Rubbernecking describes the act of gawking at something of interest. It is often used to refer to drivers trying to view the carnage resulting from a traffic accident

Car accident

A traffic collision, also known as a traffic accident, motor vehicle collision, motor vehicle accident, car accident, automobile accident, Road Traffic Collision or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other stationary obstruction,...

. The term refers to the craning of a person's neck in order to get a better view.

Rubbernecking has also been described as a human trait that is associated with morbid curiosity

Curiosity

Curiosity is an emotion related to natural inquisitive behavior such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in human and many animal species. The term can also be used to denote the behavior itself being caused by the emotion of curiosity...

. It can be the cause of traffic jams (sometimes referred to as "Gapers' blocks"), as drivers slow down to see what happened in a crash. It is also a cause of accidents as drivers become distracted and change their rate of travel while other drivers are also distracted. Rubbernecking has also come to be used more generally to describe voyeuristic interest in someone else's "business" or difficulties.

History

The term rubbernecking was an Americanism coined in the 1890s to refer to tourists. H.L. Mencken said the word rubberneck is "almost a complete treatise on American psychology" and "one of the best words ever coined".

By 1909 rubbernecking was used to describe the wagons, automobiles and buses used in tours around American cities, and through their Chinatowns. The tours included a megaphone-wielding individual offering commentary on the urban landscape. Chinese Rubbernecks was the title of a 1903 film.

One writer described the "out-of-towners" stretching their necks to see New York while having misinformation shouted at them, and artist John Sloan depicted them as geese in a 1917 etching called Seeing New York. Tickets were sold by hawkers

Hawker (trade)

A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported; the term is roughly synonymous with peddler or costermonger. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells items or food that are native to the area...

, touts and steerers were used to market the rubbernecking tours, also known as "gape wagons" or "yap wagons."

When phone lines were shared as "party lines

Party line (telephony)

In twentieth-century telephone systems, a party line is an arrangement in which two or more customers are connected directly to the same local loop. Prior to World War II in the United States, party lines were the primary way residential subscribers acquired local telephone service...

" the term rubbernecking applied to someone who listened in on the conversation of others.

The term "rubberneck" is used in Ireland to refer to a person acting in a foolish or silly manner.

Rubbernecking and the automobile

The term is often used to refer to the activity of motorists slowing down in order to see something on the other side of a road or highway, often the scene of a traffic accident. According to a 2003 study, rubbernecking was the cause of 16 percent of distraction-related traffic accidents. It features in the book 100 Most Dangerous Things in Everyday Life and What You Can Do About Them and is said to be factored into highway design. The book advises that the safest course when there are flashing lights and an accident is to keep moving, "there is nothing to see here". Rubbernecking's impact on traffic has been the subject of studies.

Prevention

In the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, incident screens have been designed that can be erected around vehicle accidents to discourage rubbernecking.