Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 4/14/08 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Anne Rigor John Hornberg

I had this tape deck adaptor that let me use a CD player or an iPod in my car for a while. It was the most obnoxious electrical device ever invented, because it worked every third day. The rest of the time, it just made some kind of shredding noise.

Still, it was cheaper than any of the other alternatives compatible with my archaic Mercury Mystique.

Out of frustration one day, I did the only thing I could do to get it to work - I banged it on the steering wheel as hard as I could.

When this didn't work, I hit it on a harder surface. The dashboard looked good. This produced no results. Finally, out of frustration and anger, I rolled down the passenger-side window, and flung the broken adapter out it.

All of this happened while I was driving 50 mph in the sun's direction.

No one was hurt, and best of all for myself, the offending piece of technology was away from me. It wasn't the first time I broke some kind of offending technology while driving, nor was it the last. It's a common affliction for American motorists: road rage.

One can go onto YouTube and watch countless videos of road rage incidents - men in convertibles honking at old ladies to cross the street, people arguing over why one person rammed the other's car and other videos of people shouting and throwing punches at one another.

Until last week, the worst anyone had to fear from drivers on Bay Area freeways was a few miles of tailgating, getting cut off and a rude hand gesture.

For whatever reason, one's genitalia grow exponentially while moving at 40 mph in a steel and aluminum cage. Being at the helm of a 2-ton machine makes people feel powerful, I would assume, leading to extreme reactions from otherwise rational people.

Unfortunately, those extreme reactions are becoming more deadly.

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, a man driving on Interstate Highway 280 was shot from a passing car. The man who died, Luis Solari, died in front of his kids in the car. His offense: He cut someone off.

The worst part is that this wasn't the first on Bay Area freeways this month.

A woman was shot and killed April 3 on Interstate Highway 80 near Pinole, and a man was shot along the same stretch of freeway April 1. An arrest has been made in the former incident.

A gun is unnecessary, and says a lot about violence in our society. Few problems, especially ones relating to cars, have ever been solved by use of a gun. Words, even hand gestures, are better answers to the whole problem. No one gets hurt with any of those.

Even fisticuffs are better. Bruises go away over time.

But expressing one's disgust at other people's driving by shooting a gun at them is revealing because it's solving the problem of anger with violence. Those who could angrily waive guns at you from passing automobiles and potentially use them, may be showing their small children in the back seats how not to act.

Until this point, the worst I got for cutting someone off was the finger, not a bullet in the chest.

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