Road rage

Road rage, also called intermittent explosive disorder, is a term used to refer to violent incidents caused by stress caused by accidents or incidents on roadways. It is often a natural extension of aggressive driving.

See Road rage: Don't get mad, get help in the Florida Today.

Manifestation

From the perspective of law enforcement and transportation safety officials, road rage and aggressive driving manifest themselves in actions such as:

speeding and aggressive acceleration
tailgating
cutting others off
weaving in and out of traffic
forming a "convoy" to block access to a traffic lane
sounding the vehicle's horn or flashing lights excessively
rude gestures
shouting verbal abuse, including threats
deliberately hitting another person, vehicle or object with one's own vehicle
hitting a person or vehicle with a weapon other than a vehicle e.g. a tire iron, golf club, or baseball bat
threatening to use or using a firearm or other deadly weapon
pursuing for retaliation or revenge of a perceived slight
triggering or exaggerating traffic waves

More than 300 cases of road rage annually have ended with serious injuries or even fatalities -- 1200 incidents per year according to the AAA Foundation study (see References), and rising yearly throughout the six years of the study that examined police records nationally.

Road Rage Nursery

Most drivers have feelings of road rage because it is a cultural norm. People learn this behavior from childhood when being driven by parents and adults. Also, by the time adolescents begin to drive they have been exposed to thousands of hours of TV programs that feature drivers behaving badly or dangerously and getting away with it.

Legally there is a difference between "road rage" and "aggressive driving". Only a few states have enacted special aggressive driving laws. Road rage cases -- about 1200 a year -- are normally processed as assault and battery (with or without a vehicle), or "vehicular homicide."

Medicalization

As early as 1997, therapists in the United States were working to medicalize road rage by certifying it as an official mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. According to an article published by the Associated Press in June of 2006, the behaviors typically associated with road rage are in fact the result of intermittent explosive disorder. This conclusion was drawn from surveys of some 9,200 adults in the United States between 2001 and 2003, and was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Penalties

Road rage is a relatively serious act: it may be seen as an endangerment of public safety. It is, however, not possible to judge intent by external observation, so "road ragers" who are stopped by police may be charged only with relatively minor offences such as careless or reckless driving.

It is, however, likely that those causing serious injury or death during "road rage" incidents will suffer more serious penalties than those applicable to similar outcomes from simple negligence.

Road rage on the Web

Various websites cater to road ragers by letting them report their stories including details of the so-called offenders. Thus there are those who believe that road rage is covertly facilitated, if not fostered, by society at large through a lack of serious police, court and general social response to its increasing levels of occurrence and severity.

External links

monkeymeter.com
roadragers.com
Extensive data regarding road rage and driving behavior can be found at the (U.S.) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) website.

References

Controlling Road Rage: A Literature Review and Pilot Study Prepared for the The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety By Daniel B. Rathbone, Ph.D. Jorg C. Huckabee, MSCE June 9, 1999 http://www.aaafoundation.org/resources/index.cfm?button=roadrage

ROAD RAGE: CAUSES AND DANGERS OF AGGRESSIVE DRIVING (transcript of a portion of the official hearing record of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure -- 1997): http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/Trans/hpw105-34.000/hpw105-34_0f.htm

Summary Table on Aggressive Driving Laws http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/enforce/speedlaws501/summtable_aggressive.htm

Redshaw, Sarah (2001) Safer driving through reflective thinking http://drivers.com/article/369/

Survey of the States Speeding Laws http://www.statehighwaysafety.org/html/publications/pdf/surveystates2005/speeding_intro.pdf http://www.vcorps.army.mil/Safety/driving/AggressiveDriving.ppt#23

Safe Senior Citizen Driving www.helpguide.org/life/senior_citizen_driving.htm

Psychology | Road safety | Violence

Violencia vehicular

Quotes

"I suffer from road rage when I am driving; at the people in the car with me." Ed Chapman

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