Curiosity caused the traffic: Why do we love to rubberneck?

AUSTIN (KXAN) - If you've ever been stuck in traffic, only to realize it was all because of a crash on the other side of the highway, that is a common experience thanks to rubbernecking.

KXAN Traffic Anchor, Erica Brennes, sat down with the hosts of the podcast Two Guys On Your Head, Dr. Bob Duke and Dr. Art Markman, to find out why we can't help but slow down to take a look.

Erica: "Why can we not resist the urge to rubberneck?"

Dr. Bob Duke: "You know, when you look at toys that you get when you're five, they include fire trucks and ambulances and things like that, because we love those vehicles and you don't get to see them that often." 3:10 And then here you are on the highway. And you've waited all this time behind all these other people. And so one of the things you do is you just got to get that look at what happened."

Dr. Art Markman: "And I think you know, most of the time when you're driving there's a real sameness to the experience, especially if you're traveling along routes that you know, are on every day and those kinds of things and something unusual that happens. Well, we naturally want to know well what happened you know what, what's going on?" 14:01

Erica: "And it's not just on it's not just crashes. I mean, you think about anything, you see any commotion in your neighborhood. You kind of know, it's like you said we are inherently curious or as some might say nosey."

Dr. Art Markman: "What's interesting about that there's a, there's a, there's a real advantage to that for a species, right? Because if something's going on that's unusual. It may be dangerous it may be there may be something we need to know about." 15"15

Dr. Bob Duke: "Also a little bit like watching a horror movie, right? I mean, you know, you know, you don't want to get into a crash but it's kind of interesting to see what happens when there was a crash so just like you might watch a horror movie or something like that as a way of having that experience second hand you're watching the accident as a way of seeing all the stuff that happens as the result of a crash without actually having to experience it yourself."