I hardly ever drive anymore since I moved close to where I work. So whenever I do, the incivility on the roads leaps out at me. People do things in cars they would never do in other settings. Honking. Swearing. Cutting to the front of the line. And that is just my wife. The other drivers are far meaner.
One obvious reason is that you don’t have to live with the consequences for any length of time. If you cut in line at airport security, you will be in close proximity to the people you insulted for quite some time. With a car you make a quick getaway. Making that getaway also means you are unlikely to be physically beaten, whereas giving someone the finger as you walk down the sidewalk has no such safety.
When I used to commute, there was one particular interchange where incivility ruled. (For those who know Chicago, it is where the Dan Ryan feeds into the Eisenhower.) There are two lanes when you exit the highway. One lane goes to other highway, the other goes to a surface street. Hardly anyone ever wants to go that surface street. There can be a half-mile backup of cars waiting patiently to get on the highway, and about 20% of the drivers rudely and illegally cut in at the last second after pretending they are heading toward the surface street. Every honest person that waits in line is delayed 15 minutes or more because of the cheaters.
Social scientists sometimes talk about the concept of “identity.” It is the idea that you have a particular vision of the kind of person you are, and you feel awful when you do things that are out of line with that vision. That leads you to take actions that are seemingly not in your short-run best interest. In economics, George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton popularized the idea. I had read their papers, but in general have such a weak sense of identity that I never really understood what they were talking about. The first time I really got what they meant was when I realized that a key part of my identity was that I was not the kind of person who would cut in line to shorten my commute, even though it would be easy to do so, and seemed crazy to wait for 15 minutes in this long line. But, if I were to cut in line, I would have to fundamentally rethink the kind of person I was.
The fact that I don’t mind when my taxi driver cuts in these lines (actually, I kind of enjoy it) probably shows that I have a long ways to go in my moral development.
All this is actually just a rambling prelude to my main point. I was in New York City the other day and my taxi cab driver bypassed a long line of cars exiting the freeway to cut in at the last second. As usual, I enjoyed being an innocent bystander/beneficiary to this little crime. But what happened next was even more gratifying to the economist in me. A police officer was standing in the middle of the road, waving every car that cut in line over to the shoulder, where a second officer was handing out tickets like an assembly line. By my rough estimate, these two officers were giving out 30 tickets an hour at $115 a pop. At over $1,500 per officer per hour (assuming the tickets get paid), this was a fantastic money making proposition for the city. And it nails just the right people. Speeding doesn’t really hurt other people very much, except indirectly. So to my mind it makes much more sense to go directly after the mean-spirited behavior like cutting in line. This is very much in the spirit of Bratton’s “broken windows” policing philosophy. I’m not sure it cuts down the number of cheaters on the roads in any fundamental way since the probability of getting caught remains vanishingly small. Still, the beauty of it is that (1) every driver that follows the rules feels a rush of glee over the rude drivers getting nailed, and (2) it is a very efficient way of taxing bad behavior.
So, my policy recommendation to police departments across the country is to find the spots on the roads that lend themselves to this sort of policing and let the fun begin.
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Well, on the road there is always the ideal of ‘universal surveillance.’ Though there would of course be some dispute over the division between the public/private because roads are a public good there is some validation of a trespass on privacy.
There are cameras already that catch people who speed red lights, why not cameras that catch people who cut in line? Preferably, this happens on a symbolic level, the ‘God-fearing’ assume that everything is ultimately tabulated and that preserving ‘identity’ or preserving ‘salvation’ matters. Maybe this is the case most of the time in places like the twin cities. Chicago is notoriously secular so there are a lot of overly selfish drivers who tend to be mean spirited. Maybe cameras wouldn’t be necessary in the twin cities but from your description of Chicago road conditions it sounds like it would be advisable.
Well, on the road there is always the ideal of ‘universal surveillance.’ Though there would of course be some dispute over the division between the public/private because roads are a public good there is some validation of a trespass on privacy.
There are cameras already that catch people who speed red lights, why not cameras that catch people who cut in line? Preferably, this happens on a symbolic level, the ‘God-fearing’ assume that everything is ultimately tabulated and that preserving ‘identity’ or preserving ‘salvation’ matters. Maybe this is the case most of the time in places like the twin cities. Chicago is notoriously secular so there are a lot of overly selfish drivers who tend to be mean spirited. Maybe cameras wouldn’t be necessary in the twin cities but from your description of Chicago road conditions it sounds like it would be advisable.
I gotta blame road designers for these “extended merge” situations also. The proliferation of stop lights on many road contributes to the problem as it creates more bottlenecks – more opportunities to pass people who have “pre-merged”.
The interesting thing to me, is that many of these situations would largely go away if a large number of drivers refuses to “pre merge.” I would like to see more drivers would do this as it’s “difficult” for one vehicle to occupy the empty lane as the “blocker” to prevent opportunists from racing by, but it is “easy” for a many vehicles to achieve the same end by filling up both lanes until the merge must occur. There’s something to strength in numbers.
I gotta blame road designers for these “extended merge” situations also. The proliferation of stop lights on many road contributes to the problem as it creates more bottlenecks – more opportunities to pass people who have “pre-merged”.
The interesting thing to me, is that many of these situations would largely go away if a large number of drivers refuses to “pre merge.” I would like to see more drivers would do this as it’s “difficult” for one vehicle to occupy the empty lane as the “blocker” to prevent opportunists from racing by, but it is “easy” for a many vehicles to achieve the same end by filling up both lanes until the merge must occur. There’s something to strength in numbers.
I’d like to believe otherwise but it’s probably true that civility is directly proportional to proximity, and how threatening the other guy looks, which explains why people on the internet can be really nasty without fear of reprisal. I’ve thought about this myself lately, that respect and courtesy have their origin in fear, and it may be ironic that someone today who feels confidently safe in his environment might express that feeling with hurtful candor–and I wonder if that isn’t a good thing? I’ve had people say to me, “I lied because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” and I’ve replied, “Please don’t do that, I’d much prefer knowing you’d be honest with me, even if it stings; if I can’t be sure you’re telling me the truth then your words become worthless to me.”
Do you think people can be honest and civil, at the same time? Do you think people can do so without some kind of threat hanging over them? It all has to do with moral conduct and, historically, that “universal surveillance” mentioned above has been employed, with uneven result. How would we instill the concept of Conscience, in the absence of Punishment?
[Sorry this is so long.]
I’d like to believe otherwise but it’s probably true that civility is directly proportional to proximity, and how threatening the other guy looks, which explains why people on the internet can be really nasty without fear of reprisal. I’ve thought about this myself lately, that respect and courtesy have their origin in fear, and it may be ironic that someone today who feels confidently safe in his environment might express that feeling with hurtful candor–and I wonder if that isn’t a good thing? I’ve had people say to me, “I lied because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” and I’ve replied, “Please don’t do that, I’d much prefer knowing you’d be honest with me, even if it stings; if I can’t be sure you’re telling me the truth then your words become worthless to me.”
Do you think people can be honest and civil, at the same time? Do you think people can do so without some kind of threat hanging over them? It all has to do with moral conduct and, historically, that “universal surveillance” mentioned above has been employed, with uneven result. How would we instill the concept of Conscience, in the absence of Punishment?
[Sorry this is so long.]
Seems like a really problematic reason to give a ticket. In fact, I’d think they’d be easily contestable in court. How is the cop to prove that you didn’t mean to exit to the side street and then change your mind at the last minute? It could happen, and if they wanted to make exiting a requirement, they could put in a curb or barrier. Not having that means that they planned on folks changing their mind at the last moment. Getting ticketed for changing one’s mind is crazy. So I don’t see how the cops can get away with this.
I also don’t recall anything from driver’s ed about having to change lanes early or not being allowed to change lanes late. Unless there’s a double yellow line or a raised barrier it just seems like an opinion on the part of those who don’t like seeing other folks jump ahead of them in line. But a moving violation? I don’t see it.
Seems like a really problematic reason to give a ticket. In fact, I’d think they’d be easily contestable in court. How is the cop to prove that you didn’t mean to exit to the side street and then change your mind at the last minute? It could happen, and if they wanted to make exiting a requirement, they could put in a curb or barrier. Not having that means that they planned on folks changing their mind at the last moment. Getting ticketed for changing one’s mind is crazy. So I don’t see how the cops can get away with this.
I also don’t recall anything from driver’s ed about having to change lanes early or not being allowed to change lanes late. Unless there’s a double yellow line or a raised barrier it just seems like an opinion on the part of those who don’t like seeing other folks jump ahead of them in line. But a moving violation? I don’t see it.