If you squint hard at the photo to the left [here], you’ll see a small object on the shoulder of the road, directly in the path of the SUV’s right tires. This is not a matter of chance or an accidental slip of the steering wheel. This driver was gunning for the roadside critter. Intentionally.
According to an experiment conducted by NASA engineer Mark Rober, in which he planted rubber snakes, turtles and tarantulas on the shoulder of the road and then observed the actions of 1,000 vehicles, 6 percent of drivers are just like the guy behind the wheel of this SUV — “cold-blooded rubber-animal killers,” in Rober’s parlance.
Rober’s 6 percent finding is surprisingly high if you consider a study turned up by the tech blog Gizmodo, which shows 1.2 percent of the American population to be potential psychopaths. Whether a rubber-animal sadist qualifies as a psychopath is, of course, open for debate, but the fact is, 60 out of 1,000 drivers did gun for these critters…