Like everything else in life, I have a theory about road rage, made out of the dust bunnies in my head. It's not really about road rage per se, but about modes and comfort levels. I think that when Superman is at home, and wants to hand a picture on his wall, he has to find his hammer. He's in his Clark Kent mode, and it's more trouble to shift into Superman mode, and push the nail into the wall, than to stay in Clark Kent mode and find the hammer. Some work is very hard, until you get so dirty and sweaty you just don't care--then you shift modes, it's easy and fun.

So, what I think happens is that cars become more and more a personal comfort zone, with cd players, comfy seats, quiet engines, stillness in motion, and it lulls us into our wimpiest, most infantile mode. They're like that quality in depression-era musicals, that fantasy of a frictionless world. Then that mode and that fantasy are cantilevered against reality, and serious responsibility, and having to wait, judge, excercise control and caution. The frustration of the fantasy sparks rage.

   This theory may be partly born out by a study cited in risk homeostasis, of a European country--Switzerland?--that changed driving lanes. Everyone expected accidents to increase, and they decreased. People apparently stayed in a greater state of awareness. So we could switch lanes every four years or so, to prevent accidents. Risk homeostasis is the tendency of things to keep going amiss at the same rate despite saftey measures. Where ever you set the limits, people push them. The measures to prevent an old accident introduce new variables to create new accidents.

To prevent road rage, maybe we could design seats to kick you in the butt at random intervals, douse you with soot, pond water and ice, and stuff like that. And people could use turn-signals, and slow down where kids play. That pisses me off.