Honking mad -- and who isn’t?

One of my jobs here at the newspaper is to carefully monitor behavioral changes in the people of Orange County and then attach profound insights to them. To answer your question, of course it’s difficult work, but I’m not complaining. I knew what I signed on for and am handsomely compensated for it.

With that in mind, let me ask you this: Why are you people honking your horns so much?

Let me state it more forcefully: What is up with that?

Don’t tell me you’re not honking more, because you are. You’re not only honking more often, you’re honking with more conviction.

Here’s how I know: When out-of-state friends used to ask what I liked about Orange County, I’d proudly say “Two things: the weather and the absence of honking.”

They were stunned to hear me say I could go weeks on end without hearing a horn honk. It was just not part of the ambient noise of daily life.

No more.

In recent months, I’ve heard more horns than at a Chicago concert.

No department keeps track of horn-honking, but if asked to quantify the increase, I’d say “a lot.”

Why is this happening?

Simple logic suggests it’s because either (A) drivers are making more bonehead moves than ever and therefore deserving of more honks, or (B) drivers are less tolerant of bonehead moves and quicker on the horn.

The answer is B, but there’s another element at work here.

First things first, though.

Yes, you’re less tolerant.

And why not? You’re less tolerant because you’re angrier than you’ve ever been. You’re sick of gas prices, you’re stewing over the stock market, your house is losing value by the month, you can’t afford college for your kid, you just got laid off, your iPod always crashes, there’s no good music anymore. . . .

What else is there to do but honk?

You have to take out your frustrations on somebody, right? Why not that jerk in the lane next to your left who suddenly cut in front of you and then hit the brakes because you both came to a red light? Sure, in a happier time, you’d cut him some slack. After all, no harm done, everybody makes mistakes, and hey, your mutual fund portfolio went up 6% in the last quarter alone.

But today, that guy is getting a piece of your horn.

You with me so far? OK, you’re asking, what is the other element?

Simply this: The highways and streets are increasingly divided into warring factions. We have gas-guzzlers in their big vehicles versus those of us who are concerned, responsible citizens. We have drivers who talk on the phone versus those of us who are concerned, responsible citizens and don’t.

Resentments build. Tensions flare. You can’t escape them out there. Someone is chatting away on the phone and it bugs you. It’s not illegal, so you can’t honk at them, but your blood pressure rises and leaves you less likely to control yourself when the next person commits an otherwise minor gaffe . . . and so you blare away.

Or the guy in the big Ford truck is tailgating you because even though you’re going 65 in a 55 mph zone, he thinks you could easily do 80 if you put your mind to it. But because he’s in a big ol’ truck, you’re afraid to give him the bird so you store up the hostility and unload it on the next guy who doesn’t seem quite so threatening. End result: Someone else gets a honk he probably doesn’t deserve.

That, in turn, upsets him, so he pays it forward and honks at someone else.

Depressing, isn’t it? Sorry to bear the bad news, but the situation is reversible. If we could just get a surge of good news, we could return to our minimal-honking days.

This probably isn’t a good time, then, to tell you that the market dropped another 350 points Thursday.

You know what that means: continued honking.

What to tell my friends?

Only this: The weather remains nice.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.