FUV


James T. Phillips likens tailgaters and roadragers to a certain talking chimp in DC:

I was thinking about the President's dilemma the other day as I was driving north on Route 95, headed to my home in southern Maine. When I pulled off the Interstate onto the Spur Road, my thoughts were interrupted by a different sort of miscreant, a road warrior as pushy and belligerent as George W. Bush, but much more dangerous to me as I reacted locally, while thinking globally. I glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed a black SUV pull around the vehicle behind me, then swerve back into the right lane only inches from my car. The driver of the SUV was in a hurry, and I was in his way...

The Counseling Center of the University of South Florida reports:

"[s]tatistics show that 250,000 people [in the United States] have died in traffic since 1990. It is believed that two-thirds of these deaths are at least partially caused by aggressive driving, although only 218 were found to be a direct cause of angry drivers [road rage]. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 66 percent of all annual traffic fatalities are caused by aggressive driving actions, such as passing on the right, running red lights and tailgating."

Road rage incidents of the red-faced, mano-y-mano, vulgar variety have killed a few hundred people since 1990, but road outrageous has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent victims. The driver of the black SUV might not have been angry, but he sure was impatient when he committed the act of "aggressive driving"--tailgating--against me and my car.

Tailgating is an outrageous crime. The thousands of annual deaths caused by the impatience of tailgaters were not accidents. Bullies morphed into killers playing a deadly game of bumper cars, these auto-fascists' of the road--intent on overtaking and occupying space they believe to be theirs--have destroyed more than the crumpled machines now scattered in pieces throughout the junkyards of America. They have also destroyed innocent lives, and the futures of the families who bury their dead.

I was lucky when the driver of the black SUV failed to smash into my car. I could have been another homeland statistic.

Road outrageous is a dangerous and deadly ailment that has killed more people in America during the past sixteen years than all the deaths suffered by Americans in wars and terrorist attacks during the same period. Yet, one simple cure to the domestic problem of too many Americans dying on the roads of America--if also prescribed by President Bush as a tonic for his failing foreign policy--would save thousands of Americans, here and over there: Back off.

Tailgaters and George W. Bush should slow down, and back off.

And it'd be nice if we had the option of choosing public transit, too. Decent, reliable public transportation would also provide something that's generally considered a hallmark of an "enlightened," Western society: freedom of choice.

(as a side benefit, it would allow some real enforcement of drunk driving laws).