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What looking inside a road rager's brain can teach us about humanity.

So you're driving along, sipping on a chai tea latte and listening to the dulcet tones of Ira Glass.

Or maybe your jam is the BBC or Prairie Home Companion or that new favorite whale song/world music/Buddhist chant remix. But whatever you're listening to, you're driving along all easy-peasy.

And then, around a corner, you encounter ... them.


The literal incarnation of evil.

The one person who can shatter your nebula of car calm and awaken the elemental fury within you: a person going three miles an hour under the speed limit.

And they're in front of you in a nonpassing zone.

GIF from Disney's "Hercules."

A lot of us get road rage sometimes. Like, pretty much everybody.

According to AAA (you know, the folks who'll come and get you if your car breaks down), nearly 80% of drivers were significantly angry behind the wheel at least once in the last year. About half tailgated or yelled at other drivers and about a quarter admitted to purposefully trying to block another car from changing lanes.

Haven't you ever heard of zipper merging?! Photo from iStock.

Road rage isn't just an American problem, either — it's been seen pretty much everywhere cars are used.

So what snaps in our brains when we throw up a middle finger or honk aggressively or scream at someone we don't even know?

If we can figure out why our brains freak out behind the wheel, maybe we can fight back and stay calm.

There isn't a simple answer, but scientists and researchers have a few ideas about what contributes to that road-fueled rage you feel burning inside you. Those road rage factors reveal a few interesting quirks in human psychology, too — quirks that, once we know about them, we can possibly turn around.

Road rage reason number one: Cars don't have faces. And that matters more than you'd think.

No matter what nickname you give to your car (Ol' Jeepy Joe), no matter what funny bumper stickers you add, no matter how many weird fake eyelashes you attach...

Car eyelashes. Car. Eyelashes. Photo from Hazel Nicholson/Flickr.

... a car just isn't the same as a living breathing human being. And our brains just don't know how to handle that.

Eye contact is one of the most important ways people learn to empathize with each other. But, really, when was the last time you were able to make eye contact with someone on the road? If you're lucky, you might get a half-second glance over while you're passing them (after all, you're supposed to keep your eyes on the road, not ogling other drivers).

For the most part, driving anonymizes us. And that makes us jerks.

Studies have found that being anonymous not only makes us more aggressive drivers, it makes us more likely to bully people online, and even cheat at video games.

OK, so we just have to paint giant faces on all our cars, right? And then we can go back to sipping on chai and listening to public radio?

Well, we're not done, 'cause our brains love to jump to conclusions too.

We've got left and right turn signals down (theoretically ... kind of ... not really), but what's the signal for "I've got a screaming infant in the backseat" or "I've been at work for 18 hours pulling shifts at emergency care" or "my dog literally just threw up in my lap"?

'Cause there's no way to tell people on the highway that. No way to explain our mistakes or why we're suddenly distracted. And this might lead to something psychologists call the "fundamental attribution error."

Yeah, you look real happy now, bub, but just wait until she starts crying, pooping, and throwing up all at the same time at 60 miles an hour. Then we'll see if you're so dang chipper. Photo from iStock.

Basically, when we do something bad ourselves, we explain it away as a reaction to the situation. But our brains aren't wired that way for the actions of other people. Instead, we blame whatever that person is doing on who they are, not the situation.

I mean, obviously, when I speed it's because I drank a 64-ounce Big Gulp and need to find a bathroom, like, 10 minutes ago, but when they speed it's because they're a horrible speed-demon with poor impulse control!

What's worse, we all tend to think we're above-average drivers too, which means we tend to assign blame to everyone but ourselves.

And those quirks combined might make it a lot easier to blow our lid. Nobody wants to yell at the exhausted doctor or mom, but we almost never get to see the real person behind the wheel until it's too late, so our brains are only too happy to jump to conclusions.

OK, one more road rage factor: Maybe it's that we really, really hate losing. And traffic feels like losing.

Our brains are wired with a concept known as loss aversion. Basically, we're predisposed to hate losing, even more than we love winning. And traffic feels like losing.

For one thing, heavy traffic can mean it takes longer for us to get to our destination, which makes us feel like we're losing time.

Truly, this is the winter of our discontent. Photo from iStock.

And for another, the traffic in and of itself can be a problem. In Tom Vanderbilt's book "Traffic," Richard Larson, an engineer and design expert at MIT, points out that seeing people get ahead of us in queues or lanes tends to irritate us, even if our rivals are in a completely separate lane!

I know that, for me, there's always a microsecond of annoyance when people pass me on the highway — even if they're in a completely different lane. Seeing someone get ahead of us feels unfair. It feels like they're cutting in line.

And when it's in standstill traffic, and I see the next lane start to move, but not mine...

Add to this that driving can be inherently dangerous and stressful for many people, and is it really a surprise we blow up?

Road rage might seem funny because how it comes about or maybe even a little silly, getting upset at stuff on the highway. But it's no big deal, right? Driving gives our brains every reason to get mad and no reason to stop.

The thing is, though, road rage isn't really funny.

In those same estimates from AAA that identified 80% of drivers experienced anger or road rage, they also estimated that 8 million drivers engaged in "extreme examples of road rage, including purposefully ramming another vehicle."

In fact, one study found that aggressive driving was a factor in more than half of fatal accidents from 2003 to 2007. So we should probably do some work to stop road rage while we're ahead.

Now that we know why our brains act this way, maybe we can do something about it.

It's OK to feel your hackles raise at being stuck behind a slow driver or to feel stressed out in the car. It's OK to want to avoid bad drivers or be scared or angry if someone comes out of nowhere into your lane. And it's obviously OK to have a bad day — we can't always control how our brains process the information around us.

But we do have some degree of control over our own actions in the car. Muting your road rage could be as simple as trying to empathize with a new mom driver who's baby is screaming, even if you can't see her face. Or maybe it's trying to give that Prius the benefit of the doubt when it makes a mistake in your lane because you never know what kind of day that driver's had. Or maybe it's just remembering that driving isn't a race and a few extra minutes in traffic probably won't kill you.

Maybe — if we stay mindful about the tricks driving can play on our brains and cut each other a little bit of slack — we can all stay calm and safe on the roadway.


Planet

Easy (and free!) ways to save the ocean

The ocean is the heart of our planet. It needs our help to be healthy.

Ocean Wise

Volunteers at a local shoreline cleanup

True

The ocean covers over 71% of the Earth’s surface and serves as our planet’s heart. Ocean currents circulate vital heat, moisture, and nutrients around the globe to influence and regulate our climate, similar to the human circulatory system. Cool, right?

Our ocean systems provide us with everything from fresh oxygen to fresh food. We need it to survive and thrive—and when the ocean struggles to function healthfully, the whole world is affected.

Pollution, overfishing, and climate change are the three biggest challenges preventing the ocean from doing its job, and it needs our help now more than ever. Humans created the problem; now humans are responsible for solving it.

#BeOceanWise is a global rallying cry to do what you can for the ocean, because we need the ocean and the ocean needs us. If you’re wondering how—or if—you can make a difference, the answer is a resounding YES. There are a myriad of ways you can help, even if you don’t live near a body of water. For example, you can focus on reducing the amount of plastic you purchase for yourself or your family.

Another easy way to help clean up our oceans is to be aware of what’s known as the “dirty dozen.” Every year, scientists release an updated list of the most-found litter scattered along shorelines. The biggest culprit? Single-use beverage and food items such as foam cups, straws, bottle caps, and cigarette butts. If you can’t cut single-use plastic out of your life completely, we understand. Just make sure to correctly recycle plastic when you are finished using it. A staggering 3 million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans annually. Imagine the difference we could make if everyone recycled!

The 2022 "Dirty Dozen" ListOcean Wise

If you live near a shoreline, help clean it up! Organize or join an effort to take action and make a positive impact in your community alongside your friends, family, or colleagues. You can also tag @oceanwise on social if you spot a beach that needs some love. The location will be added to Ocean Wise’s system so you can submit data on the litter found during future Shoreline Cleanups. This data helps Ocean Wise work with businesses and governments to stop plastic pollution at its source. In Canada, Ocean Wise data helped inform a federal ban on unnecessary single-use plastics. Small but important actions like these greatly help reduce the litter that ends up in our ocean.

Ocean Wise, a conservation organization on a mission to restore and protect our oceans, is focused on empowering and educating everyone from individuals to governments on how to protect our waters. They are making conservation happen through five big initiatives: monitoring and protecting whales, fighting climate change and restoring biodiversity, innovating for a plastic-free ocean, protecting and restoring fish stocks, and finally, educating and empowering youth. The non-profit believes that in order to rebuild a resilient and vibrant ocean within the next ten years, everyone needs to take action.

Become an Ocean Wise ally and share your knowledge with others. The more people who know how badly the ocean needs our help, the better! Now is a great time to commit to being a part of something bigger and get our oceans healthy again.

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The hobby has caught the attention of law enforcement and government agencies because urban waterways are a popular place for criminals to drop weapons and stolen items after committing a crime. In 2019, a magnet fisherman in Michigan pulled up an antique World War I mortar grenade and the bomb squad had to be called out to investigate.


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