What in heaven’s name would cause a person to deliberately drive the wrong way onto a freeway, accelerate, and cross two lanes of traffic in order to hit a vehicle head on?
We’re just in shock here. A woman is dead, and this guy didn’t even know her…apparently, from the police report, he just felt like hurting someone. So far it’s not even sounding like he was suicidal.
It took my husband two hours to get home last night (a drive that normally takes, at max, a half hour), which had me frantic with worry. It wasn’t until he got home and we turned on the evening news that we found out what had happened.
When I think of the hundreds of times I’ve driven through that interchange…
Yeah, I got into an accident a few days ago with my bro. A guy sideswiped us on my side. My bro’s car is totally wrecked. The axle’s bent and the front is mangled.
What’s appalling about this one is that it wasn’t an accident. This guy apparently deliberately entered the freeway going the wrong way, with the express intent of harming someone (apparently any random someone). It wasn’t an accident…it was a deliberate choice to harm or kill someone this guy didn’t even know.
I’ve been a psychologist for 30 years. I’ve seen a number of people who have done horrible and inexplicable things. Although I had no professional connection to the case, in Alabama, we just had a man convicted and sentenced to die for murdering a police officer. The killer was a pharmacist with no criminal background. He was stopped for a traffic violation, something minor. He had a brief and somewhat testy conversation with the officer. (All recorded, some video, some audio.) The officer walked back to his car for a moment and when he returned, the guy blew him away. The trial, or at least the media coverage of the trial, shed no light whatever on the reason for his behavior.
One of the scariest things about human behavior is the reality of these occasional, horrific, and completely unexplainable behaviors. Just like any scientific endeavor (and psychology is a very young science), we want to believe we can somehow get to the bottom of every problem and every strange behavior and, with most violent behavior, it’s not all that hard. But sometimes, people just snap and do horrible things and we sometimes don’t have a clue why.
That said, I tend to think about depression in regard to these things. Most people have some kind of experience with depression, but the most severe kinds of depression are so different from most “depression” people experience, including most CLINICAL depression, that most people can’t begin to understand those most severe kinds of depression. In fact, I wish there was another name for it than “depression.” The vast majority of depressive episodes, even clinical ones that require treatment, would not lead people to kill themselves, kill others, or cause a person to engage in a random killing. But, I’ve seen some cases of the most severe depression, and it’s a terrifying thing to behold.
I think what’s getting to me about this one has to do with just how ubiquitous cars are in our society. They’re part of day-to-day life.
I think that all of us who drive, on sober reflection, realize that when you’re hurling a large metal object through space at 65-80 mph, there’s real potential for harm. A moment’s inattention, preoccupation with problems at work or home, sleepiness, mechanical failure…any of these can spell disaster for even the best, most conscientious driver. And we all know there are people who operate vehicles unsafely, either because they’re under the influence, yielding to road rage, or just 18 and “immortal.”
What we’re not used to seeing is the car used as a deliberate instrument for harm…at least not a car that is acting as a car (that is, not one that is just a front for a bomb, or transportation for gang members with guns). The idea that someone might deliberately go the wrong way on a freeway, specifically so he can hurt random person…any random person…it’s just surreal.
The woman who lived next to me in tucson was 44, a masseuse. Had a sign on her door ‘Love Grows Here.’
The police knocked on my door one afternoon and asked me to identify her. She had been killed two blocks
away driving across an intersection I crossed several times each day. A fellow had hit a truck driven by two
gang bangers. He stopped to give them his insurance, etc. They said they were going to kill him.
He jumped back in his car and took off, with them in hot pursuit, went through the red light at 60 miles
an hour and ‘T-boned’ (police term) my neighbour, who was crossing on green. He wasn’t hurt. It took the police two
hours to cut her out of the wreckage. A woman passing by crawled into the car somehow and held
her hand.
Here there was no intentional killing, just a deadly confluence of circumstances. Death is always close.
I had a supervisor who was a “Christian Scientist” who let a simple basal cell carcinoma get away from him until it was too late. Intentionally went the wrong way on an Interstate one night after a few drinks(he didn’t drink), killed four kids, children really. Can’t say as I have ever understood why he did it, still get angry about it occasionally. People back themselves into corners sometimes.
Me, too. I don’t really disagree with Vonnegut’s thing about chemicals in heads. But, all behavior is dependent on chemicals in the head and all experience and memory is about chemicals in the head and EVERYTHING is about chemicals in the head. We’re nowhere close to understanding the specifics. A famous example: People speak knowingly about how serotonin levels are related to mood and to depression. Medications for depression are said to raise serotonin levels in the synapse by blocking the reuptake of serotonin. This is spoken about as if its fact. It’s not. It’s a theory and a theory with lots of problems. Truth is we have ideas and theories, but we aren’t close to being certain about the serotonin hypothesis. In neurochemistry, with all the sense of progress being made, we’re pretty much at the level of shaking a wrapped present, trying to get an idea of what’s in there by the sound it makes thudding against the side of the package.
A teenager, surprisingly, told me once that driving only occurs because of people’s denial. Just as you have spelled out. We make ourselves forget how much damage we could do if we make a mistake. We make ourselves forget that we are encountering strangers on the road who can take us out by making a mistake (or having a road rage episode.)
The difference here, though, is this wasn’t someone making a “mistake.” We all kind of accept that risk when we drive (even if we don’t think about it). If someone who didn’t bother to take care of his car, for example, had an equipment failure and killed someone, we might be angry at his neglect, but there wouldn’t be that sense of shock and horror. This was someone making a deliberate choice to use an everyday, ordinary object specifically and deliberately to kill someone…anyone, didn’t matter who…whoever happened to be there.
The closest parallel I can think of is if I were to look at the can of soda I’m drinking right now and think “you know, if I bend this I’ll have a sharp edge, and I think I’ll take it out into the street right now and slash the throat of the first person I happen to encounter” and then calmly getting up and doing just that. That’s the kind of mindset that was operating here. That’s what I’m finding so chilling.
Just a few thoughts about this. The thread kinda hit home in a way sort of.
My mom got diagnosed with cancer in May. By June 23 she was gone.
My sister and I have more than once since talked about the fact that this is just like she were hit by a car and taken from us. Then we ask what the hell would it matter at this point if she were hit by a car or something… In the end it doesn’t really make any difference if someone is killed by a maniac or by a disease like my mom was. The only real difference is our relationship to the situation. We are more likely to simply accept that people die of cancer/TB/aids or whatever than we are to accept that some other person has taken the life of someone in our world. In the end the only damn thing that matters is that the person is gone for good and there’s nothing we can do about it. Maybe because there’s no one to blame. I spent the better part of a month in seething anger at no one and nothing before I let go. Now I’m just trying to get things back on track.
Regarding the crazed individual who hit the woman in Santa Cruz, there was a time when I would have said I hoped that he got fed feet first into a meat grinder whilst having to listen to the soundtrack to Electric Boogaloo. Then Dale sent me a book that is largely about how victims’ families generally feel about their perpetrators.
Redwolf your analogy about the car being a potential weapon and all that is right on but you could think about most anything like that. Someone could push a vending machine over on another person, a toaster or hairdryer can be lethal as well as can just about anything we make or use from day to day. I work with toxic chemicals (oil paints) all day every day, etc… I guess just try and get your arms around it and carry on. Otherwise you’re gonna be a shut-in and it would be a crying shame to deprive the world of your presence.
It’s worse to live, but the creepiest thing about it is that it’s NOT terrifying. In fact, right in the middle there’s a tiny oasis of calm. I’ve been hospitalized for severe depression, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
