Nice on your feet, nasty in your car seat

Car Brain is the epidemic turning ordinary people into sociopaths

Car Brain is what makes a person justify antisocial behavior involving a car that they would otherwise condemn. It’s become so ingrained in our culture that we hardly even notice. 

• Most people would be offended if a parent blew cigarette smoke in a child’s face, but they wouldn’t take issue if someone was idling in their car next to a sidewalk where kids were playing. 

• Few people would wedge their grocery cart in front of people waiting in line at the register, but many wouldn’t hesitate to use their vehicle to wedge through a line of people in a busy crosswalk. 

• Most people wouldn’t playfully fantasize about murdering strangers, but hordes will show up on social media to do exactly that when a car-vs-bike encounter is shared.

Car Brain is different from the engineering term “windshield bias,” which describes a tendency to observe the built environment from the vantage point of the driver’s seat. A person who never rides the bus, for example, might not notice a bus stop that’s only accessible by walking along the street or in the mud. When you point out windshield bias to someone who didn’t see the lousy bus stop, they’re not going to lecture you about how people shouldn’t take the bus anyway so it’s fine not to have sidewalks or other accommodations. 

Car Brain is harsher than a simple biased outlook, because it’s actively defending behavior that’s at best unfriendly, at worst deadly. 

Entertainers have been documenting or mocking Car Brain for decades, although not by name. We all know bad driving behavior is a truth-based stereotype, which is why we cringe and laugh at it in movies.

Speeding is probably the #1 rule-breaking behavior I see justified on social media. You guys, slow down. Go ahead and shake your head at me, but the older I get, the older I sound. Here are three others: blocking the box, close-passing cyclists, and running red lights.

Blocking the box

New York City recently infuriated people suffering from Car Brain by announcing you can get a ticket for more than $100 if you get yourself stuck in the center of an intersection. I know I’m not the only one who remembers a driving instructor saying “don’t drive into the intersection if you can’t get all the way through it.” 

Blocking the box creates gridlock. It’s an obnoxious move that prevents people on side streets from crossing the street. It’s also dangerous for people trying to walk, push a stroller, or roll a wheelchair across the street. 

Check out these stills from a video

Philwalkable

posted on X. (Also, read his Substack.)

No one in Phil’s video seemed even minimally bothered because they’ve all driven or ridden in cars in NYC and just expect this driver behavior in the city. Lousy driver behavior is common. And part of our dilemma is that pedestrians don't seem bothered by it. 

“No one wants to sit at a light for a half hour” is justification for putting vulnerable road users in danger.

I don't know what was more facepalmy about the comments I got after sharing Phil’s video: the people insisting Car Brain has nothing to do with blocking the box, or the people insisting blocking the box is fine in a city.

Funny how many people justifying the behavior in the video didn't catch the part in their driver's education that if you can't get all the way through an intersection, you wait on your side. Or maybe it’s a case of "I can be antisocial because those people are being antisocial."

Squeezing your vehicle into small gaps that inconvenience and/or threaten people crossing the street is antisocial behavior. Justifying that behavior is an example of Car Brain.

Close-passing cyclists

These people riding bikes with foam noodles attached are showing the minimum legal passing distance. It looks silly, but think about it for a second. Legal minimum passing distance. The reactions from people range from annoyed. “Stop hogging the road” might be my favorite social media response from posters who have no sense of irony about the size of their vehicles, traffic laws, or general care around fellow humans. 

Here are some actual replies when I shared an angry motorist’s video on X:

• The noodles are extending into the driver's lane.

• The embodiment of privilege and entitlement.

• The solution here is to get these idiots off the road.

• Even when you give them their own lane it isn’t enough. They still have to take more of the road.

• Minimum passing distance doesn't apply to cycle lanes, otherwise there's no point in having them.

I don't know if you guys watched Paris Fashion Week, but I swear they debuted a cycling outfit that shows motorists the minimum passing distance. I’m ordering one in shimmery purple.

Red-light running

I'm old enough to remember when people were embarrassed to drive through red lights. Now you’re some kind of prude for shaming red-light runners.

According to American Trauma Society and the US Department of Transportation, 63% see drivers run red lights more than once a week, and 1 in 3 know someone who's been injured or killed because of a red light runner.

According to AAA Foundation's Traffic Safety Culture Index, red-light running crashes injure ~350 people every day and kill ~3 people every day. 

I realize that more than a few Americans think that safety cameras (or any type of traffic enforcement) is authoritarian and that defending those programs is bootlicking. Fine. But a lot of cities have seen dramatic life-saving effects of sending tickets to people caught on candid red camera.

Toronto's safety cameras have been churning out 1,500 tickets a day. In Washington, DC, safety cameras have had a remarkable impact:

• 82% drop in people driving 10+ over the speed limit

• 87% residents support red-light cameras 

• 76% residents support speed cameras

The Car Brained rebuttal is that automated enforcement is a money trap. Red light cameras and speed cameras are a money trap in that they collect money from dangerous drivers.

Related, and more disturbing, is justifying zipping by school buses with their stop signs and flashing red lights on. 

source: ABC Buffalo

Treating Car Brain

Americans are in a tough spot, because the more time spent driving, the easier it is to succumb to Car Brain. For the time being, most have no choice but to drive everywhere for everything. It won’t change overnight, but it can change. 

The antisocial behavior humans display behind the wheel is softened or eliminated when humans experience more time outside vehicles. 

Our physical surroundings play an important role in our mental and physical health. Mixed-use neighborhoods are a remedy for Car Brain because people experience walking for some of their errands. You’re more social, even if it’s just a few polite smiles or head nods at vaguely familiar people. You’re aware and thoughtful of the elderly, young children, dog walkers—human beings who would otherwise be victims of antisocial driving behavior. 

As e-bikes grow in popularity, obstacles to cycling will shrink. E-bikes shorten distances and eliminate hills. There’s something similar to the feeling of a Sunday drive in a convertible. 

There are good reasons to be hopeful for tomorrow. Today, we’re in an emergency that can’t wait for long-term changes. Driver behavior is ruining lives every day in preventable crashes, and culturally, tons of people are fine with it.

Wagging a finger or applying social pressure isn’t enough. A hefty ticket for bad behavior won’t immediately cure a person’s Car Brain, but enforcement is important triage. 

• America’s roads are more dangerous, as police pull over fewer drivers, NPR

• The Decline in Police Traffic Stops Is Killing People, Washington Post

• Traffic Enforcement Dwindled in the Pandemic. In Many Places, It Hasn’t Come Back. The retreat has happened as road deaths have risen. New York Times

Safety cameras are a proven technology that automatically catch people speeding in school zones or running red lights. They’re colorblind to drivers and don’t care about the style of car. Automated enforcement objectively penalizes humans who are driving dangerously. Of course, we’re living in a society that can’t recognize its own Car Brain, so there will be resistance to enforcement. In fact, here’s a great icebreaker to help identify Car Brain: “Should drivers obey the speed limit?”