people who spend an hour+ a day for years on end in their car have mentally expanded their subconscious definition of themselves, their corporal being, with the skin of the car. this is a necessary mental process to prevent them from clipping mailboxes and 'rubbing paint' with other drivers that they then can't really "turn off". its why road-rage reactions are on a par with being physically assaulted or threatened, and its why whenever we talk about shifting public space and roads from cars to anything else they feel personally threatened and attacked.
There's an interesting related study which was looking for causes of road rage, and found a correlation with the number of bumper stickers [1]. The content of the bumper stickers didn't matter, just whether or not there were bumper stickers. The conclusion was in how people interpreted the space of a car. More bumper stickers indicated that somebody viewed the car and the space that it occupied as personal space, rather than as transportation, or as a way to use a shared resource.
That is an absolutely brilliant explanation of the "personal attack" feeling of road rage. After commuting by foot/subway/bike/scooter for a few years its shocking to see the reactions of my own (educated, professional) friends when someone dares to walk through a sidewalk! Don't even get them started about "those damn bikers".
u/cagenut's theory reminds me of Marshall McLuhan's potentially complementary "autoamputation" thesis. His attempt to example how a car (for example) feels like an extension of ourselves.
IIRC: Overstimulation of some senses simultaneously shuts down those senses (autoamputation) and makes us hyper aware of other senses.
people who spend an hour+ a day for years on end in their car have mentally expanded their subconscious definition of themselves, their corporal being, with the skin of the car. this is a necessary mental process to prevent them from clipping mailboxes and 'rubbing paint' with other drivers that they then can't really "turn off". its why road-rage reactions are on a par with being physically assaulted or threatened, and its why whenever we talk about shifting public space and roads from cars to anything else they feel personally threatened and attacked.