Chaos in Sandy's wake shows how cars turn saints selfish

By Rong Xiaoqing Source:Global Times Published: 2012-11-8 18:45:08

Illustration: Liu Rui
Illustration: Liu Rui

 

I've witnessed two devastating events in New York City since I came here 12 years ago, the 9/11 attack and Superstorm Sandy. We just observed the 11th anniversary of the first of those events, and we are now suffering in the aftermath of the second.

In many aspects, the two are incomparable. One was a man-made tragedy born out of hatred, and the other a test from Mother Nature. One hit us completely unexpectedly, and the other was forecast a week earlier. One claimed more lives, and the other left more people living in misery.

But there were two very different images that really stood out for me.

The first one was from the day the twin towers collapsed. It was seeing the lines formed in front of the rescue buses in downtown Manhattan. People who were covered in dust after just cheating death were getting on the buses one by one in an orderly way. It made me proud of the city I had just adopted.

The second was in the days after Sandy's arrival. It was the image of people pushing, cursing one another, cutting lines, and, in at least one case, even flashing a gun to secure their spot, all in the city's post-Sandy gasoline station queues.

This made me confused. This is the same city, and these are the same New Yorkers, or maybe even the same individuals. How come they were able to keep calm and care for one another when their lives were under immediate threat, but lost their cool because of a mere inconvenience that temporarily paralyzed their cars?

Or is it that drivers and public transit passengers are indeed different people in essence, and that the same people can behave completely differently when they take buses than when they drive their own cars?

To be sure, buses and subways in the city are not ridden by angels. Stealing, robbery, and public lewdness break out from time to time. Nevertheless, it is rare for passengers to fight over seats or to push each other out of crowded subway cars.

What often happens is that people give their seats to seniors and pregnant women, hold the door for strangers running toward departing trains, wait patiently when the train has to stop for a sick passenger, and merely grin and cringe when an oversized passenger tries to squeeze in besides them.

But when cars are involved, the behavior is transformed.

Rude honking during traffic jams, indifference to those stuck by the side of the road, and drunk-driving stunts by celebrities are just routine. 

In the past two years in the city, a man beat a woman into a coma when the two competed for a parking spot, and a female celebrity jewelry designer hit a man with an umbrella for the same reason.

And last month, a New York police officer was accused of shooting a 22-year-old unarmed man to death after the man may have cut up two police cars.

Since Sandy hit, almost as many people have been arrested in gasoline queues for various offenses than have been arrested for burglaries, and that is in a city where burglaries are up because of darkened streets.

With the best public transit system in the country, New York is not known as a city of cars.

In places where people literally live on wheels, things are almost certainly worse.

Indeed, the phrase road rage was minted in the US in the late 1980s because the incidence of drivers attacking each other in traffic got so violent. In the summer of 1987 alone, there were 50 freeway shootings in California that caused five deaths and more than a dozen injuries.

That was a time when the US auto industry started winning back market share from the foreign competitors, auto sales were recovering from the worldwide energy crisis in the 1970s, and the so-called Generation Me, who put themselves ahead of anyone else, were getting their drivers' licenses.

All of these are eerily reflected in today's China, now the largest auto market in the world. And road rage seems to also be picking up.

This March, a road rage incident led to an accident that left three deaths and 10 people being injured in Chongqing. And last month, one driver shot at another in Nanjing during what the police believed to be a road rage conflict.

Some psychologists believe road rage is spurred by a mental condition called intermittent explosive disorder. However, they don't know the cause of the disorder.

There may also be a sociological explanation.

Unlike buses or subways, a car separates the driver from the general public. In this cramped private space, the driver can easily overlook others around him or her and allow ego to blow up and take over their entire mind.

It may be a good idea for Chinese drivers to keep this in mind before things get worse.   



The author is a New York-based journalist. rong_xiaoqing@hotmail.com



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