Jack Katz is a professor in Sociology who wrote the book “Pissed off in L.A.”. To complete his studies, Katz interviewed many people about the roads of L.A. and how they get ‘pissed off’ while driving. Katz studies the emotions of the interviewees to understand what they are feeling during the moment they get angry towards another driver while driving in L.A.. He states that even though it is normal to get ‘pissed off’ while driving in most places, in Los Angeles it is a recurring factor in everyones day to day life. L.A. is known to have more angry drivers than any other place, why is this?
Katz wanted to study emotions, and in order to do so he needed to take a day to day action people do on a regular basis in order to get a clear understanding of these emotions; thus the reason why he chose driving. There are four stages in road rage. The first is the incident, the ‘asshole’ driver (known as driver A) trying to overtake as many people as possible knowing that his lane has road works up ahead and will no longer be in use.…show more content… For example if you see someone driving a Porsche next to you, your first thought is “wanker” and it instantly evokes jealousy. There is a certain need and want to overtake someone in a nicer and better car than you; it is all to prove a point and make yourself feel a lot better. People can get angry for any reason when it comes to driving, it can be because of the other persons gender, their ethnicity or even their religion. This is why Katz categorised people in his study.
He went on to study how people reacted while driving within their gender, their ethnicity and their age. This allowed him to further analyse why people of certain age or gender or race react differently on the roads. And why it is people of a certain age for example are more likely to feel victimised in a situation while driving rather than people of another age