road-hogging

伊坂幸太郎氏の小説 "Remote Control" を読んでいます。パート4，The Incidentから引用します。

Everyone was talking about the Internet, but the Internet moved information, not real things. For that, you needed trucks and drivers. And if that was the case, shouldn't they be treated a little better? They certainly thought so themselves, it almost no one else did. Two years earlier, though, when the TV had been making such a fuss over his encounter with the burglar, some guy on one of the shows had reminded the viewers, who tended to see truck drivers as road-hogging bastards, that they were, in fact, the backbone of the country's commerce.

"road-hogging" を辞書で調べました。"road-hogging" では辞書には載っていませんでしたが、"road hog" で次のような説明がありました。

・Oxford English Dictionary: a person who drives in a dangerous way without thinking about the safety of other road users
・Collins Dictionary: If you describe someone as a road hog, you mean that they drive too fast or in a way which is dangerous to other people.; a driver who obstructs traffic by occupying parts of two lanes
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a driver who is dangerous because they do not think about other drivers: People who had been convicted of being road hogs or unsafe drivers should perhaps also display something on their car.

Collins Dictionaryの説明にある "occupying parts of two lanes" でこの表現の由来が分かりました。これまでに何度か取り上げた "hog" （10/9/2008、9/1/2010)の欲張りな意味を含んでいるのですね。