Editor's letter: Road rage as a sign of the times

last updated 8 January 2015

It isn’t your imagination: There really are more idiots on the roads. In a new Washington Post survey, 12 percent of drivers admit to frequent feelings of “uncontrollable anger” toward other drivers—double the percentage of self-admitted road ragers in a 2005 poll. The psychologist who conducted the survey, road-rage specialist Leon James, thinks that if everyone were being honest, about 30 percent of drivers would be classified as chronically angry and dangerously aggressive. These morons didn’t used to bother me much, since I’ve got about 1 million miles on my personal odometer and know how to stay away from trouble. Then, over the summer, my two daughters got their driver’s licenses. Now every time I see suicidal hotheads darting in and out of lanes, riding my bumper at 65 mph, or speeding up to keep other drivers from merging, I imagine my inexperienced offspring navigating through the chaos. And I feel a knot of real fear.

People of a certain age have been bemoaning “the end of civility’’ for centuries, so all such proclamations should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, I don’t think the growing “screw you” ethos on the roads is an isolated phenomenon. The last dozen years have taken a toll on most Americans’ confidence, and the cocky optimism that was once a bedrock of our national character has given way to a sour self-absorption. Everything of value feels finite and precarious—jobs, wealth, status, even our right to occupy space in a more crowded world. In this zero-sum reality, you’re either a winner or a loser; people think they can’t afford to give a damn about anyone else. So they don’t. On the road and in life, being a jerk is contagious.