Driving In Boston Makes You Mean And Stupid

Written by Boston Biker on May 06

Today on the way to work I was threatened by not one, but TWO idiots in trucks. I can say with some assurance that I was in full compliance with the law, did nothing to provoke or enrage them. They simply felt the need to threaten my life. I feel like in the last couple hours I have gone through all the stages of rage, from “KILL!” to “why?” (In case you were wondering the full stages of rage are KILL KILL KILL KILL AHHHH! KILL KILL KILL Kill Kill kill why?). So in the interest of letting the world know about these goons here are my stories.

1. White dodge dualy (the kind of truck with two back wheels on each side) Maryland plates licence number 220-260 lives/works in JP (followed him to his home). Drives up next to me, rolls down his window and says “get out of the road or I will run you over.” Older portly moron, with gray hair. The kind of person you can tell solves problems with violence. Bad breath.

2. Two pedestrians were standing in the street as I approached. I start screaming “a little room please!” they go about talking to each other looking at a paper not even paying attention to me or any of the other traffic in the street. Giant WB Mason truck decides to take a hard right, in the exact moment that I am swerving around the two morons standing in the street. When asked why he didn’t even turn his turn signal on the truck, he responded “get out of the street asshole!”

So we have two guys, in trucks, a couple of clueless pedestrians, and the end result is a lot of ill will. So after my red hot desire to bludgeon these morons to death with my u-lock calmed down, I started to wonder “what is is about people in cars, and especially trucks that makes them such ass holes?”

A lot has been written about the de-humanizing effects of people in cars, about how they stop seeing other people in other cars as humans and start seeing them as impediments to their progress. I have written a lot about it as well (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.) But I think it is more than that. I think that in a city like Boston we have gone past the point where it is simply that people have stopped thinking of each other as humans, I think we are into some “next level” road rage situations here.

Driving a vehicle in Boston is a hellish nightmare. Traffic, parking, honking, tiny streets, and now some damn cyclist in your way! Oh the humanity! A driver might be forced to wait as many as 30 seconds before they are able to pass me at high speed to the next red light. Then indignity is piled upon indignity when I catch up to you at that red light and then once it is green speed off to my destination. While you are left fuming in your vehicle stuck behind an infinite amount of other vehicles.

A normal well adjusted person would be able to take a 30 second delay in stride, a normal person wouldn’t roll down their window and threaten to kill another person, a normal person after they had just nearly killed someone would have apologized (and mean it). It would seem that driving a vehicle in Boston on a regular basis can actually turn you from a normal well adjusted human being into a murderous asshole. I am not speaking figuratively here. I honestly think that the regular stresses of Boston traffic can cause actual behavior and personality changes in the poor souls who are forced into it daily.

I think driving a car in Boston traffic damages your brain, and makes you a moronic rage-a-holic. Before you dismiss this idea as silly or far fetched think for a moment about what we know about brain science.

Buddhist monks who spend their lives meditating on happiness have been shown to have physically different brains than people who don’t. They are also some of the happiest people in the world. (see here here and here)

We also know that children if exposed to either a lack of stimulation or negative stimulation they will actually develop brain damage and personality issues. (see here here here and here).

We also know that brains continue to develop as we grow (which is different to what we used to think). As they grow they continue to lay down new neural pathways and new behaviors. Even though your brain develops a little slower as you age, it still is developing and changing every day of your life right up until the day you depart this planet. (see here here and here).

So if you look at a daily car/truck commuter from a neural point of view you have the perfect recipe for brain damage. You are placed daily in a situation of high stress, you are forced to deal with lots of other angry people (more negative stimulation) and you do this to yourself hundreds of hours a year. If Buddhist monks spend hundreds of hours thinking about happiness and have become some of the happiest people on earth, what do you think happens to people who spend hundreds (thousands) of hours a year being stressed out and honked at?

Besides the obvious danger of getting fat from sitting around in your car, and the danger of all the fumes you breath while sitting in traffic, and the danger from global warming caused by your car, and the political destabilization caused by the use of oil to power your car, I feel it would be appropriate to add brain damage to the list of things you should worry about.

Because it is impossible to know what other people are thinking inside their head, we instead rely upon how they act to diagnose problems with them. We as a society have more or less come to agree upon a whole host of things we consider “abnormal.” We think trying to kill others, or trying to hurt them, or not feeling bad about hurting other people, as abnormal “crazy” behavior. When we see someone who wants to kill others, or who doesn’t feel bad about hurting others we lock them up, or force them to be heavily medicated. Why then do we allow people who are trying to kill other humans (be they on a bike, walking, or in other cars) simply so they can get where they are going faster to live freely among us?

In a way I feel sorry for people who are like this. Sure they are jerks, and yes several of them did conspire to end my life today, but if you think about it from a neural science point of view you almost have to treat them in the same way you would treat anyone with brain damage. They are sick, and they have a defect in their brain. A defect caused by hundreds and hundreds of hours of what amounts to psychological torture in traffic every day of their lives. These poor souls have been sold a bill of goods, they were told that the automobile was going to be their ticket to freedom, to mobility, and to happiness, when actually it is a ticket to poor health, dirty environments, and mental defects.

I want to hug each and every one of them and take them to the bike shop to get them a bike. I want to help them get into cycling, I want to show them that there is another way! Throw off the chains of driving, repair the damage done to your brain by years of traffic torture. Come take a ride, the weather is nice, the cyclists are too, come on out of your metal cages and see what life has to offer you.

Tags: dumb asses, life threatening, neural science, road rage
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