Driving and Personality

[Lord DragonsWing]

Okay, this is an open discussion. After driving down the busy 8 lane highway today running errands I noticed a few things. People cut others off, they scoot in and out traffic like a bug running from the spray. It's not a male/female driver thing. It's just a matter of are these people this aggressive everyday?
I'd give a 50/50 ratio to the men/women I saw cutting others off to get into a lane. Most were on a cell phone. One caused an accident by hitting an SUV and turning it on two wheels instead of four.
So, the question I ask. Is someone who drives aggressively the same way at the office or on a date? Are they wanting to lead the way in sex or in life? Or is it just rushing to get to the store and then home.

 

[tolyk]

I think there are far too many factors to consider to jump to any kind of conclusion about this.

What if the person is really stressed out that day and that is what is causing their aggressive driving. Say they just lost a loved one, not something that would affect their driving every day, nor their love life either.

Just way too many variables.

 

[Belegon]

While I think there may be an awful large set of possible factors into one's daily driving, I do think that there is a correlation between other kinds of agressive behavior and the need for speed.

That is not to say rude driving and sexual aggressiveness are linked. There is a difference between driving fast and driving poorly and/or rudely. But I do think the speed thing translates more often than not.

 

[Guest]

i dont know really...can only say how i am
i drive a little green tin can. you might have seen it. the bumper is covered with sarcastic bumper stickers. i am the one who will stomp on their brakes when someone is hugging my ass to read my stickers...its like a venus fly trap. i am the one who will piss you off by driving 'under' the limit. i am the one scream singing and seat dancing. i am the one you want to run off the road.
i should be driven around like miss daisy.

am i like this in every day activities besides driving?...yes. if you do something...do it well.
v~
aka miss daisy

 

[scheherazade_79]

I don't know. People seem to be more aggressive and impatient in general these days. I was discussing it with my mum the other day after getting cut up on a certain roundabout for the umpteenth time that week. It's almost as though they have this pent up rage inside them. People are the same in supermarkets, on crowded streets, and pretty much anyplace they can as long as the anonymity is there to protect them.

Sometimes people who are nasty behind the wheel are nasty in general. I'm not just talking about people who drive a little bit too fast - I'm talking about the lane-weavers, the tail-gaters, the horn-honkers and the cut-uppers. But a lot of the time they're just ordinary people like you and me.

I know that if I'm not careful, I can get impatient in the car, so when I'm driving I tend to play chilled out stuff - David Grey, The Carpenters, Diana Krall, Nora Jones - and when I always have a Swisher Sweets cigar and some chocolate on stand by for when the traffic gets really heavy. I even let people out in front of me

 

[Weird Harold]

So, the question I ask. Is someone who drives aggressively the same way at the office or on a date? Are they wanting to lead the way in sex or in life? Or is it just rushing to get to the store and then home.

In the 1950's, Disney did an educational cartoon on driving safety featuring Goofy as a Jekyll/Hyde personality. I saw it again recently on the ToonDisney channel, and it is still a valid depictionof how some people are -- meek and mild Jekylls on the sidewalk, and vicious, impatient, boorish Hydes behind the wheel.

I've also noticed that what people drive often has as much to do with their style of driving as gender or "sidewalk" behavior.

How people are taught to drive also has a lot to do with driving behavior as well -- If people are taught agresive driving, then they drive agressively; if they're taught (and truly learn) defensive driving, they're generally less prone to aggressive driving.

Of course, there's the life-lesson that if you're polite and let someone in ahead of you, then ten more will try to force their way in behind him. I think a lot of aggressive driving is a reaction to other people's aggressive driving.

 

[brightlyiburn]

I dunno.
What I do know is that if you're driving a "small-penis-complex" car, you probably shouldn't risk jumping out in front of someone and getting it all smashed up.

 

[Weird Harold]

I dunno.
What I do know is that if you're driving a "small-penis-complex" car, you probably shouldn't risk jumping out in front of someone and getting it all smashed up.

Shouldn't and won't are two different things.

My brother, my best friend, and my late ex-father-in-law are are were long haul truckers; their most common complaint was that people in those "small penis complex" cars seemed tothink that 40,000 pounds of eighteen-wheeler could stop and accelerate as quickly as Ferarri's or VW Beetles.

I see a lot of evidence on the highways that basic physics isn't being taught well in schools -- or at least not learned well. Knowledge of simple concepts like friction, inertia and momentum and how they apply to one to twenty tons of vehicle aren't very evident on the highways and city streets at least.

 

[SeaCat]

I have found that a lot of people who are very polite and even helpfull are terrors behind the wheel. Something about controlling a ton or more of metal changes their personality. (As does the fact they are annonymus.) It's not just the younger drivers anymore either, it's everybody. Working in a hospital as I do you get to hear a lot of the stories from the rescue personel, and having been an E.M.T. I have seen it first hand.

What is kind of strange about it is how people react to it. Here in South Florida they recently did a safe streets crackdown. Pulling over agressive drivers on the highways and byways. In one day they handed out several hundred tickets, and had several dozen arrests including one for a motorcycle clocked at over 125 M.P.H. While many people were happy about this and wished the police would do this much more often there was a very vocal minority who complained bitterly about it. Their comments ranged from the idea the police had much better things to do than harras drivers who might be in a hurry to one who was outraged that "People who knew how to drive were being singled out". If it wasn't so sad and so dangerous it would be funny.

As for people not thinking or remembering their physics lessons, just watch people in the snow belt in S.U.V.'s. As long as your not in front of them it's too funny.

Cat

 

[cloudy]

I drive very fast, but I'm also a very good driver. I just happen to have a very fast car. I don't think I drive all that aggressively, because I'm very concious of what my speed translates to in an accident. Some may call it aggressive, but I don't tailgate, and I don't switch lanes excessively.

Aggressive driving, and fast driving are two totally different things.

 

[curious2c]

All I know is, if you don't like the way I drive...stay the hell off the sidewalk.

Mainly because, as a matter of fact I do own the road. Every inch of it.

 

[Op_Cit]

Mainly because, as a matter of fact I do own the road. Every inch of it.

Wasn't there a TV comercial a few years back with this guy driving in a lane labelled "Bob's lane"?

Don't forget regional differences. In California, there is a distinct style I've not seen other places: Every driver will speed up or slow down to keep you from changing into their lane. Even if they're just going along with the flow. Everytime I've driven there, there's this period of about 30 to 60 minutes in which my aggressiveness ramps up: because you have to.-- and I'm a really aggressive driver where I come from.