6 Scientific Reasons People Drive Like Assholes

At first blush, racing games seem to be an exception to that rule. We all have to drive, right? And not just anyone can navigate a Lamborghini Murcielaga through Las Vegas at 185 miles-per-hour and only slaughter, like, two pedestrians. Surely the dexterity and reflexes required to brake, boost and drift all at the same time in Burnout: Paradise translate to some sweet fucking chops behind the wheel of an actual car, right?

Er... right?

Incredibly, video games have failed to improve our lives again.

A recent study found that men who simply play racing games and then get behind the wheel of a real car tend to take more risks, display more aggression toward other motorists and generally drive like they're trying to cross some imaginary finish line before everyone else. Or, like the other cars are cheating by teleporting right behind him even when he knew he was way ahead, goddamnit.

Curiously, this effect can be blunted if you simply avoid having a penis. Studies showed women can play Gran Turismo for eight hours straight, drive home in the heaviest rush-hour traffic ever and never once scream, "Get that piece of shit out of my way you festering communist anal wart."

It's possible that those poor souls are living in the shadow of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Cornell psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning describe this phenomenon as someone being "unskilled and unaware," meaning they have a specific short circuit in their brains that makes them suck at figuring out they suck.

Once you are aware of this phenomenon, you'll see it five times a day in your everyday life. And perhaps nowhere is this more dramatically demonstrated than on our roadways.

This driver will vastly overestimate his own driving abilities, while underestimating or diminishing everyone else's, and he'll be as self-assured as possible while he's doing it. That's why he thinks he's perfectly capable of talking on his cell while steering with a sandwich, but anybody else who does that should have both their license and reproductive organs revoked.

Experts call this "deficient metacognitive skill" but it's basically a ridiculous system by which a person continually sees all other drivers as worse than they are, therefore making himself look better by comparison. This is coupled with a complete inability to self-evaluate, so they go on living in their own little fantasy world where they're the king of the road, and the rest of us are just obstacles to be avoided, sped by and flipped off.

Everybody has an acceptable level of risk, and scientists say we try to keep risk at the same acceptable level in any situation. This sort of makes sense until you realize that if your risk level is too low, you will actually engage in riskier behavior to compensate.

So, for example, when you get into your custom Volvo with the five-point harness NASCAR seat belts, side impact airbags and anti-lock, you don't just pat yourself on the back for being extra safe. No, you subconsciously compensate by driving faster, following other cars more closely and flipping the bird more frequently.

On the opposite side of the psychological highway, the driver in the '74 Ford Pinto with the washrag gas cap and four bald tires is probably driving under the speed limit, signaling every turn and hating your guts as you whiz by him at 90 miles-an-hour.

Maybe it's the same reason football players get concussions even with those armored, padded helmets on their heads. Each guy seems to think, "Hey, I've got my skull good and protected! That means I can slam my head into dudes even harder."

Basically, all the well-intentioned safety measures the world imposes on us are nullified by the psychopath that lies just below the surface in all of us.

The human body produces a protein called BDNF which is responsible for maintaining the health of our synapses. Scientists refer to this function as neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to renew itself and retain information.

Driving, being one of those tasks that requires attention, decision-making and good motor skills, depends heavily on this. Good drivers' brains have high levels of BDNF production which allow them to learn faster and perform better during tasks that require advanced motor function. Bad drivers, sadly, do not.

And BDNF production is tied to one single gene variant which scientists have romantically dubbed Rs6265. If someone suffers from low BDNF levels, it doesn't 't necessarily mean they're going to go all Tiger Woods on a tree with their SUV every time they get behind the wheel. They're just more likely to do it than someone whose brain is virtually oozing BDNF like grease from a Fatburger.

That's what BDNF looks like, right?

Anyway, according to scientists at the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, a nice big whiff of something nasty can induce feelings of hostility, cause you to drive more aggressively and increase your chances of being involved in an accident.

And secondly, smells are processed by the limbic system in your brain, which also governs emotions and long-term memories. A foul odor can evoke any number of long-buried memories and the emotions that come with them. The smell of rotting garbage may bring back memories of that year you lived in a dumpster.

At its most harmless, this leads to an inability to fully concentrate on the road. But if the smell is irritating enough, it can trigger a response in your trigeminal nerve which runs smack dab through the center of your skull.

A nerve response like this is typically accompanied by an adrenaline release that instantly puts you in a tense and angry state. "Tense and angry" tends to mean "asshole" to other motorists, and means you are more likely to start driving like one.

According to psychologist Dr. Leon James children are also quite the little assimilators of our driving habits as well. He has postulated that a childhood of riding with parents who do inconsiderate things--like screaming obscenities, following too closely, attempting vehicular homicide--has a profound effect on the way that we will drive in the future. In other words, if your parents were assholes behind the wheel, it's a good bet you will be too.

And it's not just your parents that fuck you up. Oh no, it's our entire gasoline and car-chase addicted culture. Car chases look freaking awesome on screen and we've been cramming them into movies ever since the camera was invented. Ask a cop how much he likes the Fast and the Furious franchise. He'll be torn between his love for Vin Diesel and the way street racing deaths doubled the year the first film came out. Think it's ridiculous when panicked moral crusaders talk about how movies influence our youth? Tell that to members of the LAPD who have to do extra patrols around theaters showing Fast and Furious sequels just to keep teenagers from squealing off into the distance and smashing head-on into a tanker truck.

Check out more from Dave over at http://idontgiveadamn.org.

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