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> What is it about driving a car that turns people who are probably otherwise normal adults into literal babies.

It's like Usenet, or FaceBook. Two layers of glass (driver+worker) give people some anonymity and they stop treating others with some respect.

I read a quote from one of the Sandy Hook parents: Anytime you put a machine between people, the person at the other end of the machine is dehumanized. I'm paraphrasing here, and they were talking about a gun, but I think it holds true for cars and computers as well.

It would be nice, but in my opinion it’s not caused by being in a car. Some people will try to take advantage of any system where they won’t feel/see negative repercussions. You can call it externalities causing global warming or you can call it my dad reusing a coupon because the cashier didn’t collect it.

We see it more in cars because of the isolation and velocitization: someone running or on a bicycle _can_ be rude too but it’s far, far less common because they feel like part of the community without the isolation of being in a sealed metal box kept multiple body-lengths from other people and there isn’t billions of dollars of design and marketing saying that it’s all about going 70mph, anyone who doesn’t go fast is a fool, and everyone else should get out of your way.

I used to car commute & now use bike/transit exclusively. I see more people being considerate, apologizing for confusion, etc. in a given day than I used to see in a year of driving in California. The reduced safety & quality of life isn’t just because cars are faster - a lot of people just seem to do the same thing internet commenters do and let distance bring out their worst sides, only they’re doing it with several tons of metal which can reach killing speed in less time than it takes to think.

>What is it about driving a car that turns people who are probably otherwise normal adults into literal babies. Who screams (honks) as loud as they can, without a care for who it might bother? Babies. Who throws things at people when they are upset? Babies.

They're not angry at the road crew. They're angry at the state police, DOT bureaucrat or whoever that decided to block off way more road than was strictly necessary and they're taking it out on the road crew. They're angry at the state for making their lives harder than strictly necessary and they're taking it out on the messenger.

>When a person gets in your way so you can't speed through the lights and you end up waiting at a red, they didn't lengthen your trip at all and are not worthy of any directed rage

If it never has positive ROI people wouldn't do it. Just because people don't share the same reading of the situation as you doesn't make them stupid. During peak hours where I live missing a light adds more than just that light to the time because you now are behind more traffic that just got onto the road. So instead of waiting two cycles to get through the next light you might wait three, and so on and so on.

>We've all collectively just accepted to be subjected to an enormous amount of noise pollution and sometimes deadly violence on the road simply because people can't understand and/or accept the realities of how driving infrastructure works.

One man's "accept the inevitable" is another man's "needlessly bend over and take the unnecessary". If people went when the light turn green, didn't stop at cloverleafs(!!), etc there's be a lot less honking.

These people are not having a mature/rational response to a minor inconvenience.

These people have no other way to voice their displeasure so they're predictably using the limited means available to them.

I don't see why this is so baffling. Humans gonna human.

Who is baffled? The only baffling part is you defending their actions.

Why assume they are otherwise normal adults?