Soccer's raging moms armed (with SUVs) and dangerous

It was another aggressive soccer mom. OK, maybe she was a baseball mom, or a basketball mom. But being my family's designated dropper-offer at school and kids sports stuff, I've become familiar with them.

I hadn't moved fast enough out of that four-way intersection stop. She was behind me, and she was honking the horn in her 2½-ton SUV. When the road changed from one to two lanes, she put the pedal to the metal and gunned it past me. A short while later, we ended up at a stoplight.

I looked over to the SUV and did that quizzical thing in which you raise the palms of your hands to signal, "What's the deal? All this anger because of being delayed for one second at a four-way stop?"

She looked to be in her late 20s or early 30s; she was wearing sunglasses. She mouthed two words back at me, and you know what they are. Then she gunned it again, and I watched her take off, only to turn into a supermarket lot a few blocks later to do some shopping.

What's the deal, soccer moms?

Why all the road rage? Jeesh, and I see you doing this near schools and playgrounds on a regular basis. I see you in a parking area, inching up to someone leaving a space, so they hardly have any room to back up, as if that'll make the other car clear out faster. Or you cut across the road in front of oncoming traffic. Or drive 2 inches behind someone, trying to intimidate them.

Here's an interesting statistic from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: Between 1975 and 1998, the number of women in fatal crashes increased by 60 percent. Meanwhile, the number of men in fatal crashes fell by 11 percent. "It has been suggested that women are driving more aggressively than they used to, thus becoming more 'crash prone,' " the report said, adding, "The present study provides no evidence for this speculation. ... "

Wait a minute.

Drive by a sports field at drop-off time. It's true that you're not going to see women jumping out of cars to pummel another driver who irritated them. That's what guys do at a clogged freeway ramp. But using their SUVs or minivans for intimidation? Move over, and move now!

What's the deal, soccer moms?

Once I did have a fleeting thought of stopping my car and walking over to that 2½-ton SUV to ask about all this anger.

But soccer moms all carry cellphones, and I could picture the police report:

"Semi-locally-known columnist Erik Lacitis walked over to an SUV in a parking lot, allegedly to ask a 32-year-old soccer mom what the deal was with her 'angry driving.' He claimed it was for a 'lifestyle story.' The soccer mom backed her 2½-ton SUV into Lacitis, fracturing 87 bones in his body. She then left Lacitis moaning in pain. She called 911 to say she couldn't stay at the scene because otherwise her son would be late for his tae kwon do class."

But I can offer this report from Traffic Safety magazine. One reason women are in more car crashes is simply because more of them are driving. They also do a lot different kind of driving. It's called "trip-linking."

A typical guy gets in his car and goes to work. The publication quoted a researcher about women drivers: "They have added their employment travel to all the other things they've always done. They drop off the dry cleaning, pick up the groceries and all that stuff."

And as Roland Maiuro, a psychologist who runs the anger-management program at Harborview Medical Center, explained to me, "Women are by no means immune to road rage. Two-and-a-half tons of steel is a big equalizer in terms of being menacing."

So the way I figure it, maybe that soccer mom is herself figuring, "Yeah, so my husband got me a brand-new, 2½-ton SUV. Big deal. He's sitting in his air-conditioned office, and I gotta get to the day care by 5 p.m. or it's $5 for every late minute!"

That's when that soccer mom decides there is this guy dinking around too long at that four-way stop sign and ... "MOVE, YOU IDIOT!"

"Issue requires more research," is what Traffic Safety said.

What's the deal, soccer moms? Go ahead, vent to me. Better here than on the road.

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com.