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Aggression—behind the Steering Wheel

On an early page of this thought-provoking little book we are reminded that in 1896 two deaths were recorded in Great Britain as due to motor vehicles, while in the U.S.A. in 1899 one death was so recorded. Seventy years later, over 50,000 persons annually died on the roads in the U.S.A., and nearly half as many more than that in Europe, while the injured are literally counted in millions. Motor vehicles, in their short history, have claimed more dead and wounded than two world wars. From time to time we are jolted into awareness of the size of this carnage, which takes a heavy toll of young, physically robust men and women. On the whole, however, modern society has appeared to make a determined effort to look the other way. It seems that the attraction of motor transport is so compelling that we are emotionally biased against taking stock of its liabilities. In situations such as this, the epidemiologist's objective analysis can be invaluable, pointing out the correlation of fatalities and indicating circumstances, localities, and personalities associated with higher than average risk. Professor Whitlock has marshalled the international statistics of death on the roads to good effect. He demonstrates that this form of fatality has many epidemiological features in common with other types of sudden death and "grievous bodily harm"-both self-inflicted and imposed upon one's fellow men. Two elements are readily recognizable in this as in several other manifestations of social pathology. First, the characteristics of the impulsive, impatient, emotionally unstable. psychopathic personality, and second, the mischievously disinhibiting influence of alcohol, which is as frequently associated with death on the roads as it is with other forms of physical violence. This leads the author in his concluding chapter to consider road accidents as being in large measure the consequence of unbridled human aggression. In earlier epochs, open violence was a much commoner occurrence in civilian life than it is today (in spite of the current concern about violence in our cities); gradually brigandage and armed robbery have been more or less brought under control. Certainly, open lawlessness does not give rise to a fraction of the killing and wounding that takes place on our roads. It is Professor Whitlock's contention that much of this mayhem is due to the driver's involuntary use of his car to discharge violently aggressive feelings to his own and other people's peril. Sooner or later, we shall have to abandon the fiction that all deaths on the road are "accidents" -when the facts tell us that nine out of ten were preventable, and due to all too human causes. It is a merit of this study that it denies us the smug comfort of putting all the blame on those others, the psychopaths; instead it reminds us of the temptation we must all have felt when behind the wheel to give expression to our emotions by taking risks and driving recklessly. The cure begins with ourselves, both individually and as responsible members of the community. It is the community which must be aroused to treat this danger with the seriousness it deserves.