Why We Become Aggressive in Traffic

Traffic makes us very aggressive, and in doing so, we waste not only time but also our health. Self-control declines, the perception of being threatened increases, and anonymity leads us to give vent to our pent-up violence. At the same time, driving in traffic has become a habit, part of our daily lifestyle.

In Rome, for example, the time of a city driver is different from that of any other citizen in the world. It's divided into two equal parts: for half the time you drive, and for the other thirty minutes you're stuck in traffic. And speaking of time with a special declination, in some university physics or computer science institute someone is surely studying the phenomenon of the nanosecond of time. Roman motorists: the time that usually passes between the arrival of the green light at the traffic light and the honking of the horn of the person coming behind, and evidently has a hurry possessed.

Driving a car in traffic can be very dangerous, to the point of wasting not only time, energy, mood, and even health. Reckless maneuvers, insults, curses, threats, and consultations: for the road rage (an uncontrolled and very intense aggression that develops while driving), anything can happen, and the consequences are always unpredictable.

But what are the underlying causes of why we all become angrier and more violent in traffic? And are there useful and effective ways to calm down and avoid trouble? Several scientific studies have provided fairly precise answers to both of these questions, such as those conducted by the American Psychological Association.

The most common and almost hidden causes of an angry driver are:

Space perceived as territory: the car is experienced as an extension of oneself, and even minimal gestures can trigger excessive reactions.
Deindividuation: Driving a car can lead to a loss of responsibility and social control, and a feeling of unrecognizability—a phenomenon similar to that codified in experiments that have shown that context can push ordinary people into aggressive or inhumane behavior. When we drive, we are hidden inside a vehicle. This anonymity makes us feel less responsible for our actions, as if we were behind a screen. We don't see others as people, but as "machines that get in our way." This phenomenon is called deindividuation.
Sense of injusticeWhen someone cuts us off or breaks the law, we perceive an injustice. This triggers a visceral, often disproportionate, reaction, because it seems to us that others are violating a social pact we are all expected to respect, but perhaps we, the angriest and most violent, are the first to fail to do so.
Anxiety and stress. chronic: A 2023 study by Israel's Department of Social Conduct showed how active levels of anxiety andstress. are associated with aggressive driving styles.
Urban chaos: Noise, horns, smells, lights, excessive proximity to other drivers. All contribute to a form of sensory overload. In this state, the brain can enter "defensive mode," reacting with anger or irritation.
Gender and age: A study by the University of Utah confirmed that young and male subjects react more frequently and more vehemently.
Perceived threat: The University of Utah also explained that the brain interprets a wrong maneuver in traffic by another driver as an attack, activating the amygdala (a place in the brain where emotions are processed) and responses such as "fight-or-flight”, that is, fight or flight, a physiological, automatic and almost ancestral reaction.
Emotional bias: we react out of emotion without checking the facts.

So much for science. But to this, in the car, as in any other moment of our lives, which also includes relationships with others (in the case of traffic, we're all unlucky), we must add etiquette and common sense . These are two compasses that we tend to lose or forget as soon as we get into a car, even without the aggravation of traffic. They're too cumbersome in our daily lives, trapped in the prison of presentism . And without simple cardinal points, in a car we can give our worst selves, almost competing with each other in a middle-distance race of incivility.

There's not a single statistic on the behavior of Italian drivers that doesn't confirm our relationship with driving bordering on the animalistic: what does anxiety and traffic stress, standard mitigating factors for our angry behavior as urban drivers, have to do with the fact that one in three drivers in Italy has the habit of throwing something out of the window, as if the road we drive on were a giant (unsorted) garbage bin?

At this point, in an attempt to regain a glimmer of common sense, all we can do is offer a few suggestions, rather than "shopping tips," for reducing anger, along with its accessories, like a car. The following may be helpful in this regard:

The presence of a passenger: improves self-control due to the deterrent effect of another person's presence.
Positive distractions: breathing, listening to music, and talking loudly while driving reduce reactivity.
Plan your trips well: leave early to avoid delay anxiety and stress.
Dante's reaction: or "don't worry about them but look and pass by", as it is written in the Divine Comedy. Ignore insults, threats and shouts: suffocate the scarce in indifference urbanity of the angry and quarrelsome motorist.
Keep in mind that a traffic fight, A possible consequence of exchanging insults can end very badly. And some have even wasted their lives because of this insane tendency toward aggressiveness, in its automotive form.

In traffic we become aggressive because we are not recognizable

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