WEBVTT - Road Warriors 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.280 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.279 My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. Julie, you 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.560 drive a car, right I do? Do you drive one 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:21.440 here today? I did? I drove one as well? Did you? 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:25.520 Did you cut anybody off? That's all over the place, 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:30.400 Hankins throwing up that middle finger. Um, you know, just 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.839 generally creating mayhem where I could. Yeah, I mean, it's 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:35.800 what you gotta do. I only ran two people off 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:40.120 the road this morning. I'm limited myself, saving my my 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:45.200 energy for the podcast, you know. But yeah, of course 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:50.640 we're talking about road rage today and really other indignities 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:53.040 of the road. Yeah, and there are no shortage of 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.640 them all getting aside. I mean, any any given drive 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.279 to work or to visit family, to run an air end. 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:05.160 You know, we all encounter aggressive drivers, We encounter people 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.120 who are maybe a little playing a littless attention to 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:09.360 what's going on around them. There are no shortage of 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.119 annoyances out there on America's road. Yeah. And the other 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.679 aspect of that is that cars give this this kind 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.679 of autonomy, right that we've talked about this before. Sometimes 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:22.520 it makes it seem as though just because we're encased 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.679 in this metal box, were invisible to others. I e. 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.360 We see a lot of picking of the noses. I 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:33.280 saw that this morning, did vaping, right, That's I've seen 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:35.440 done a couple of times. Or I I can see 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.360 you with your with your vapories are there? Well, I 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.160 mean that could be legal vaping materials or not. But 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.920 but I have not I have not seen that myself. Well. 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.480 I wanted to throw out this statistic from John Cesana's 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.000 writing Forwards Auto. He said that the number of vehicles 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.840 in operation worldwide surpassed the one billion unit mark in 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.080 two thousand and ten for the first time ever. We 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:02.280 also know that the volume of vehicles has increased by 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:07.280 thirty five percent since n and yet the actual networks 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:10.760 road networks to support those cars has increased by only 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:16.200 one So more people on the roads, uh, more cars? 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.920 What could go wrong? Yeah? What could possibly go wrong 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.839 with the scenario with nice, level headed people driving there, 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.960 gigantic killing machines down there down the highway in mass Well, 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:32.160 a little something called road rage. Um, it just happens 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.480 to be one of the responses in a group of 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:41.160 outbursts known as intermittent explosive disorder, which almost sounds like device, 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.640 right yeah, um, And it's very similar to that because 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.520 in with this kind of disorder you have repeated episodes 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:54.880 of impulsive, aggressive, violent behavior or angry verbal outbursts in 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.480 which you react really grossly out of proportion to the 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.799 situation and at hand. So it's not just road rage. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:07.880 You have examples of domestic abuse, um, throwing or breaking objects, 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.200 essentially the sort of adult temper cantrum, but more in 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:17.360 a disorder fashion, meaning there's some really very real conditions 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.440 at play here when the person is engaging in this behavior. 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:25.000 And according to Randy and Laurie Sansone in their article 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.880 road Rage, What's Driving It, which was published in the 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.679 two thousand and ten July edition of the Journal Psychiatry, 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:37.720 Quote road rage may be described as a constellation of thoughts, emotions, 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:41.680 and behaviors that occur in response to a perceived unjustified 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:46.240 provocation while driving. And road rage may also be defined 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:50.520 as those driving behaviors that endanger or potentially endanger others 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.280 and are accompanied by intentional acts of aggression toward others, 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:59.720 negative emotions while driving, and risk taking. So road rage 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:01.480 just those things that's been out there in the media 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.119 for a long time, and not everybody has this very 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.200 clear cut definition about what it is. But I thought 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:09.840 the sense Owns did a great job of defining it 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.600 in that context. Yeah, it's it's easy to sort is 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.839 you're driving and dealing with difficult drivers, it's easy to 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.760 just sort of throw road rage out there as a 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:24.000 as as an accusation against any perceived slight. Um. I 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.200 think I've I've in my own experience, I think I've 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.160 thought in terms of road rage when someone has just 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:33.480 been clearly driving angrily. Uh. But that's a rather different 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:35.760 thing than say, the time a guy got out of 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.159 his truck and a standstill and like walked up to 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.680 my windshield and was it was gesturing at me like 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:43.760 he wanted me to get out of a car and 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.560 fight him or something. You know, did you no, no, no, 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:49.800 But the interesting thing was like just kidding, like what 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.800 you didn't? Yeah, we we've got out our sabers. And 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:55.760 when I know it was it was like a really 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.760 crazy situation because he like stands in front my wind 0:04:58.760 --> 0:04:59.960 shot and I look up and of course I've just 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:04.000 like wide eyed and appalled, I guess, and like that 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:06.960 kind of took like that, that took him down like that, 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.240 just the anger sort of washed out of his face 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.120 and he walked back to his giant truck. There you go, 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:16.239 little advice, inadvertent advice from you. Yeah, you don't fight 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.960 the road ranger, um, if at all possible. So road rage, yes, 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:22.760 you're right, has become a catch all term, and we'll 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.640 talk more specifically about that. But when we talk about 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.919 this idea of road rage, or maybe road aggression is 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:35.280 the better term, what are the conditions that are set forth? Well, 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:37.400 obviously there's plenty of stuff out there on the road 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.400 to ignite you. Right, you have old people that are 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.240 driving too slow, young people driving too fast. You've got 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.560 cops lurking like sharks to prey upon our our school 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:47.440 of metal fish as we go down the highway. That's 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:48.839 what I always feel like. I feel like I'm an 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.240 animal in a herd, or school fish in a school 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.560 of fish. Yeah, shooting fish in a barrel. Right, Yeah, 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:55.560 there's safety in the herd. But that shark is going 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:57.320 to eat some of us. I just know it is. 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.440 Then you've got sudden stops installed due to traffic, wreck death, 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.480 rubber necking pets, wild animals running across the road, the weather, 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:07.719 solar issues, the sun shining in your eyes, goes on 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.839 and on. But the classic example, the big one, right 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.599 is the cut off. Somebody cuts you off, or you 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:16.719 cut off somebody else, and then you it's like in 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:20.120 a direct affront to some people, Right, you have invaded 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.320 my space. You're trying to take me down a notch 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:27.159 in society. People get super mad about this. Uh people, 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:29.120 I mean this, this is this is one of the 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.280 scenarios more than any that seems to result in violence. Well, 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.159 especially the cutting off, Like that's the number one infraction 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:37.520 that people have a problem with. The honking. Yeah, we 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:39.680 can all sort of deal with that, but if someone 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.080 actually cuts you off, then they're getting into your personal 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.320 space and that's risky behavior, right, They're involving you in 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:50.560 a potential accident. So what happens in the brain when 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.760 this happens? When when when an individual does become enraged 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.839 after being cut off, Well, first of all, stress hormone 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:02.960 cortisol rushes through your blood stream, upping your blood pressure. Okay, Next, 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.320 adrenaline kicks in to heighten your aggression. While the feel 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:11.560 good serotonin drops and dopamine increases, so your emotional intelligence 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.680 decreases in your body is now posed for flight or fight. 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.200 But of course you're in this metal vehicle. You're locked 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.640 away this this individual will just pulled in front of you. 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.800 Flying away fleeing is not really an option, so your 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.560 body ends up going into war mode. Right And on 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.800 top of that, we may be actually hardwired as humans 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:34.560 to act more aggressively in crowds, which translates to that 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.920 metal herd that we find ourselves locked inside. Off. Now, again, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.680 this isn't everybody. Not everybody's having this response to being 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.320 cut off or any other infraction out there on the road. Uh, 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.120 but it may lead you to ask who's actually perpetrating 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.680 all of this. According to a two thousand ten study 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.640 road Rage, What's Driving It published in the journal Psychiatry, 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.720 we're mostly looking at young males as the primary perpetrators here, 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.400 but there are a number of additional variables that play 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.800 into all of this. Okay, First of all, their environmental, 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.400 non psychological factors. So you have to ask questions about 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.320 your potential road ranger. Are they driving an excessive number 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.720 of miles per day? You know, is it their job 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.240 to drive across country all the time? Are they driving 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:19.200 busy roads? Are they driving crowded roads? Are they packing 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.560 a firearm? Do they feel anonymous in their vehicle and 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.640 therefore cut off from any kind of judgment or perceptions 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:31.400 about what they're doing? Um? Is their aggressive environmental stimuli 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:33.880 in the form of billboards or other sciences. That's another 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.040 factor that was mentioned here. And I can't help but 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:41.040 think that music falls into this area as well. Uh, which, 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.000 of course we're talking about the Flight of the Valkyries, right, 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.839 the most dangerous song in the world. Yeah, just starting 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.120 to science. Yeah, it just gets you revved up. You 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.840 start thinking about flying valkyries and your love for for Wagner. 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.560 But yeah, just another bit of environmental stimula that can 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.000 sort of tip the scales. Right On top of that, 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.120 you also have psych i logical factors that contribute to 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.160 a general tendency to displace anger and blame others. They 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:10.240 also factored in unrewarding or stressful employment situations as well 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:13.720 as just the overall stress of modern urban living. And 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.680 then finally, you have bona fide psychiatric disorders to consider here, 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:22.920 especially alcohol and drug addiction. Anxiety, depression, and anti social 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:28.640 personality disorder. Okay, so the statistical reality of this is 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:34.280 very different from what the perception I think is. So 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:36.320 let's delve into that a little bit. Again. This is 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:40.360 from sense own study road rage, what's driving it. According 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.560 to the findings of a Canadian telephone survey of more 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:49.640 than people, thirty one seven percent reported shouting or cursing 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:54.400 at another driver and two point one percent reported threatening 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.520 to hurt someone or damage a vehicle. Now, again two 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.679 very different reactions. One is an imp I threatened, one 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.400 is an actual threat. And then in another Canadian study 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:08.760 of more than twenty adults, the twelvemonth prevalence rate for 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:13.360 admittedly shouting at another driver was thirty two and then 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.720 threatening another driver was one point seven percent, and attempting 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:21.560 to damage or actually uh damage someone's vehicle was one 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.720 point zero percent. So again you're seeing some of these 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.720 statistics begin to line up. And what I'm talking about 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:34.160 here is the actual road rage behavior is hovering about 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:38.200 two percent um. Another study that the Sinsons looked at 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:43.240 was of dred adults, and they found out about one 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.760 third of community drivers engaged in aggressive behavior toward another 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.719 driver while on the road, but far fewer. Again we're 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.800 talking about less than or at two percent actually reported 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.800 serious threatening behavior or damage to another person or vehicle. 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:01.040 So what does this data tell us. It tells us 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.200 that what most of us experience on the road is 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:09.520 really road aggression or road anger. It's not true road 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:13.319 rage where actual violence is involved, which again is hovering 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.520 more at to just about two percent of the cases. 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:18.640 And so this sort of boils down to semantics and 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.240 this whole idea that we introduced earlier that it could 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.959 be a catch all phrase. So if someone's um flicking 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:27.199 you off, that's mount road rage, but it could be 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:31.199 characterized as such by someone to whom the middle finger 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:33.840 was thrown at, right, yes, and it and it could 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.560 also easily set somebody off to say, get out of 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.920 their vehicle and stand by your car and challenge you 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:40.920 to a fight for the other person who actually is 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:48.480 about to have an intermittent explosive moment there. So the 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.880 reason I bring this up, the statistics or the reality 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.760 of it, is because you would think anybody who is 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.680 living in the nineties would think that road rage was 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.400 happening all of the time, because this is what we 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.079 saw in the media. Yeah, it was quite the media sensation. 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.280 It was the new uh, the new just wonderful scare 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:14.319 tactic headline, right, because of course, aggressive driving predates automobiles. 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.120 Even Britain's first speedway laws were enacted in the early 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.160 nineteenth century, in fact, to stop horse drawn carriages from 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.280 quote furious driving. You can be furious with just about anything. 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.600 I gonna give humans credit, right. But the phrase itself 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.880 road rage was actually coined in the late nineteen eighties 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.840 by newscasters at kt L A in Los Angeles, following 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.719 a series of very real freeway shootings. But it was 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.800 before road raide really picked up steam as a headline 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.240 stealing scare story. And it has, i mean has all 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:47.960 the elements, right, because it's this idea you're out there, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:50.839 you're you're packed in with all these strangers, and then 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.959 somebody snaps, right, or somebody who just has its explosion 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:58.040 of anger with violent consequences. Yeah. And what's interesting about 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.679 this is that you can go through a good analytics 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.320 and you can do a search for road rage over 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.400 the past twenty years, you know, past fifteen years, and 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:11.320 get a good sense of how that that curve on 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.920 the graph going up really corresponds well to the mid 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:19.400 nineties when it was reaching it's apex right being reported, 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:21.320 and then you kind of see now where it's not 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.520 as much of a concern, and yet the idea of 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.440 road rage, that it's pervasive is still in our minds. Yeah, 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:32.160 I mean it's it was almost a viral consistency to it. Uh. 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:35.079 And and the people were on the media talking about, Oh, well, 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:36.960 what's what's causing it. Some people were saying, Oh, it's 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:40.280 political correctness, that's it's causing these explosions on the roadways, 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.319 or it's it's Hollywood car chases, or it's mad Max. 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:47.840 To the road Warrior specifically, that's making people drive like manias. 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.200 That though I've never heard of anyone throwing a grappling 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.920 hook out of the vehicle in l A traffic, but 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:55.440 but you think they would if they were inspired by 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:59.280 road wars uh. In article for The Atlantic titled road 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.120 Rage Versus Reality um, and this is a key a 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.840 key article that came out in the whole debate over 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:09.440 over road rage, Michael of Fimento debunked handful of studies 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.120 and polls they were really supporting the notion of road 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.760 rage at the time, and he argued that road rage 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.760 was just an excessively broad term that was applied to 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.600 a variety of violent situations, and it was ultimately detrimental 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:25.400 because it also allowed us to ignore behaviors, actual behaviors, 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:29.280 and actual situations that were causing accidents, such as one 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:31.960 example that he brings up is people running red lights. 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.480 That's a dangerous scenario that can result in and crashes 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.400 and fatalities. But it's also a problem that has been 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.840 successfully treated with with stoplight cameras in many areas. But 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:46.120 that's not nearly as sensational a concept as you know, 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.920 the be steel nature of of the human rising up 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.680 in your little car out there on the highway. It does. 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.160 It doesn't sell papers, No, it doesn't write the human 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:59.440 barbarian and tattered clothing speeding towards you. The reality of 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.920 it is that when road rage does happen, or even 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.640 aggressive driving, when it does happen, it happens in some 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:13.440 really like boring grid lack traffic scenarios when someone has 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.200 been marinating and say like a two hour long traffic 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:21.320 gridlock situation, that's when you see tempers flare. Yeah, and 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.200 I do want to mention, there's not a single traffic 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.280 jam scene in Road Warior. It's all it's all constant motion. 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:31.560 There's no bumper to bupper traffic in that film. Yeah, 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.600 because if it, if it were, that would be an 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:39.040 entirely different movie, right, but the sort of post apocalyptic 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.960 circumstances would not have occurred. Yeah. I would like to 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.560 see a post apocalyptic traffic jam film. That would be good. 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.040 All right, someone's working on it. All right. We're going 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:52.800 to talk about the territorial markings that we make with 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:54.880 our cars and what we do to our cars and 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.440 what that says about us when we have, say a 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:01.280 bumper sticker. Indeed, you do see a bupper sticker scenario 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:03.640 out on the road. Is rather interesting because you see 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.800 that the cars without completely just completely devoid of stickers, 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:08.680 and you have the ones with a sprinkling and then 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:13.720 they're the ones where every political or social or music 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:16.520 related interest that I have will be represented on the 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.640 rear of my vehicle. Yeah, And I just want to 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.440 mention this. In passing, one of the strangest personalized license 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.760 plates I've ever seen was on like r X seven, 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.280 you know, kind of a sporty car driven by a guy, 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.280 and it said whacking it, whacking it, whack it like 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:38.400 like whackamobile. I will leave the interpretation up to you guys. 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:40.360 Maybe he was the inventor of whackamole and that's how 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.960 he made his fortune and purchase that automobile. Maybe, but 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.360 the fact that he had a personalized license plate tells 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:48.520 us a little bit something about him. And the reason 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:50.000 we know this is because we were looking at a 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.520 two thousand and eight Colorado State University study by social 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.800 psychologist William Salimco, who wanted to see if drivers of 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:02.840 cars with these kind of ornament right bumper stickers, window decals, 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:07.040 personalized license plates, and other sort of territorial markers, if 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.320 they not only get mad when someone cuts in their 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.920 lane or is slow to respond to a change traffic light, 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:15.520 if these people are more likely than those who do 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:20.040 not personalize their cars to use their vehicles to express 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:27.560 aggressive driving behavior. So again, aggressive driving behavior could be tailgating, honking, 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.800 you know, just the other random stuff, you know, flicking 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:35.840 someone off. So participants were asked to describe the value 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.560 and condition of their cars, as well as whether they 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:42.440 had personalized them in any way, and the researchers would record, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.520 you know, if they had seat covers, bumper stickers, special 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:51.919 special paint jobs, stereos, or even plastic dashboard toys, and 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.680 then they asked them a bunch of questions about their 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.600 driving and so to keep the participants from realizing what 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:02.239 the team was getting it, they put in some you know, 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.760 fake questions like hey, what kind of music do you 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.840 listen to in the car, along with questions like if 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.679 someone is driving slow in the fast lane, how angry 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.919 does this make you? And they used a pre existing 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:19.240 scale called use a vehicle to express anger to ferret 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:24.720 out those participants who might use aggression while driving. So, 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.520 of course, people who had a larger number of personalized 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.600 items on or in their car were six more likely 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.320 to engage in anger fueled road behavior. That's not huge, 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:40.600 but that's significant. And so the other finding they had 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:44.199 is that when it came to bumper stickers, it didn't 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:48.720 matter if you had bumper sticker that said coexist or 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:53.080 world peace, or if you had I love guns. You 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.520 know it did the sentiment didn't matter. Just the fact 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.639 that you personalize your car mattered. Now it sounds like 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:05.160 the study came before putting testicles on your truck became 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.120 a thing. So I guess we we sadly don't see 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.080 that represented in the data, although that would be in 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.440 that that would be under the umbrella of personalizing the car. Right, 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:15.679 So if you decide to hang a pair of metal 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.040 testicles on your car, you possibly could be in this 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:25.719 category of a higher degree of aggressive car behavior. So 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:29.520 the question then becomes why, why if you personalize your car, 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.200 why might you have drift more aggressively. Well, the idea 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.760 is that people carry around three kinds of territorial spaces 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:42.119 in their heads. One is personal territory like home or 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:48.040 your bedroom. The second involved space that's temporarily yours, say, 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:51.920 like an office cubicle or a gym locker, and then 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.080 the third is a kind of public territory, so park benches, 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:00.959 walking trails, and of course roads. So the idea is 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.240 that you the more you personalize your car, the more 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:08.240 it's becoming this sort of territory that you're wielding in 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:11.480 these different spaces. Okay, yeah, and you can see that 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.160 sort of transform onto on the road into a situation 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.320 of like, my space is this position on the road 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.400 that with a certain maintained space between vehicles a certain 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.680 maintained speed that I get to to keep on the road, 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.320 and if you infringe on any of those, you're infringing 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.879 on this space exactly. And of course it doesn't mean 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:31.399 that if you have a bumper sticker or something or 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.040 dashboard that you're driving around recklessly. It's just this one 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.360 study just tells us a little bit of a statistic here, 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:43.480 sixteen percent more likely to engage in anger fueled antics. Now, 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:47.600 of course, another area in which we invest ourselves personally 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:50.359 in our in our automobiles and can get rather possessive 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.199 comes to parking spaces. And we've all encountered this, right. 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:58.199 What you're you're you're dropping by the by the grocery 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:00.320 store to pick up some things, right or uh, you 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:02.520 know coming in and out of work. Uh, the parking 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:04.879 lot is busy. Uh. You go in, you get what 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:06.800 you need to do, you come out, you're going to leave. 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:08.760 You're pulling out of your parking place and there's somebody 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:13.520 waiting on the parking place already, and this weird territorial 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.400 nature kicks in and it doesn't make any sense, right 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.080 because you're done with this place, You're about to go 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.080 home or go on to the next point on your timeline. 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:24.520 But instead, what do you do? You maybe linger a 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.200 little bit, maybe you you make some some evil eyes 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:30.480 at the person that's waiting or even hawking for you 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:36.840 to move. Well. Study actually looked into this titled Territorial 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:41.119 defense in Parking Lots Retaliation against waiting Drivers, and they 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.080 were just how possessive we get about those parking places, 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:48.200 demonstrating that drivers are territorial even when it runs completely 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.480 contrary to the goal of leaving the flipping parking lot. 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.200 So they conducted three studies here. In the first one 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.639 that they observed two hundred departing cars, and they found 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:01.760 that intruded upon draw rivers took longer to leave a 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:06.480 space than non intruded upon drivers. So again, somebody's making 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:08.760 a visual sign of waiting and being a little grumpy 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:11.840 about you taking your time versus somebody that you don't 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.879 even notice. Right. Study to involved two forty drivers with 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:19.640 a manipulated level of intrusion and status of intruding car, 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:22.080 meaning is it a clunker that's waiting on you to 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:24.800 leave or is it, you know, somebody in a fancy 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:28.720 sports car. And they found that drivers took longer to 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.399 leave when another car was present and when the intruder hanked. 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.000 So the hank is the kiss of death if you 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:38.080 really want them to give up that that that's parking space. 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:41.800 In short order, they also found that males left significantly 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:45.000 sooner when intruded upon by a higher rather than a 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:49.040 lower status car, but females departure time didn't differ as 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:51.440 a function of the status of the car. So to 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:53.639 the males it mattered, Oh, this is a big important 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:56.439 sports car waiting on me. I had better move, But 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.959 the females in this study didn't care. And finally, they 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.520 simply pulled individuals at them all uh and asked what 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:05.199 would they do if if they were pulling out and 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:07.560 somebody honked at them? And they found in the vast 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:09.840 majority of them said that they would take longer to 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:12.720 leave if the driver of the car halked. I have 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:15.880 to say, the honking is sort of terrible, and um, 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:18.840