The Neurotic Driver

The neurotic driver is the principal affliction of our cities. It is an undeniable, pervasive, everyday phenomenon. Judging by observation alone, I would venture that most people driving on the streets at any given moment are neurotic drivers.

Noise pollution from the frantic use of car horns; particles from tires and brake pads suspended in the air—the everyday smell of the street—produced by constant emergency braking; and crazed swerves that end in crashes and people being run over: these have become the ordinary backdrop of our streets. They no longer surprise us; they are familiar and expected.

The neurotic driver believes he is in a hurry. He believes his affairs are more urgent than everyone else's and that jackrabbit starts, shouted obscenities, and blows to the steering wheel will somehow get him to his destination faster. To him, traffic lights, stop signs, speed bumps, crosswalks, bicycle lanes, and traffic rules in general are a conspiracy against him—an invention by the rest of society designed specifically to torment him. How dare other cars occupy his lane? How dare bicycles travel through the city? How dare those wretched pedestrians cross the street when he alone has the right to use the public road?

The neurotic driver's affliction has a single source: a slave mentality. He regards himself as a slave, someone who does not own his time, whose minutes and seconds belong to a master cracking a whip and demanding that he hurry.

Every day he makes the same journey from work to home, and every day it takes the same amount of time: forty-five minutes or an hour. No matter how many manic tantrums, hysterical screams, and deranged tears; no matter how many frantic swerves, psychotic stops, or neurotic blows to the steering wheel—the route and travel time remain the same. Even so, the neurotic driver never chooses to use that hour in transit to reflect, listen to the radio, or simply try to relax. He invariably chooses to remain a slave.