"Rubberneckers are morons."
This is the message one frustrated motorist scrawled with a grease pen on the back window of the company van he was driving which had broken down on the freeway.
By sheer coincidence, he had pulled the van up behind another vehicle that was abandoned on the side of the road.
Annoyed that such a mundane situation was causing the traffic to grind to a screeching halt, the driver leaned against his mocking window note and waved cheerily to the passing gawkers, most of whom would read the derisive message and then quickly act as if they had not seen it.
One young lady stopped her vehicle completely to read his sardonic memo, only to scowl angrily and stomp on the gas after its true meaning sank in.
We all hate the strangled freeway traffic that occurs when rubberneckers slow to look at the aftermath of a collision - so why do we all do it?
According to Leon James, a University of Hawaii psychology professor who is considered one of the nation's top experts on traffic habits, we look at distractions because that is exactly what we are trained to do.
"That's the driver's job - to cover all the visual field, to the side and in front," he said.
When one driver slows to view a distraction, the driver behind him must slow as well. From an aerial view, the phenomenon resembles the compression of an accordion and causes what driving experts refer to as a "backward driving wave." The wave will then continue until thousands of vehicles are affected.
When the distraction is removed, the accordion gradually opens up again, however reopening the gap can take a few seconds per vehicle. By that time traffic can be affected as far back as 25 miles from even the most minor incident.
One study revealed that a rubbernecking driver who has just viewed the aftermath of a violent car crash will lose focus for a few seconds and may not have the ability to recover in time to recognize the brake lights of the car in front of him.
In Massachusetts they may have found a way to stop dangerous rubbernecking. Several years ago, the state transportation authority introduced the use of `anti-gawker,' or `incident' screens.
Essentially designed to be massive curtains, the 7-foot-tall by 10-foot-wide screens are meant to shield the details of a graphic crash scene from the curious eyes of passing motorists.
Research conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory indicates that the speedy deployment and setting up of screening around serious incidents can reduce the amount of rubbernecking, as well as limit the resulting congestion and possible secondary collisions.
One anonymous Internet blogger took the idea of the screens one step further with his own tongue-in-cheek solution to stem the slowdowns caused by gawkers.
"If you really want to speed up traffic passing the accident site," he suggested, "stencil the screens with the words, 'CONSTRUCTION WORKERS AT WORK - REDUCE SPEED'."
Michelle Groh-Gordy is the owner of InterActive! Traffic School Online at www.trafficinteractive.com , and writes a syndicated weekly column on driving for the publications of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.
