[dimva]

For some reason, driving a car causes a strong desire to move forward quickly in most people. Even for me, a person who hasn't owned a car in over a decade and always bikes or walks everywhere, whenever I get behind the wheel of a car, I get incredibly anxious when I'm stopped waiting for something, and I have to consciously tell myself it's OK if I wait for 30 seconds.

I have no idea what causes this, but I've noticed it in many others. Maybe because if you do wait a bit, some drivers behind you will get irritated and honk, flash their lights, tailgate, and pass you via some dangerous maneuver? That might be enough to associate waiting with anxiety for people who'd normally be ok with waiting.

[soco]

You could be on something, as I must tell my wife all the time that she should focus on what's in front of her, not on what is behind her. She'd do silly things otherwise, like speed if she thinks the driver behind is too close, or miss turns to not bother... why??? For me it's the other way around - I was once stopped by a police barrage because a patrol followed me half the town with their lights on to tell me a stoplight was broken and I ignored them (didn't look back once)

[Toutouxc]

Please try more actively not to be a bad driver and don't encourage others to be bad drivers too. You should always be aware of what's going on behind you. It could be the police or it could be an ambulance that you haven't heard because of the radio, it could be a tailgating driver ready to smash you into pieces unless you drive extremely defensively until they leave the road, it could be someone in an emergency, a truck with malfunctioning brakes hurling down the street and many more.

The road is a place when generally incompetent people are forced to operate heavy machinery and no one is really safe there, even inside a car.

[bnralt]

It seems like people get irrationally anxious and angry having to wait behind people moving slower in general. On paths that cyclists share with pedestrians, cyclists are usually even more angry and aggressive with pedestrians than drivers are with cyclists (pedestrians are expected to move out of the way and often get yelled at if they don't). There seems to be this almost atavistic response people have to something in front of them impeding there movement.