Consulting Editor’s Editorial: Desocialization by Automobile

Abstract

“Road rage,” as aggression on the roadways is called, has become a common phenomenon. Like a riot or revolution, it is not without a cause. It may be pathological, warranting a diagnostic category in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1994) (Yasgur, 2001), but pathology has an etiology. Medication or a driving psychology curriculum has been offered as panacea (James & Nahl, 2000). John Butcher, a member of the British Parliament, fed up with the boredom and tedium of driving and sitting in traffic jams, urged his government to allow jugglers and acrobats to perform on the highways to soothe the jangled nerves of motorists. With traffic moving so slowly, there would be little danger that they would be injured. When an infant has a temper tantrum, we try to ascertain what is causing it, and we may try to do something about it. We do not dismiss it out of hand. It may not be due simply to bad manners. The increase in aggressiveness on the roadways has been attributed to traffic congestion, feeling endangered, being insulted, frustration, time pressure, fatigue, and competitiveness. According to Darwin, human aggression is a biologically programmed response no different from the rage reflex of animals when they are attacked or threatened, but humans, unlike animals, have mediating processes such as judgment and choice that interrupt automatic responses. Be that as it may, the automobile is driving people mad. A lot of things make people angry—their employer, paperwork, and low wages—but traffic drives them crazy (Max, 2000). The breaking point for Michael Douglas in the film Falling Down was getting stuck in traffic. People do not dump their cars, for as a practical matter, they have become a necessity. In the film What Dreams May Come, Robin Williams depicted life in heaven—there was superb public transportation and no automobiles. For that, we will have to wait for heaven. Advertisements convey the message that the automobile is consonant with an attractive, invigorating environment and that ownership is a requisite of a full, rich life. In fact, however, the automobile way of life brings ugliness, pollution, economic waste, agony, injury, and death. It is an immoral, wasteful way of life. Verily, it is a crime against nature. Integrity in advertising would call for portraying the automobile not in a sylvan setting, as is now done, but rather in a traffic jam or collision.