Have you ever been on the road and had someone fly bye you yelling and cursing because you were driving too slow? Well that could be people with road rage, road rage can be caused by people who drive slow or incorrect to make people angry or violent.
Road rage is a major problem in the United States it can cause anger stress, fear and can cause accidents on our roadways everyday. When we get into our vehicles, we need to always assume some form of risk of possibly running into another driver who has road rage for example. “Road rage or aggressive driving can be defined as the type of behavior one exhibits behind the wheel in which angry drivers lose their temper, and engage in risk-taking behavior.” Road rage has a short but interesting history. The term road rage first appeared in England in 1988 and was Mentioned only about two dozen times in 1994. There are many people across the United states who have experienced road rage for example “A man was shot in the head during an apparent road rage shooting His family was in the car at the time.The shooting happened around 8 p.m. on Interstate 20 near Collins Street in Arlington The man was driving with his wife and two 3-year-old kids at the time.The man’s wife told police a car behind them acted as if her husband wasn’t driving fast enough. The car tried to pass them on the shoulder and ended up side-swiping them on the passenger side and then that’s when it then became violent ”-fox 4 news.
Use that as an example because weather you know it or not , People wind up dead everyday do to road rage and unless we try to come up with a way to stop it then this problem will just keep surfacing. I have also witnessed road rage in many different situations even if it doesn’t involve yelling or speeding sometimes it could just have been a misunderstanding in communication between the two drivers. One study estimates that more than half of all drivers have experienced a surge of road rage at some point, although not all bang into the offender’s rear bumper or pull a pistol. Road rage is definitely a problem in the United states and its teaching kids that its ok to do these sort of incidents but its not it can lead to serious injury or death. Did you know that 37% of the aggressive driving incidents that occur involve at least one firearm but also one out of every two drivers behind the will will respond in kindness, The people who are most responsible for road rage is a male teen under the age of 19. “Every year Up to 1,500 people are killed or injured in road rage incidents. There are some rare occasion on the road that cause a number of tragic stories, but the issue involves anger and mental disorders while on the road. One in particular, called intermittent explosive disorder IED witch causes a person’s anger to go from 0 to 60 instantly.
It is estimated that 7% of the American population has this disorder, which means there is the potential of 16 million drivers on the road right now that are driving with simmering anger.” People today take road rage as a joke and that it’s not really a problem so I think that we need a way to show people just how serious road rage can be it is definitely a serious matter, and should not be taken lightly people lose their lives everyday to these sort of incidents. Here are a few tips on how to avoid road rage if you encounter it first “If an angry driver gives you the finger or makes another obscene gesture, be responsible and ignore it. Such gestures have gotten people physically attacked many times.” second “If an aggressive driver starts following you, don’t go home. Call the police and drive to the nearest police station. You don’t want to become the victim of a road rage attack.” Today the absent minded people are the same people that cause these problems of road rage not only will they cause accidents and shootings but sometimes can get children injured in these incidents as well like this 4 year old who was shot in a road rage incident. “ A 4-year-old is recovering after he was shot in his abdomen during a road rage incident in Kansas Wednesday afternoon, police said. The incident began in downtown Wichita around 4:55 p.m. after ‘some type of cutting off’ occurred, Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay told reporters after the shooting. Someone in a silver Ford Mustang then fired at least two shots at a blue Chevrolet Tahoe with three adults and six children inside, and the 4-year-old was struck in the stomach, Ramsay said. It is unclear which vehicle cut the other off.” – abc news.
Just because someone cuts you off on the highway doesn’t mean that you should start trying to run them off the road to tell them what they did you should blow it off and keep to yourself or else it could wind up like the little boy who was shot in the abdomen. Like it says on the safe motorist website “If you find that you have agitated another driver, whether the fault is truly yours or not, do not react or retaliate to the other driver on the road. This will only cause the situation to escalate. Remind yourself that the other driver is just bad at handling stress, so avoid eye contact and continue to practice safe driving habits.” Today road rage has consumed people it is the number one cause for accidents and injuries on the road but it can simply be avoided by just ignoring the mind less people that want to act ignorant and cuss you out as they fly by you.
“Back in 1990, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety conducted a study of over 10,000 traffic accidents linked to driver violence. Over a seven-year period, AAA found over 12,500 injuries could be linked to these acts. Road rage could also be linked to 218 deaths, mostly deliberate murders conducted by angry drivers. That number has been steadily increasing at a rate of 7% each year. In fact, data gathered by SafeMotorist.com indicates that 66% of recent traffic fatalities can be linked to aggressive driving. More disturbingly, 37% of those fatalities were found to be caused by a firearm, rather than a typical accident.” If you want my opinion i think that we should have fines or penalties for road rage or for the people involved to lower the percentage of people that will get involved or decrease the accidents that may occur on the road.
Not only to decrease the accidents but to decrease the possibility of people losing their lives to a simple incident that could have been avoided by simply not engaging forcefully and minding their own business. “Nearly 80 percent of drivers expressed significant anger, aggression or road rage behind the wheel at least once in the past year, according to a new study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Findings suggest that approximately eight million US drivers engaged in extreme examples of road rage, including purposefully ramming another vehicle or getting out of the car to confront another driver.”
