Tiger in your Tank? Life lessons we can learn from driver behaviour...

You could just stay at home...or walk?
(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Did you top-up your fuel tank this week in readiness for the apocalypse?  Or at least in readiness for those pesky people, whom we curse for holding us up on the roads with their slowly driven tankers, but on whom we are also shockingly dependent, having the temerity to demand decent pay and conditions for their trouble, taking a stand (or a hydraulic, super-cushioned seat at least) against 'the man' who it seems is making all the money while they struggle on...

Yes, so did I.  (But at 6am when the roads were clear and there were no queues or fuss...just preparing my moral high ground ;))).

In all honesty, I feel exactly the same about this as many people - the concern that you won't be able to continue running your life in the ways you are used to because you may not be able to get what you need drives anxiety and fear, but I also recognise that this sort of situation can bring out the very worst in us (and let's be fair and say perhaps the best too) as social actors. When millions of people all feel the same anxiety and fear at the same time and directed at the same service area, they change from their normal ways of doing things - when people are pushed their personalities may shift into their 'stressed' self and we started to see unusual behaviours occur.

So, let's take a look at what really happened last week in terms of the 'panic buying' of fuel...

If you've not seen Kevin Allocca's TED talk about what makes a a YouTube video go viral, you'll know that there is usually a key influencer who creates the spark - sometimes way after the event in question has taken place, but it's crucially their network of influence that matters in terms of the viral spread of the video.  In this case our influencer happened to be a cabinet minister who recklessly lit the blue touch paper and retired, leaving the national media only too happy to fan the flames of panic.  What a payday story for them...

Our reactions as consumers, however, is what really fascinates me here.  Particularly the sudden shift from order to chaos, the behaviours this evinces in us, and how this manifests at macro and micro levels.  So, we have our normal ways of doing things - stopping off for petrol, maybe queueing behind one or two cars at a busy time, but a fairly relaxed and simple operation.  Suddenly, every petrol station we see has cars queueing off the forecourts - and this sends something of a primal signal to us.  They must know something I don't, they'll get there before me, if I don't join them I might miss out.  This is the wonderfully attractive power of crowds.

To me, it seems that these thoughts are driven by some of the uglier aspects of human nature - by our selfishness, our 'me-first' or 'survival - instinct' that overrides our sense of society and the needs of others; and yet I saw many seemingly orderly queues this week, with drivers sensibly queueing away from areas where they could block roads and walkways, and showing no aggressive tendencies - is this a sign of our ability to self-organise based on the norms and rules we set as a society?  Or is this simply a sign of rational behaviour?  In other places, however, there were tales of aggression and anger at petrol stations, and of reckless queueing onto main roads (in one case blocking the entrance to an ambulance station) and pedestrian areas.

Lanes merge ahead (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The roads, and driver behaviour, are a great way to measure our overall relationships to society and each other in my view, as not only are they the spaces in which we interact with many many strangers on a day-to-day basis, but we also do so inside the protective cocoon of our vehicles, which means we don't really have to engage with others as people.  This enables us to switch off some of the empathy we might feel if we were face-to-face with a human being (incidentally the Internet is another comparable space where we have this protective 'bubble' of distance and where aggressive behaviour often ensues).  Driving also allows us considerable autonomy in terms of the ways we do things.  So, we have the capacity to annoy each other by driving in slightly different ways.

Let me give you an example (one that bugs me...) - merging traffic.  When two lanes of traffic need to merge, and you start to see those dead-end signs...800 yards....600 yards...400 yards...200 yards...when do you get into the single open lane?  As early as possible? Or do you stay in your lane until the merge point?  Or are you one of those angry, self-styled heroes who decides to block the second lane so no-one else can use it?  People become highly defensive and aggressive in terms of their position on the road in these situations...and yet the science is pretty clear...we should all use all of the road available right up to the merge point, where a turn-taking merging of the lanes should take place.  This is the most efficient use of the road space...(if you don't believe me watch this video) but so many people just do not see it...the idea that someone might get ahead of them in the queue seems to switch off their logic.

Selfishness can be extremely powerful, and in this case, rather than aggressive or offensive behaviour, what I feel has driven much of this is a need to defend oneself against an increasingly threatening world.  This is a world where our comfortable, convenient lifestyle does us no favours.  We become incredibly attached to our material positions and our narrow social worlds, putting vast amounts of our energies into maintaining them, but do we ever reflect on whether we actually need them.  If the fuel ran out tomorrow what would you do?  Could you live without it?  Of course you could - you are perfectly capable of living a simpler life - less dependent on social systems and on goods and services that you use to maintain your sense of identity and ego.  You just haven't tried it.

So here's a thought... have a go at just letting go of your grip on 'stuff' and your 'routine' for a little while.  Go somewhere wild...walk, live, sleep.   There are wild places tucked away even in the most urban of environments, so your present location is no excuse. 

Crowds are great - they can solve problems, get things done quickly and make a huge difference in the world, making us feel part of something in  the process.  But independent thought, even when in a crowd, is something you should never give up.  So don't succumb to the crowd mentality, make your choices about when to participate and when to let them get on with it.

What's most important though, is to stop judging yourself against others.  What they're doing isn't necessarily what you need to do.  Just because they queue doesn't mean queuing will make things better for you.  Just because they have an amazing house, car, lifestyle, it doesn't mean you need that too.  As my grandfather always said...you can't take it with you...  So why not try forgeting the aggression, the oneupmanship and the defensiveness for a while and learn to live with a bit less stuff and you might just end up living with a bit less stress too...