Honk if you agree with me

My days begin by leaving my apartment and walking ¾ of a mile to a bus stop, where I take the F bus to the south side of Bethlehem to work. As you can imagine, I end my work day the same exact way, only in reverse. So far, this has worked out fairly well. The weather has been mostly perfect… according to locals, a little too perfect. Apparently, this is a very unusual summer weather-wise. It rained all through June, and it has rained at least a couple times per week in July, which has kept the humidity to a minimum. It has also kept things fairly cool, which I have appreciated greatly while trying to not turn on my air conditioner. It hasn’t been all perfect, however. The beginning of last week was hotter and stickier than I had yet experienced. Then on Friday, torrential rains began to fall halfway through my bus ride home, and I had to partially walk home in it. My umbrella was somewhat helpful, but it is still uncomfortable walking around in wet dress clothes.

Overall, the weather has treated me well, but it’s the drivers that I have a little bit of a beef with. One day last week while I was walking home, someone drove by honking their horn. I know this person was honking at me because I was the only visible person in the area. This seems pretty innocuous, but I have some prior experience with this and know better. My ego would like to imagine that whomever it was thought I was so good looking that some noise had to be made, but I know this isn’t it because they only saw me from behind (not my best feature). No, this car honked at me simply because I was an easy target. If you are prone to getting your kicks from trying to embarrass other people, there is no easier way to do this than to drive by a pedestrian that is walking where no one else is and honk obnoxiously. I made an even easier target than normal because I was dressed up and carrying my bag on my shoulder. This didn’t bother me much, but it got me thinking about the psychology of drivers.

There have been several sociological studies done that have suggested that people become somewhat insensitive to normal human conduct and morally-blind, even sociopathic, while in the driver seat. Now, I’m a pedestrian at heart, and I’m pretty laid-back, but even I have experienced this while driving; and I’m sure you have too. Think about how you react when someone cuts you off. Yes, there’s somewhat of a life-threatening aspect to this in its extreme, but most of the time there is little risk of harm. It is just dang annoying! The natural reaction is to throw your hands up in a “What are you doing!?” motion, and hurl some choice words, if not choice fingers. But think about how your reactions are different if someone cuts in front of you in a crowd or in line at Starbucks. You are likely to be less aggressive, because you are in the physical presence of other human beings, which, even if you are enraged, causes you to control and sensor yourself. Some claim that this difference is simply a power trip that comes with operating such a powerful piece of machinery, but I think it has more to do with the fact that life seems to takes on a completely different form when viewed through the windshield of a moving vehicle. It is tough to establish any kind of emotional or psychological connection with another person when you are in a vehicle and he or she is not, which inevitably causes drivers to see pedestrians, and animals for that matter (“dogs are worth 50 points!”), less as living beings and more as objects that are potentially slowing you down. This is even more the case when considering how drivers conceptualize other drivers. Although this is not the root cause of road rage (that’s a deeper, individual psychological problem), it is the trigger! I am not saying I know for sure that the driver that honked at me saw me as less than human, but the situation sure made it easy for the driver to do something that would be, in almost any other circumstance, socially unacceptable.

What do you think? Tell me your stories.