I'm sure there is abundant data to back up the author's observation that selfish driving habits are widespread. However, I would like to propose an alternate explanation for our society's deadly driving habits. People are inherently creatures of habit who do things the same way over and over until something dramatic causes them to attempt to change. Couple that to the fact that we allow people to establish their (lifelong) driving habits during their most narcissistic years and we have a formula for deadly roads.

This hypothesis is just barely testable. Find the few hundred people who stopped (or dramatically reduced) their driving for a few years and then started driving class A trucks. I would bet that they are significantly less likely to drive like a typical American than a control group who did not give up driving before training to drive trucks.

Hopefully this will all be moot as we move away from fossil-fool powered wheelchairs towards more sensible transportation options.

This summer, I was having problems with my boss. I felt exploited and abused, like he was using his power to fuck me over just because he could.

On a road trip, I was stewing over the situation when a white car began trying to cut in front of me. We were on a congested highway and there was nowhere to go -- I was driving as fast as the traffic allowed -- but he wanted to be one car ahead. He finally plowed into my lane so that I could either break and let him in, or crash into him. He got in front of me.

Suddenly I was furious, and my whole body hated his guts. I wanted revenge. I spent the next 30 minutes trying to get ahead of other cars so that I could cut in front of HIM, determined to get back in front. The white car advanced, weaving and forcing his way in front of other people, and I tried to catch up.

Finally, I got in front of a white car, but then I wasn't sure if it was the same one. Then I realized -- what the hell is wrong with me??

I don't think you can understand the apparent selfishness of American drivers without understanding how many of us feel angry and frustrated and screwed over in our lives. The economy is tanking, consumers are hurting, and we don't feel like we are getting what we deserve. Nobody has job security. Our superiors do what they want with us, we work all the time, and we can't even pay for gas. Then when we see other people cutting in traffic and behaving like selfish douchebags, it all comes boiling to the surface, and we hate everyone else on the road.

None of this justifies selfish driving. But I think it's an oversimplification to say that we are just rich, entitled narcissists. Some people are carelessly joyriding, but for most drivers, I believe there is real anxiety and anger and frustration that is coming out in ways we can barely control. We don't drive how we live -- it's the opposite.

Drivers down here really don't drive as if there are other people on earth. Weaving across all lanes? Check. Go 90 on the highway and 15 everywhere else? Check. Never yield AT ALL ever? Check. Stop at Green lights and debate whether to go left right straight or back up? Check. Stop on the end of highway entrance ramps? Check. Stop at the beginning of off ramps? Check. Use the left lane for driving slower than all other traffic? Check. Drive side by side? Check. Run, really run red lights (10 seconds red or more)? Check.

"I am from out of town and have no particular place to go, I really don't understand these silly people or why they're in a hurry. Here - have an aromatherapy candle."

If you let them in front of you there is an excellent chance they are going to continue to drive in a little-old-lady fashion and are more than likely to impede your own progress significantly.

I always signal, but I do so when there is a clear space that I can see that I'll be able to get into, not as a request for someone to make me a space into which to squeeze and I signal not more than a second or so before I start my actual lane change.

When you are going to change lanes you should accelerate, not slow down, this greatly reduces the chances of your getting in the way of someone already in the lane into which you want to go.

Personally I think they should make everyone ride a moped or motorcycle for the first year of their license. The really bad drivers would remove themselves from the gene pool and the rest would have a far better understanding of how to drive both aggressively and defensively at the same time.

Tightening up licensing requirements would help a great deal, in my state it is possible to get a full drivers license without ever having to demonstrate your proficiency on an actual public road to an examiner. Americans bite the big one on driving proficiency and they bite it hard.

Learning to drive is pretty easy, learning what I call "traffic sense" is much more difficult and takes much longer than merely learning to operate a motor vehicle. Traffic sense means that you can fairly accurately predict the idiotic behavior of your fellow motorists and compensate for their stupidity before they even know they're going to do something stupid themselves.

Long term motorcyclists have learned to ride in such a manner that even if they were totally invisible they wouldn't get hit anyway, that is the skill you must perfect to be the safest driver you can be. Don't expect other drivers to avoid you, drive where the other drivers aren't and aren't going to be in the immediate future. Any moving vehicle not driving parallel with you that keeps a constant bearing from your driving position is on a collision course with you, don't expect them to change their course or speed even if they are legally obligated to do so, change yours.