Angry driver skittles a bunch of party-goers...

[FileTrekker]

Jesus, what a nutcase...

CCTV shows friends being 'mown down like skittles' outside nightclub after driver lost temper

(Warning, video may be upsetting to some)



I can understand getting frustrated with people standing in the road, but how much of a nutcase do you have to be to do this?

The lack of patience and level-headed thinking to basically put everyone's life in serious danger for the sake of getting past a few minutes sooner is just mind-boggling to me.

The selfishness of some people, seriously. -_-

[Superfluous Curmudgeon]

There is a point where the brain goes into a mode where logic is no longer what's in control, but rather instinct. I've read that new and even experienced soldiers sometimes have this happen to them - in the heat of battle they go into a mode where they will kill anything that they suspect might harm them, without thinking about whether they should or not.

I wonder if the same sort of thing happens in the minds of people with road rage issues. The specific trigger is obviously different but the result seems to be the same.

Whatever the justification, that sort of thing shouldn't be happening. I think it's safe to say the driver is an endangerment to humanity and needs to be dealt with accordingly. Now the duty of being humane falls on those who have the responsibility of punishing him. Maybe "punishing" is the wrong word. Rehabilitating might be a better word choice, but in any case helping someone who is not completely right in the head become at least fit for being a part of society is not easy.

The fact that the driver had physical and possibly mental problems I think is a reflection on some of the pitfalls of modern society. In general, people have a lot of demands on them. The expectation that a person can work a 9-5 job 5 days a week and fall into the rest of societal norms is fine for most people, but for some people it's more than they can handle mentally. A lot of times this is more a result of long-standing mental and/or physical issues than the body a person is born in.

[Nemmerle]

The driver's actions seem understandable enough to me. Those people were getting in the way, so he drove through them. I've had similar feelings myself when people have threatened me, I'm going home - and if you're still standing in the way, that's just too bad. It's a state of mind that casts everything else as just another item in the world. Would you think twice about driving through a puddle? Same kinda thing.

If you're in a position where you want to do something and even if just for a second other people seem to have truly no value to you, that's a very dangerous thing. Some people get there by anger (though you don't have to be angry to do it), some people get there almost like a switch getting thrown, some people honestly get there by thinking - making a reflection that the people in front of them have no value and really meaning it. But however you get there, it's not hard to predict the response.

I'm not even sure it qualifies as a mental problem. For a particular sort of thought there isn't anything wrong, you just have a difference with the majority on what their lives are worth.

I don't approve, but I think I understand where the driver might have been coming from.

[Superfluous Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Nemmerle

I'm not even sure it qualifies as a mental problem. For a particular sort of thought there isn't anything wrong, you just have a difference with the majority on what their lives are worth.

Maybe not a mental problem per se, but every experience leading up to a moment shapes who a person is. And if it has become a habit for a person to act on rage or frustration without thinking, that's when it gets dangerous. One day it could be punching a hole through a wall. A year later if that sort of self-control issue hasn't been addressed, it could be something like this.

[Admiral Donutz]

I can indeed understand some frustration but losing your temper like that... Now I'm not a fan of cussing either but you'd almost wish he'd let off some steam by cussing at the people next to the car rather then acting like there was not a single human being infront of his car.

[Nemmerle]

Originally Posted by Anchovy Casserole

Maybe not a mental problem per se, but every experience leading up to a moment shapes who a person is. And if it has become a habit for a person to act on rage or frustration without thinking, that's when it gets dangerous. One day it could be punching a hole through a wall. A year later if that sort of self-control issue hasn't been addressed, it could be something like this.

Maybe. But at the same time... there's a theme in society where there are absolutely no consequences for being a total ass. Perhaps he shouldn't have run them over, but at the same time they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

At some point you have to decide whether you want a society in which people are total arseholes as long as they don't physically hurt anyone, or whether you want a society where the bar for manners is a bit higher but there's a bit more by way of deaths or serious injuries - where if someone ticks you off, you hop in your car and run them down. Those aren't the only two options on the table, but they're the extremes and the compromises are between those two points.

I'd be inclined to lean towards the latter. There are more people alive in the former, but it's a world that's significantly worse to live in.

One possible compromise to this... democratised use of violence. Of anger with lethal consequence. Is that people intervene earlier in the story on both sides. That those people are taught manners and he's taught a bit about restraining his anger, and that squares the circle, so to speak.

Compromises, however, don't seem to be something that most people are interested in. They seem to want to take a stand on their 'rights,' regardless of how much they shit things up for everyone around them. It's an entitlement complex, and it's so at odds with reality, so one-sided an account of society, that occasionally people they're affecting decide or feel that it's not worth buying into any more.

That's not necessarily an anger management problem, or a mental problem, or anything of the sort, (though it probably most readily manifests in people whose coping mechanisms are poor or overloaded.) They can have been managing more than their fair share of getting shat on for years beforehand. It's closer to a value judgement. "I'm not interested in being part of this any more. Why have a civilisation if we're not interested in being civilised?"

At which point, even if later they might think differently, there are no significant restraints on their actions. It's an all in or all out kinda thing.

[Red Menace]

Looks like one of the people kicks the car. Mowing people down isn't the answer, but I can see someone losing it.