[Loki]

I walk a good 15-20 miles every week in the core of my city, which is purported to be one of the most bike-friendly cities in the US. I can state categorically that by FAR the most problems I've encountered as a pedestrian are with bicyclists. The vast majority of motorists yield to me as a pedestrian, and only the very rare yahoo yells at me or tries to run me over (it happens, but rarely). But I swear, at least once a week I have a run-in with a bicyclist who thinks they're doing me a personal favor by riding their bike to work, and that I should scurry out of their way with a bowed head. They make up maybe 1% of the traffic on the street, but they are at least 75% of the assholes I encounter. After years of exposure to their bullshit, I've come to absolutely loath bicyclists.

So I guess I'd have to say that "road rage" is caused by people being assholes, and that there are a disproportionally large percentage of assholes who ride bikes. Unfortunately, this is one problem peak oil won't solve.

[SchroedingersCat]

I tend to find (generally) that the selfish attitude of the driver tends to increase with the price of the vehicle. Out here, the worst seem to be the Lexus, the BMW and the high-end SUV's. If people think that have some entitlement because of what they paid for their car, what might happen when fuel prices make driving so much more expensive?

"I'm paying $1 a mile to drive this thing, so I'm going to do whatever I want!"

There is also the reverse of this, of course. What rage might be directed towards those who can continue to afford to drive?

[gg3]

"Side-effects of overpopulation" is an interesting hypothesis. Though, a traffic jam is a case of "localized overpopulation" relative to a specific resource (space on a highway) and I recall hearing about traffic jams as long as there have been highways. Road Rage, and related behaviors such as Air Rage, are relatively new.

I suspect the answer has to do with smoking. Specifically, "not smoking."

Nicotine plugs into the dopamine receptors and also affects serotonin levels. Ths in turn produces a sense of calm and relaxation, and generalized sensory pleasure, without impairing coordination or reflexes. People use tobacco as a relaxant, mood-regulator, and general stress-reliever.

Now that smoking is "not politically correct" and is banned practically everywhere outside of your own house, fewer people smoke, including people for whom it would have been highly beneficial as a way of self-regulating extreme moods. Minus the availability of an on-demand mood regulator, what you get is a generalized increase in all manner of rude and obnoxious behavior, of which the various rage disorders are a specific case.

Heres's how to test my hypothesis:

Take a representative sample of people who are convicted of rage-related offenses. Sort as follows: nonsmokers who have never smoked, nonsmokers who were previously smokers, smokers who smoked within an hour before their rage event, and smokers who did not smoke within the hour before their rage event.

What I predict you will find is:

1) There will be significantly less rage behavior by people who are currently smokers and who smoked within the hour preceding their rage event.

2) There will be significantly more rage behavior by nonsmokers who were previously smokers, and by smokers who did not smoke within the hour before the rage event. (To compensate for the possibility of the "quitting makes you bitchy" hypothesis, we could sort the quitters into subgroups depending on how long since they had quit.)

3) Nonsmokers who have never smoked will fall into a spectrum between (1) and (2).

4) If you have the funds to do this part of the study, compare serotonin and dopamine levels between the various groups.

The "more" and "less" comparisons can be operationalized by comparing percentages within the group of rage offenders, vs. percentages within the general population of all persons in the same state or country.

Generally, you wll find fewer smokers among the ragers than among matched samples from the general population.

---

For those of you who still don't approve of tobacco, just legalize recreational marijuana. That will not only reduce rage crimes, but will also assist powerdown. Who needs to go to the shopping mall or drive all over the place, when they can just sit back and contemplate their oh-so-fascinating navel? And yes, I am quite serious about this. The active ingredients in pot stimulate the brain's "reward" mechanisms, thus reducing the drive to do other activities to get a "reward" feeling.

Though, for people planning sustainable community: discourage recreational pot during the planning, develoment, and construction phases, and for people doing community defense.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheTurtle', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'I')t's a false comfort, as those who have suffered from tragic results can attest.

[SeasonOfPain]

Interesting hypothesis on the smoking, but I can attest that it's probably not a lack of serotonin. I have a smoke immediately before I get into my car to drive home from work (a 25-minute drive on an expressway) and I regularly experience Road Rage within five minutes of getting on the road. Not, however, at pedestrians or bicyclists (good for them, I say!), but at other drivers, and usually at just the sense of entitlement that has been described. The usual cliches abound: self-absorbed SUV-owners yapping on a cell phone, a Lexus owner who drifts into all lanes and cuts you off, and of course the omnipresent SoccerMom hauling the seven kids to McDonals while she does her hair. What's helped lately is simply thinking "Well, that idiot will be starving soon," and I cheer right up.

The overpopulation hyponthesis really struck a chord with me, though. I know I don't like being around most people. Who would, with such rampant stupidity so proudly displayed? And I've cut down my driving to two days a week!