Road Rage Linked To Automobile Bumper Stickers

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.

Comments

Re:No stickers in the UK

[Corporate Troll]

don't think it *is* that bad. The worst frequent offense is tailgating, which I deal with by slowly reducing my speed until people get tired of tailgating a sloth, and overtake. At which point I accelerate, overtake *them*, and put some reasonable distance between our cars. I occasionally have to rinse and repeat, but the majority of people get the hint.

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.

Re:what about the obvious ?

[sumdumass]

Actually, if someone is over taking you, your supposed to maintain your speed and not alter your driving so the person making the affirmative move can gage a course of action. By slowing down, you could be closing their escape route if something is coming and putting yourself at a greater risk of an accident.

In Ohio, it is actually part of the law that the vehicle being overtaken is to maintain a constant speed (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.

Re:what about the obvious ?

[corbettw]

I hate to say it, but in this circumstance the correct thing to do was probably to hit the guy, if you can do it in a controlled manner. It's hard to tell if that would've been possible, from your description of the road, so it might not have been. But if you had hit him, he would've been 100% at fault for driving that way in the first place. And if you were driving any kind of modern car, you and your nephew would've walked away with nothing more than a few bumps and bruises.

Re:in other news

[PachmanP]

Hawking was fine until ~college, so unless we're allowing post 4th trimester abortions he would still be here...