Rubberneckers make me want to vomit...a woman was killed by a weak F-1 tornado here in New Hampshire a few years ago, and I was astounded by the number of people lining the main highway to gawk at the houses that had been destroyed.
People want to see. We live in such an artificial world, I think it’s good sometimes for people to see reality.
Rubbernecking in a way that causes distress or danger (for instance, people slowing down to look at an accident) is a different matter.
My childhood home was destroyed by a tornado, back in ‘76. I was 10 years old, and I and the other little girls on the block were offended by the gawkers come to enjoy the sight of our misery (my house was the only one rendered uninhabitable, but their houses had also been damaged.) So what we did is, we stood in my front yard, waiting till a car would slow down. Then we’d stare at the people in the car, whisper in each other’s ears, then point at the cars, and laugh. The people in the cars invariably would look away and speed up, trying to get out of our neighborhood and away from the line of mocking little girls. I wonder if any of our “victims” got our message,and understood why we found their behavior egregious (even if we didn’t know what ‘egregious’ meant, then.)