The Curiosity Delay
While driving my son to Cape Cod today, I saw a huge accident — or the aftermath, rather — by the side of the road. Police and ambulance were already there. EMTs wheeled a stretcher that, for a moment, I thought already contained a wrapped body, but it was just the white padding with a safety belt slung across it. Another EMT was putting a neck brace on someone, and another person was sitting on the guardrail, filling out paperwork. As always, there was a halt in traffic as everyone driving past slowed down to look at the wreckage. Radio traffic reporters call this phenomenon, depending on where you live in America, “rubbernecking,” “lookie loos,” “gapers’ block,” or — here in the metro-NY area, a “curiosity delay.”
This last phrase always struck me as horrifying, a needlessly polite way of saying “gawking, tragedy-hungry monsters.” I always considered myself above it, this act of staring at whatever terrible thing had happened by the side of the road — or else I prided myself on doing it from two lanes over while maintaining regular speed. I used to think the act represented the very worst of human impulse: to leer, half-excited, at someone else’s misfortune. It was gross.
Today I realized it’s the opposite. That it’s completely natural, maybe even important. Have you ever seen an animal encounter another dead animal? They approach it, slowly, and sniff at it. They acknowledge it. I think the curiosity delay is the same thing. We slow down and look because we want to know what happened, sure, but also because we need to be reminded that we’re vulnerable creatures who are, at any second, one decision away from being erased from this world. This is especially true now, I’ll bet, when we live in these bubbles of self-importance, created by a world full of voyeurism and exhibitionism and validation on-demand — a world where “on-demand” is, in fact, an acceptable phrase. There’s something in us, way back in the ancient, reptile parts of our brains, that needs to see a terrible accident and think, “Danger.” And: “That could happen to me.” And: “I could be killed. Jeez.”
By the way, I have no doubt that some sick fucks are slowing down purely in hopes of seeing somebody with their heart hanging out of their chest, but that’s to be expected. I will admit that sometimes, while walking across a park when a plane is flying overhead, I think: “Imagine if that plane went down right now? That’d be interesting.” Not That’d be so terrible! but Hmm. It could be that I’m a psychopath, but I suspect other people might have the same thought.
Anyway. I’ve spent a lot of my driving life feeling real anger with people for rubbernecking/lookie-loo-ing, etc., but I realized today it’s normal and probably necessary. It truly is a Curiosity Delay: we’re mortal creatures, curious about what Death might look like. I’ll be more worried if we ever stop doing this.
Photo Credit: Dog Named Duke via Compfight cc