What Economics, Road Rage, and Rectal Exams Have In Common

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner are the authors of the critically-acclaimed book Freakonomics, which is a collection of economic articles that apply economic theory to diverse subjects. A common theme presented throughout the novel is the concept of incentives, or “how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.” The authors delve further into the notion of incentives by partitioning it into 3 categories: 1) economic, 2) social, and 3) moral. Of these three groupings, I found social incentives to be the most intriguing. Social incentives account for why people don’t cut in line, smoke cigarettes in restaurants, or run around with no pants on (excluding my 3-year old cousin who subtly managed to remove his trousers and undies at my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary and had to be corralled like a rabid raccoon just to put them back on…bravo little man!). But with all these social incentives governing how our society functions, I ask: Why the hell does it not apply on the freeway!

Ever since my girlfriend moved to San Francisco from San Jose, I have become quite familiar with the freeway system. Although I spend the majority of the hour drive picking my nose and desperately trying to flick its remnants out the window (looking more or less like a man trying to learn how to snap his fingers…sticky buggers), I have had ample time to psychoanalyze the freeway “culture” and its inhabitants. What I have come to realize is that today’s freeways are crowded with characters from The Island of Doctor Moreau; half-man, half-beast adaptations that pillage the roads in their fuel-efficient automobiles, devoid of all emotion like Darth Vader’s face when he’s constipated (Luke, Luke, I should not have eaten that burrito).

This is none more apparent than in the driving lane hierarchy, a personality test devised of white lines and cars traveling 70mph. On the far right you have the “slow-laners,” a gathering as exhilarating as a 90-year old stripper (hey baby, you ever had a woman who could tie her boobs around your head) and daredevil-ish as the man who opts for abstinence as his form of birth control. These minions seldom venture from their exit lane paradise with the hopes of never engaging in any form of discord (they are typically the ones who reside in the middle seat on road trips and prefer to sit down on the toilet instead of using the urinal).


Similar to Goldilocks and the 3 bears, I prefer the middle lanes, or “just-right” lanes. This way I can avoid the slow-lane feeling of produce moving down the conveyor belt on the checkout stand, while eluding the fast-lane’s demeaning and cutthroat lifestyle. It is like having the best of both worlds (like a recliner converted into a toilet), and I am not forced to check my rear-view mirror with the frequency an inmate does in the prison showers to see if a car is barreling up on me.

However, there is no more humbling experience than riding in the fast-lane. Folks who dwell in the fast-lane are tricky to classify; they could be a Wall Street executive, retired NASCAR driver, a guy who likes punching himself in the testicles so he can post it on YouTube…or it could be your first-grade teacher, a baby heart surgeon, the purple Teletubby. Who knows? But one thing they all have in common: they are ruthless and drive like they have a 400-pound gorilla backing them up in the passenger seat that devours infant children and small woodland creatures from Bambi. Even their cars come across as menacing, with headlights shaped like Bruce Lee’s face about to sever a board in two and license plates situated right above the car’s grill, essentially looking like Hitler’s moustache.

These soulless individuals will cut you off sooner than an overly-anxious Mohel, and squeeze their SUVs into spaces tighter than the middle seat on an airplane between two Sumo wrestlers. I once tried shifting into the fast-lane, but after managing to assemble an angry mob of drivers behind me like I was the Pied Piper of Hameln playing his Prius flute, I descended back over to my nurturing, middle-lane womb, as dejected as the man in those ED commercials. But “fast-laners” might even be someone you love. When my girlfriend takes to the helm, we effectively prove my G.P.S.’s predicted time-of-arrival wrong time and time again. This is not due to an ease in traffic or unbeknownst shortcuts, but because she drives much like Jerome Bettis runs a football. We don’t tailgate so much as give the car ahead of us a colonoscopy.


But this leads me back to the initial question of why? Social incentives, according to economists Levitt and Dubner, are supposed to trigger something in our minds to prevent us from acting like heathens on the road. But we treat our cars as fortresses detached from the real world, allowing us to make maneuvers reserved for the Blue Angels and mouth inaudible dialogue like “truck poo” (or is it “duck stew?”). However, much like the Emperor and his New Clothes, we can all see you. You may think we cannot, but trust me, we do. So I ask you fellow drivers out there, in my best economist lingua franca: please supply a little more love on the roads and stop demanding people to get out of your way.