hell they were doing. Had that third car not turned around, I would have been screwed and another meaningless state for this meaningless result in this study.
I'm confident that the parent was correct in his assessment of the usefulness of this study and results. Not necessarily because they did something wrong, but with the inherent flaws in the data collection itself. To me, road rage is aggressive driving but evidently, it can be a number of things depending on who writes it up and so on. And the question of some kids putting bumper stickers on a car verses the current owner willfully doing it is skewing things a bit too.
Parent
Re:what about the obvious ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It works for me - I never, ever have road rage (though I do swear at cyclists a lot).
Parent
Re:what about the obvious ? (Score:5, Informative)
In Ohio, it is actually part of the law that the vehicle being overtaken is to maintain a constant speed [ohio.gov] (PDF warning, see the page marked as 36 if you had the book, it should be somewhere on page 42 according to the PDF). It is possible for you to be cited if you don't as well as become partially at fault if an accident occurs. Missouri and TX have the same laws. or at least they did when I was there.
But this is all pointless in this particular situation because the guy was behind me, then I saw his hood out of me left eye, he seemed to be going about 15 mph faster then me, and he came into my lane at that time. If I hadn't reacted, we should have hit somewhere with his front door at my my front tire. I moved over and saw him continuing into my lane and passing then I saw the other car and hit the brakes. By the time he was clear of me enough that I could come back into my lane, the oncoming car had already passed. It all happened faster then it would take you to read this, literally a matter of seconds. I'm serious, it was so close that a half second off for either of us could have resulted in either him hitting me or the oncoming car. It was that close.
Parent
Re:what about the obvious ? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:what about the obvious ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am guessing that you do this because you feel that you own the road, and don't agree to sharing it with cyclists. Ill admit that you see cyclists doing stupid things sometimes, but nowhere near as stupid as car drivers, and a cyclist isn't likely to ram into you adn kill you.
Parent
Re:what about the obvious ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the cyclists who act as if they own the road, not the drivers. Oddly, it's only bicycles that act like this, motorcycle drivers are probably the most polite people out there.
Parent
Re:what about the obvious ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:what about the obvious ? (Score:5, Insightful)
These researchers found a correlation, and made a further testable (falsifiable) hypothesis based on it. That's science. Only idiots who tag stories like this with correlationisnotcausation think science is causation studies. It's not.
Parent
Re:We'll see what later studies show. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Correlation != Causation (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
And they never claimed causation, did they? (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically that:
1. being territorial makes you mark your car. Sorta like dogs piss on trees and hydrants. Except smell markings don't work well with humans, so we use visible cues instead.
2. being territorial makes you act like the road is yours, or that everyone within X metres is in your personal space and should play by your rules. And when they don't, you might take it upon you to teach them a lesson or flex your muscles otherwise.
So they don't even seem to contradict your assessment much.
Look, I'll be the first to join in the "correlation != causation" chorus when it's warranted. But some people seen to have a knee jerk reaction to post it, even when nobody claimed causation in the first place.
Or was balking at "researchers" the whole purpose of that exercise?
Parent