(1) The car pulled up and its driver glared at us with such sullen intensity, such hatred, that I was truly afraid for our lives.He looked like the sort of young man who might kill a president.
(2)He was glaring because we had passed him and for that offensive action he pursued us to the next stoplight so as to express his indignation and affirm his masculinity.I was with two women and was afraid for all three of us.It was nearly midnight and we were in a small, sleeping town with no other cars on the road.
(3)When the light turned green I raced ahead.He didn't merely follow, he chased, and with his headlights turned off.No matter what sudden turn I took, he followed.My passengers were silent.I knew they were alarmed, and I prayed that I wouldn't be called upon to protect them.In that cheerful frame of mind, I turned off my own lights so I couldn't be followed.It was madness.I was responding to a crazy as a crazy.
(4) "I'll just drive to the police station," I finally said, and as if those were the magic words, he disappeared.
(5) It seems to me that there has recently been an epidemic of auto macho () a competition perceived and expressed in driving.People fight it out over parking spaces.A toll booth becomes a signal for elbowing fenders.And beetle-eyed drivers hunch over their steering wheels, squeezing the rims, glowering, preparing the excuse of not having seen you as they muscle you off the road.Approaching a highway on an entrance ramp recently, I was strong-armed by a trailer truck so immense that its driver all but blew me away by blasting his horn.The behemoth was just inches from my hopelesslymismatched vehicle when I fled for the safety of the shoulder.
(6) The odd thing is that long before I was even able to drive, it seemed to me that people were at their finest and most civilized when in their cars.They seemed so orderly and considerate, so reasonable, staying in the right-hand lane unless passing, signaling all intentions.In those days you really eased into highway traffic, and the long, neat rows of cars seemed mobile testimony to the sanity of most people.Perhaps memory fails, perhaps there were always testy drivers, perhaps--but everyone didn't give you the finger.
(7) A most amazing example of driver rage occurred recently in Manhattan.We were four cars abreast, stopped at a traffic light.And there was no moving even when the light had changed.A bus had () stopped in the cross traffic, blocking our paths: it was normal-for-New-York-City gridlock.Perhaps impatient, perhaps late for important appointments, three of us nonetheless accepted what, after all, we could not alter.One, however, would not.He would not be helpless.He would go where he was going even if he couldn't get there.He got out of his car and strode toward the bus, rapping smartly on its doors.When they opened, he exchanged words with the driver.The doors folded shut.He then stepped in front of the bus, took hold of one of its large windshield wipers and broke it.
(8)The bus doors reopened and the driver appeared, apparently giving the fellow a good piece of his mind.If so, the lecture was wasted, for the man started his car and drove directly into the bus.He rammed it.Even though the point at which he struck the bus, the folding doors, was its most vulnerable point, ramming the side of a bus with your car has to rank very high on a futility index.My first thought was that it had to be a rental car.
(9) To tell the truth, I could not believe my eyes.The bus driver opened his doors as much as they could be opened and he stepped directly onto the hood of the attacking car, jumping up and down with both his feet.He then retreated into the bus, closing the doors behind him.Obviously a man of action, the cardriver backed up and rammed the bus again.
(10) It is tempting to blame such aggressive, uncivil and even neurotic behavior, but in our cars we all become a little crazy.How many of us speed up when a driver signals his intention of pulling in front of us? Are we resentful and anxious to pass him? How many of us try to squeeze in, or race along theshoulder at a lane merger?
(11) What is it within us that gives birth to such antisocial behavior and why, all of a sudden, have so many drivers gone around the bend? My friend, a Manhattan psychiatrist, calls it "a Rambo pattern.People are running around thinking the American way is to take the law into your own hands whenanyone does anything wrong.And what constitutes 'wrong'? Anything that cramps your style."
(12)It seems to me that it is a new America we see on the road now.It has the mentality of a hoodlum and the backbone of a coward.The car is its weapon and hiding place, and it is still a symbol even in this.Road Rambos no longer represent a self-reliant, civil people tooling around in family cruisers.In fact,there aren't families in these machines that charge headlong with their brights on in broad daylight, demanding we get out of their way.Bullies are loners, and they have perverted our liberty of the open road into drivers' license.They represent an America that derides the values of decency and good manners, then roam the highways riding shotgun and shrieking freedom.By allowing this to happen, the rest of us approve.
The purpose of the author in writing this essay is () .
A、to arouse people's awareness of safe driving
B、to make people believe that driving is dangerous
C、to criticize the drivers' violent behavior on the road
D、to inform readers about some unusual traffic accidents
【正确答案】：C
【名师解析】:作者在这篇文章中通过描述一系列与驾驶有关的事件和行为，展现了一些司机在道路上的暴力和不文明行为。文章通过第一人称的叙述，让读者感受到作者的恐惧和无奈，同时也通过对比过去和现在的驾驶环境，表达了对当前驾驶文化的担忧。作者通过具体的例子，如司机因为超车而怀恨在心，追逐并威胁作者和其他乘客（段落2和3），以及在交通堵塞时，有司机破坏公共汽车并驾车撞击（段落7到9），来批评这种行为。最后，作者通过提问和引用朋友的话（段落10和11），探讨了这种行为背后的原因，并指出这种行为反映了美国社会的一种变化，即人们变得更加自私和暴力，而不再是过去那种文明和有序的驾驶文化（段落12）。因此，作者写作这篇文章的目的是为了批评道路上司机的暴力行为，选项C是正确的。
