Road Rage!

Road rage is a term used to refer to violent incidents caused primarily due to the inability to self control oneself and oneself's driving, which thus causes accidents or incidents on roadways. It is often a natural extension of aggressive driving. It is also important to note that 'road rage', or the inability to control oneself on the road, is merely a symptom of an overlying cause of not being able to control one's self and emotions; it is not the physical automobile itself that brings-out the aggressive nature of the person, it is the person themself whom, regardless of the setting, fails to control their temper.

Road Rage 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 (such as the finger in an OFFENSIVE not DEFENSIVE manner)
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" (in the event someone is killed).

Road Rage 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.

Road Rage 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.

A few U.S. states have passed laws against aggressive driving. However, only one state, California, has turned "road rage" into a legal term of art by giving it a particular meaning.

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.