Cars with stickers tend to have aggressive drivers

[Blind_Io]

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127041.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...061502199.html

Three horrors await Americans who get behind the wheel of a car for a family road trip this summer: the spiraling price of gas, the usual choruses of "are-we-there-yet?" -- and the road rage of fellow drivers.

Divine intervention might be needed for the first two problems, but science has discovered a solution for the third.

Watch out for cars with bumper stickers.

That's the surprising conclusion of a recent study by Colorado State University social psychologist William Szlemko. Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other "territorial markers" not only get mad when someone cuts in their lane or is slow to respond to a changed traffic light, but they are far more likely than those who do not personalize their cars to use their vehicles to express rage -- by honking, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.

It does not seem to matter whether the messages on the stickers are about peace and love -- "Visualize World Peace," "My Kid Is an Honor Student" -- or angry and in your face -- "Don't Mess With Texas," "My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student."

Hey, you clown! This ain't funny! Aggressive driving might be responsible for up to two-thirds of all U.S. traffic accidents that involve injuries.
Szlemko and his colleagues at Fort Collins found that people who personalize their cars acknowledge that they are aggressive drivers, but usually do not realize that they are reporting much higher levels of aggression than people whose cars do not have visible markers on their vehicles.

Drivers who do not personalize their cars get angry, too, Szlemko and his colleagues concluded in a paper they recently published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, but they don't act out their anger. They fume, mentally call the other driver a jerk, and move on.

"The more markers a car has, the more aggressively the person tends to drive when provoked," Szlemko said. "Just the presence of territory markers predicts the tendency to be an aggressive driver."

The key to the phenomenon apparently lies in the idea of territoriality. Drivers with road rage tend to think of public streets and highways as "my street" and "my lane" -- in other words, they think they "own the road."
Why would bumper stickers predict which people are likely to view public roadways as private property?

Social scientists such as Szlemko say that people carry around three kinds of territorial spaces in their heads. One is personal territory -- like a home, or a bedroom. The second kind involves space that is temporarily yours -- an office cubicle or a gym locker. The third kind is public territory: park benches, walking trails -- and roads.

Previous research has shown that these different territorial spaces evoke distinct emotional responses. People are willing to physically defend private territory in ways they would never do with public territory. And people personalize private territory with various kinds of markers -- in their homes, for example, they hang paintings, alter the decor and carry out renovations.

"Territoriality is hard-wired into our ancestors from tens of thousands of years ago," said Paul Bell, a co-author of the study at Colorado State. "Animals are territorial because it had survival value. If you could keep others away from your hunting groups, you had more game to spear . . . it becomes part of the biology."

Drivers who individualize their cars using bumper stickers, window decals and personalized license plates, the researchers hypothesized, see their cars in the same way as they see their homes and bedrooms -- as deeply personal space, or primary territory.

Unlike any environment our evolutionary ancestors might have confronted, driving a car simultaneously places people in both private territory -- their cars -- and public territory -- the road. Drivers who personalize their cars with bumper stickers and other markers of private territory, the researchers argue, forget when they are on the road that they are in public territory because the immediate cues surrounding them tell them that they are in a deeply private space.

"If you are in a vehicle that you identify as a primary territory, you would defend that against other people whom you perceive as being disrespectful of your space," Bell added. "What you ignore is that you are on a public roadway -- you lose sight of the fact you are in a public area and you don't own the road."

Szlemko said that, in an as-yet-unpublished experiment, he conducted tests of road rage in actual traffic. He had one researcher sit in a car in a left-turn lane. When the light turned green, the researcher simply stayed still, blocking the car behind.

Another researcher, meanwhile, examined whether the blocked car had bumper stickers and other markers of territoriality. The experimental question was how long it would take for the driver of the blocked car to honk in frustration.

Szlemko said that drivers of cars with decals, bumper stickers and personalized license plates honked at the offending vehicle nearly two full seconds faster than drivers of cars without any territorial markers.

For some reason it's always the hippies with "Visualize World Peace" and "Coexist" on their cars that are the ones who cut me off.

[watto]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

For some reason it's always the hippies with "Visualize World Peace" and "Coexist" on their cars that are the ones who cut me off.

hahaha, I was thinking when I saw the thread topic "Yeah, those damn Christian motorists"



But then again, someone in a mud covered 4WD with "I shoot, I vote" is probably on the way back home from a hunting trip with a high powered rifle with scope in their gun case... Well, that's what my friend has anyway.

[KaJuN]

At first I just laughed but then I got to thinking and I realized that most of the cars that cut me off have those ugly magnetic ribbons plastered all over the back of their car.

On the flip side my Disco has about ten stickers in various places and I would consider myself a rather "Christian motorist" as one man would put it.

[Ottobon]

Well the green-light test is bullshit, if you honk early on all that means is your paying attention and or need to get somewhere. I don't completely disagree with the hypothesis, but its still more complicated then its represented in the study. The guy who wrote this seems like the stereotypical Mr. Politically Correct man who thinks that any form of aggression is the work of satan, plus i know tones of people who cherish their cars as their own who aren't aggressive. People with a classic motors, something i'm sure they find very much to be very much "their property" they are almost always extremely polite drivers. And at the same rate everybody in a Hyundia seems to be driving in a state of semi-consciousness. If it came down to it i would much rather have a road filled with people who are slightly aggressive but awake, then a road filled with what appear to be zombies. If nothing else i know for a fact that i enjoy driving much more when i'm in a car that makes me feel slightly aggressive, the key then is discerning between what is rude and dangerous and what is innocently advantageous.

[Dark_Templer_102]

..I thought this meant the owners with sponsorship stickers or the wannabe ricers people. I notice they cut me off more, but I rarely look at bumper stickers to be honest.

[prizrak]

Originally Posted by watto

hahaha, I was thinking when I saw the thread topic "Yeah, those damn Christian motorists"



But then again, someone in a mud covered 4WD with "I shoot, I vote" is probably on the way back home from a hunting trip with a high powered rifle with scope in their gun case... Well, that's what my friend has anyway.

Those don't tend to be aggressive in my experience they just tend to be absolute retards about driving. I have no personalization on my car and I will still fucking kill you

[atombfield]

I'm not surprised, because anyone who thinks they are so awesome that everyone driving behind them wants to know who they are voting for or how smart their kid is is a conceited asshole that won't care about being a courteous driver!

[MattD1zzl3]

Originally Posted by Ottobon

Well the green-light test is bullshit, if you honk early on all that means is your paying attention and or need to get somewhere.

I cant stand people who honk after 0.00007 of a second, like they are a brain surgeon and have a patient on the table who is going to DIE IF I DONT GO RIGHT NOW AHHHH.

I usually fix that problem by sitting at the light until it turns yellow, them honking away behind me, than going just in time to catch them behind a red light. Should teach them a little lesson on patience.

[Twerp128]

Not to knock my own religion or anything but Indiana just got these self righteous, "In God We Trust," license plates. I'd be fine with these specialty plates, except the fact they are free! Every other specialty plate is $40 a year. Sorry Indiana I believe in separation of church and state and this is clearly a violation of that.

On top of that, quite a few of these people drive like over aggressive or are just plain clueless. Not a great way to promote a religion, which is what Indiana is blatantly doing.

Originally Posted by MattD1zzl3

I usually fix that problem by sitting at the light until it turns yellow, them honking away behind me, than going just in time to catch them behind a red light. Should teach them a little lesson on patience.

I don't know how it works in Florida, but here people would just run the red light behind you. It's funny in the more upscale parts of town people are happy to stop when the light turns yellow. But when you get in the dumpy blue-collar, hillbilly trash, inbred parts of town (or if you know northern Indiana the whole cities of Elkhart and Goshen) two sometimes three cars will tend to turn left after the light has turned red, irritates the hell out of me!

Anyways what your doing is pretty jerky yourself as your holding up other traffic and being as much of an ass if not more than the other guy, infact it could be downright dangerous to oncoming traffic if the person behind you decides to jump the red light.

[Speedtouch]

So my mum is a very road rage type person, because she has a sticker on her car saying 'I love my Kangoo and my Kangoo loves me' with a big smiley face on it? (seriously, and yes, she has a Kangoo)

[NooDle]

rubbish. I'm stickerless and can be very agressive at times
not up to levels, but still

[Crazyjeeper]

My Jeep has loads of stickers on it, and my truck has a couple.

I'm normally a sedate driver, until somebody does something stupid and nearly causes me to crash. For example, yesterday, I was on a ramp in an interchange (the high five) and some asshole cut in front of me without signaling while braking causing me to have to stand on my brakes which locked my front tires. He nearly had a trunk full of Ford.

[Vector]

Originally Posted by MattD1zzl3

I cant stand people who honk after 0.00007 of a second, like they are a brain surgeon and have a patient on the table who is going to DIE IF I DONT GO RIGHT NOW AHHHH.

I usually fix that problem by sitting at the light until it turns yellow, them honking away behind me, than going just in time to catch them behind a red light. Should teach them a little lesson on patience.

This is too stupid for this forum.

[The Chad]

This idea of teaching the other driver a lesson is where road rage really gets dangerous. Patience is a virtue, I agree, but at many intersections in larger cities the light is only green for a little bit, and then it has to cycle back through. I've sat at lights for 4-5 minutes waiting for each turn lane to get a chance to go.

I don't expect you to move the millisecond the light turns green, but if you are busy talking on your cell phone, talking to someone in the car next to you, digging through your car for something, gawking at women (or men), or doing something other than paying attention to the task at hand (driving), then I could see how someone would get angry and honk. I mean no one really is in THAT big of a hurry, but most of use like to arrive at our destination before the end of time.

[MattD1zzl3]

Originally Posted by Vector

This is too stupid for this forum.

Like i said, a lesson on patience. Give me the second i need to release the clutch and roll forward before "you" start honking and tweaking out. I'm not taking pleasure and ruining someones day, i'm teaching them not to treat every traffic stop like its a staging light and we're going for perfect reaction times.

If i'm tuning the radio or looking away and you give me a beep than i don't mind, but move to Miami from a more james may-like part of the country and you'll understand my hatred of car horns and their overuse.

Yea yea yea, mattdizzle and his controversial opinions mean another monthly call for a ban. Honestly people, doesn't hating me ever get old?

[crashmaxx]

Jeeze, is honking when the light turns green and they don't go really that bad a thing? If they aren't paying attention and going I will give them a quick beep just to get there attention. I don't lay on the horn or anything, its more of a courtesy "Hey!".

[MattD1zzl3]

^-- As i said above, thats entirely another story, especially if you wait a few seconds first.

[Vette Boss]

I'm usually pretty patient at the lights, watching to see what the driver ahead of me is doing. I give plenty of space for manual gearboxes, not that quick to jump on the horn, either. Waiting around 10-15 seconds for the driver ahead to pull away from the light, before giving a friendly reminder to move along.

I have less tolerance for stupidity, things like phones and make-up, hair, etc, annoy me. If I see someone dawdling at a green light, I'm likely to have a shorter fuse with them.

[Blind_Io]

When I'm riding my motorcycle I'm almost never the first one into the intersection. The last thing I want is to get T-boned by someone running the red light. If you are behind me you can wait an extra 3 seconds, it won't kill you - but rushing into the intersection may kill me.

[Twerp128]

^I have a hard time beeping at a motorcycle even if he is driving like an idiot. The only thing I don't have tolerance for is the, well mostly Harleys, that straddle the center line when they're lane sharing. It's not your road 'cause you think your a bad ass on a V-Twin, scared the shit out of a couple of them when they weren't expecting a horn.