Rubbernecking

[sagehen]

Most of the posts on this thread seem to link rubbernecking to being in
cars, which, as Bob Haas notes, probably reflects where we spend much of
our lives, but it seems to me the one essential quality of rubbernecking,
as I have heard it used  all of my nearly 70 years is a sort of uncouth
voyeurism. Looking on at what is really not one's  business. A pedestrian
may rubberneck as authentically as a driver or passenger.
A. Murie