Dealing With Tailgaters - A Modest Proposal
It’s time to teach these twerps a lesson!
I’m an idealist. Always have been, always will be. I dream of a society in which universal consideration for others is the norm.
And that’s why I freaking hate tailgating.
What an infuriatingly antisocial act — to endanger others in a show of small-minded, infantile impatience. What lizard-brained inanity, to act out your emotional incontinence with strangers’ lives on the line. And how cowardly, to be so nakedly aggressive only when, far from actually naked, you’re hiding within your “badass” vehicle.
In a way, driving presaged the dangers of the internet, providing insights into how humans act when granted faceless anonymity. Can you imagine people behaving the same way when simply walking about the world? Have you ever had someone stand 0.2 inches behind you at a self-checkout line, just to hurry you along? Of course not. Yes, people can be rude anywhere — but physical proximity and face-to-face contact activate our instincts for pro-social behavior. We clearly evolved for bodily interactions, in which the appearance of another’s face reminds us of our own humanity and dulls any selfish impulses. We did not evolve to interface over digital devices, nor from the seats of hulking modern vehicles. Yet here we are.
Last week, while returning from a trip up north to visit friends and family, I was driving in the left lane, passing slower-moving cars on my right, when a lifted pickup came zooming up and began sniffing my Hyundai’s keister. My first reaction was moral revulsion. My second reaction was to slow down.
For a mile, I drove parallel to the car in the right lane beside me. Ha! Take that, lifted-truck-driver-who’s-clearly-compensating-for-something! I swear I could feel him seething. Oh, the pleasure this gave me — my body suffused with placid appreciation for this properly-apportioned retribution.
Eventually, I accelerated and moved over to let him pass. I’d slowed him down enough.
As man-compensating-for-something sped away, I basked for a moment in my minor victory — and then began to worry. My pregnant wife and toddler son were in the car. Had I risked a road rage incident out of petty vindictiveness? Was I as silly in my own way as the small-somethinged driver behind me?
No, I’ve since decided. My actions were moral and right! I’ve come to that determination after applying my (likely flawed) understanding of Kant’s Categorical Imperative.
Let’s say “slow down when getting tailgated” became a “Universal Law” — that is, something that everybody did. Would the world be a worse or better place? Better! For one thing, accidents would likely decrease and become less deadly, since tailgating is less dangerous when both vehicles are moving at lower speeds. Plus, offenders would soon get the message that tailgating is counterproductive to their apparent goal of driving faster (I’ll assume this is their actual goal, and that their subconscious desire to express their anger toward humanity is secondary).
Perhaps we even have a moral duty to slow down when getting tailgated. Yes, we may be risking a road rage incident — but we’re also decreasing the lethality of any potential crash. Who can say whether the net effect is to decrease or increase risk?
And even if the road-rage risk does exceed the benefits of decreased lethality, this risk applies only to the people in our car, Mr. Small-Whatever’s car, and other cars in the immediate vicinity. But the net effect of all socially conscious drivers everywhere slowing down when tailgated could be to decrease the prevalence of tailgating, which would, on the macro level, make our roads safer. So in a way, by slowing down when getting tailgated, you’re enacting pro-social principles — accepting, perhaps, a slight increase in immediate risk to yourself and your fellow travelers, but for the sake of building an ultimately safer society. Thanks to your heroic actions, your great-grandchildren could cruise the highways of a tailgating-free world!
A quick perusal of Reddit shows that, for many, trying to “teach other drivers a lesson” is foolhardy. You’re just asking for trouble, they say. I respond, “Cowards, be silent!” In this most indecent era, it’s time to practice social policing. Tailgate me, Mr. Micropenis (I’m through with subtlety) — and a lesson shall be taught, indeed!
Benjamin Clabault is a writer, teacher, and activist from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
A writer of fiction, essays, and poems, Clabault’s work has appeared in After Dinner Conversation, The Write Launch, Literary Traveler, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia University.
He lives with his wife and son in Lake Placid, Florida.
Read Enzo and Miranda by Benjamin Clabault