Self-centred drivers and road rage are a never-ending cycle

There is a video spreading across the Internet these days of U.S. comedian Louis C.K. explaining how our cellphone-obsessed culture is responsible for kids being bullies and, if you are willing to take life lessons from a vulgar, albeit intelligent, entertainer it is not hard to see his point.

Further, it is not difficult to extrapolate that argument to the increasing incivility of society. People taking phone calls in the movie theatre, tweeting during business meeting. Texting while driving down the middle of the damn road.

It is enough to send our collective blood pressure shooting through the roof. And, especially in the case of distracted driving, it indicates that one unavoidable factoid that is true about all self-centred people. They believe the smallest, least important moment of their lives is more important than anyone else they may cross paths with.

They want to text their pal Stu to say they’re almost at the mall, and they want to do it now, and that ranks in importance just above not driving into the back of your car and killing your children. Self-centred people are great that way.

This rant brings us directly into the lap of a new survey from the polling firm Insights West, which suggests British Columbians are increasingly inundated with incivility from car drivers and their passengers.

Seven in 10 respondents said they have to deal with rudeness at least a few times a month, with three-in-five respondents saying society as a whole has become less polite than even five years ago.

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It is fair to anecdotally consider those results on a national scale. There is nothing specific to mountains and ocean views, or rain and Lululemon yoga pants, that make drivers more aggressive or residents less civilized. It is fair to assume Canadians in general are increasingly faced with such a state.

Insights West goes into further detail about the incivility in society, but that trend is best seen on the road. Something is happening in Canada, something is happening to our drivers. There are more of us out there than ever and it seems to piss us off.

Perhaps some insight can be gleaned from this Maclean's piece, which debates which causes more carnage: drunk driving or distracted driving.

"As deadly as it may be, however, drunk driving no longer constitutes the greatest threat on our roads," reads the report. "Decades of diligent effort on the part of governments, police and organizations such as MADD have permanently altered the behaviour of Canadian drivers for the better when it comes to drinking. It’s time to switch targets."

First off, drunk drivers are still a concern. Five-hundred people were still killed in 2009, the most available statistics, which is not nothing. But yes, distracted driving is the new, trendy way to ignore the fact that you are operating 4,000-pound killing machine. The Canadian Automobile Association points out texting drivers are 23 times more likely to be in an accident that focused drivers.

But the problem to be solved isn't, "which one is worse?" The problem is that no one seems committed to staying focused while driving in the first place.

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If entitlement were a coin, indignation would be on one side and indifference would be on the other. In other words, road rage comes from being angry at the way other drivers affect you and distracted driving comes from not caring how you affect other drivers. Surely we can all see this as a never-end cycle. A self-fulfilling prophesy.

Nobody cares about how they affect other drivers. They drink and get behind the wheel, they drive with their eyes on their phone, because it doesn't matter to them how their actions affect others.

And when the shoe is on the other foot, and the driving of others affects them in some capacity, they are outraged that someone would have the temerity to do something like that.

There's a very simple lesson here. If everyone stops being a self-centred jerk while behind the wheel, there will be fewer people angry at how many self-centred jerks there are on the road. We shouldn't be pitting distracted drivers against drunk drivers to see who is worse. We should be promoting the idea of focused driving.

Focused Driving: It's not just for airline pilots anymore. And civility shouldn’t just be demanded of kids with cellphones.

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