Peace and Planning

I’ll never forget one of the saddest experiences I’ve had while out on a bike ride. I was stopped at a red light next to a car with its windows open and witnessed a man berating a woman in the passenger seat next to him. He was yelling at her, gesturing wildly in her direction, and calling her awful names. The look in that woman’s eyes as her steady gaze was trained on something in the distance broke my heart, especially as I wondered how many women have had to endure such verbal abuse while trapped in a vehicle and knowing there was nothing I could do to help this woman that wouldn’t likely invite harm to myself. While this behavior was surely not limited to the confines of a car – or generated by the car itself – for me it shined yet another light on today’s topic.

I’ve referenced it before and will call it out again in due time: folks, there is a dangerous link between car culture and toxic masculinity. Like vehicular violence more generally, once you see it – you cannot unsee it. Interestingly, France has seen it and is attempting to draw public attention to it through a nationwide safety campaign. While a PSA isn’t likely to disrupt deeply ingrained notions of gender and power…it’s a start. Back in the US, Lyft is piloting a feature where women can hail rides with female drivers due to instances of, experiences with, and well-founded fear of harassment and abuse. While this doesn’t grapple with the violence non-binary folks experience on our transportation systems – nor does it address the underlying issues of a patriarchal society that enables misogyny – steps like this can serve as an important stopgap in yet another specific form of vehicular violence.

Where else might we see toxic masculinity out in the car wild? It ranges from how much money gets dumped into auto advertising during one of the most hyper-masculinized sporting events of the year (for non-academic coverage on that, please check out the War on Cars for their superb-owl analysis) to the fact that we perceive larger cars as more masculine and aggressive (Pazhoohi & Kingstone, 2022) – and in case anyone hasn’t noticed, cars are increasing in size and aggressive design (meanwhile, I’m still trying to wrap my head around this press release). It includes but is not limited to the fact that – for some reason that is beyond my comprehension – certain men choose to hang testicles from the hitch of their (too-large) pick-up trucks or put bumper stickers on their (too-large) pick-ups trucks (always 🛻 trucks 🙄) saying “My other ride has t*ts” (while I found this instance particularly offensive, unfortunately these forms of misogyny haven’t been studied in the literature…yet/that I know of). It also covers the subcultures that have emerged in cities around muscle cars (which have their own social media followings?) – I highly encourage you to listen to the War on Cars three-part series on the topic (1, 2, 3).

Beyond these culturally-relevant symbols of toxic masculinity, there is a much more pernicious side to the connection between masculinity and cars. Most alarmingly – and what popped into my mind while out biking that day – several researchers have linked aggressive driving and traffic to intimate partner violence (Beland & Brent, 2018; Herrero-Fernández et al., 2023). Research has also found that men are more likely to engage in dangerous driving behaviors and exhibit road rage (Adanu et al., 2022; Öztürk et al., 2021; Sansone & Sansone 2010; Sullman et al., 2015)…and given that men looooove their pick-up trucks, it’s perhaps no surprise that aggressive and risky driving is more likely when people drive larger vehicles (Claus & Warlop, 2022). Just guessing here but maybe it has to do with narcissism and egotism (Bushman et al., 2018; Methen et al., 2023)?!

While there is much more to say on this topic (stay tuned for more crossovers in future posts), I do want to be clear that not all men exhibit such alarming behaviors. However, it is abundantly obvious that there are concerning connections between car culture and toxic masculinity. Given these disturbing and daunting findings, what are we to do? Beyond taking down the patriarchy – and recognizing that in an ideal world, the people who are most likely to be victimized within the system of toxic masculinity should not have to bear the burden of revealing or dismantling it – if you feel comfortable, try having a conversation with someone about things you see while out on the road that give you pause. Take notice of subtle but normalized masculinized car behavior. Listen to this great episode of The Brake featuring Dr. Tara Goddard to learn more about the topic. And maybe give any teenage sons/nephews/etc. more of an education when they’re training for their driving test.

Until next time, I invite you to get curious – what comes to mind when you envision more peaceful streets? ✌️🚸

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For research articles on this topic, see:

Adanu, E. K., Jones, S., Abhay, L., & Rahman, M. (2022). Examining the who, what, and how of risky driving related crashes in residential areas. Journal of Urban Mobility, 2, 100024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.urbmob.2022.100024

Beland, L.P., & Brent, D. A. (2018). Traffic and crime. Journal of Public Economics, 160, 96–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.03.002

Bushman, B. J., Steffgen, G., Kerwin, T., Whitlock, T., & Weisenberger, J. M. (2018). “Don’t you know I own the road?” The link between narcissism and aggressive driving. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 52, 14–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2017.10.008

Claus, B., & Warlop, L. (2022). The Car Cushion Hypothesis: Bigger Cars Lead to More Risk Taking—Evidence from Behavioural Data. Journal of Consumer Policy, 45(2), 331–342. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-022-09511-w

Herrero-Fernández, D., Parada-Fernández, P., Rodríguez-Arcos, I., Martín-Ayala, J. L., & Castaño-Castaño, S. (2023). Do people drive as they live together? Associations between aggressive behaviour on the road and intimate relationships. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 95, 251–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2023.04.015

Mithen, P., Briant, O., & Shaw, L. (2023). Do you really want to hurt me?: Exploring the role of Narcissism, driver comparison and ego threat in driver aggression using a conceptual definition of aggression. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 95, 450–463. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2023.05.003

Öztürk, İ., Özkan, Ö., & Öz, B. (2021). Investigating sex, masculinity and femininity in relation to impulsive driving and driving anger expression. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 81, 14–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2021.05.009

Pazhoohi, F., & Kingstone, A. (2022). Larger vehicles are perceived as more aggressive, angry, dominant, and masculine. Current Psychology, 41(7), 4195–4199. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00936-5

Sansone RA & Sansone LA. (2010). Road rage: What’s driving it? Psychiatry (1550-5952), 7(7), 14–17.

Sullman, M. J. M., Stephens, A. N., & Yong, M. (2015). Anger, aggression and road rage behaviour in Malaysian drivers. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 29, 70–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2015.01.006

For more on contributing factors to aggressive driving, check out:

Donovan, R. J., Fielder, L., & Ouschan, R. (2011). Do motor vehicle advertisements that promote vehicle performance attributes also promote undesirable driving behaviour? Journal of Public Affairs, 11(1), 25–34. https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.373

Galovski, T. E., & Blanchard, E. B. (2004). Road rage: A domain for psychological intervention? Aggression and Violent Behavior, 9(2), 105–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1359-1789(02)00118-0

Lupton, D. (2002). Road rage: Drivers’ understandings and experiences. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 38(3), 275–290. https://doi.org/10.1177/144078302128756660

Szlemko, W. J., Benfield, J. A., Bell, P. A., Deffenbacher, J. L., & Troup, L. (2008). Territorial Markings as a Predictor of Driver Aggression and Road Rage1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(6), 1664–1688. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00364.x