Why Are Northern Virginia Drivers So Aggressive?

I've lived in Virginia all my life, and i've always heard that Northern Virginia is one of the worst places to drive because people are so aggressive and intolerant. Obviously I've been around here a long time so I've gotten used to it, but is there any particular reason why?

and 5 at either end.

The other reason I suspect we are so bad is that DC's population is so transient. New York has a big transient population, but it also has an enormous local population, which sustains a driving culture into which the transients must fit. There are strong local norms about things like merging, when to slowdown for a yellow light, and so forth, which newcomers are eventually forced to learn."Learning to drive like a New Yorker" is a sort of rite of passage, like knowing where to get good bagels. People who arrive from elsewhere may lament the aggression of New York drivers, but they also recognize that navigating within the system is a skill that must be acquired, and they're a little proud when they master it.

DC, on the other hand, has grown enormously, importing new drivers who come with their own driving culture. People around here talk about how bad DC drivers are, but they don't talk about"driving in DC" as a particular skill. People don't seem to recognize that they need a new set of traffic skills to navigate around here--and they don't, because there doesn't seem to be a coherent set of skills they could acquire.

Fun fact: D.C. boasts a 95.5 percent"relative accident likelihood" against the national average and an average of 5.1 years between accidents. :)