Bitumen battles – the phenomenon of road rage
Key text
This topic is sponsored by the NRMA – ACT Road Safety Trust.
Scientists are starting to study road rage for clues about the physiological and social causes of
anti-social behaviour.
A motorcyclist brought out the worst in a Sydney driver recently when he remonstrated against some aggressive driving. Enraged, the driver rammed the motorcycle with his car and, later, attempted to run over the motorcyclist and two bystanders who had come to his aid. One of the bystanders was trapped under the bike and dragged for 15 metres, suffering head injuries and a shattered knee.
This is the sort of behaviour that the media has dubbed ‘road rage’. Perhaps what excites the media about road rage is that serious assault, including murder, can be provoked by apparently trivial driving mistakes. Horrific stories of road rage are not in short supply. But is road rage more prevalent now than in the past? And can it be prevented?
Distinguishing between road rage and aggressive driving
If road rage is to be studied, understood and addressed it is important that it is clearly defined. Numerous aggressive driving acts, ranging from the mild to the malicious, have sometimes been steered into the road rage category. These include unfriendly gestures (eg, a raised fist), cutting off another car, following too closely or pursuing a vehicle.
However, many people working in the area feel that the term road rage should be limited to criminal acts of assault. Such a definition was used in a study published in 1997 by the American Automobile Association Foundation for Traffic Safety, in which road rage was taken to be:
an incident in which an angry or impatient motorist or passenger injures or kills another motorist, passenger, or pedestrian, or attempts or threatens to injure or kill another motorist, passenger, or pedestrian.
Is road rage increasing?
Sensational though the worst examples of road rage are, there remains a question mark over whether they are on the increase. In Australia, researchers at the University of Western Australia surveyed offence reports compiled by police for the years 1991 to 2000 for incidents of road rage, which the study defined as ‘driving-related impulsive violence between strangers’. Violence, in these cases, included actual physical assaults and plausible threats of violence. The researchers reported that 797 road rage incidents had occurred in Western Australia between 1991 and 1995. This increased to 1404 incidents between 1996 and 2000. This increase was not simply a function of increasing population or road use – the rate of road rage incidents per head of population and per 100,000 registered vehicles also increased. However, the rate of road rage remained generally constant (at about 10 per cent) as a percentage of all street assaults by strangers during the period.
Increased reporting of violence
The road rage phenomenon has captured the public imagination, and there has been a dramatic increase in the reporting of road rage incidents in the media. Some people say that road rage is simply a manifestation of generally increasing levels of violence in society. But perceptions about the levels of violence can sometimes be misleading. According to a report published by the Australian Institute of Criminology in 1996, many forms of violence, including those occurring within the family, probably went unreported in earlier times. Since such violence is seen increasingly as a crime, it is possible that the frequency of reporting is increasing, creating the perception of an increasing level of violence.
Moreover, roads have certainly become safer in recent decades. According to the Australian Bureau of Transport Safety, the number of road fatalities has declined from a high of 30 per 100,000 people in 1970 to just less than 8 per 100,000 in 2006. The overall number of fatalities declined from 3798 in 1970 to 1456 in 2006, despite the rapid growth in the number of cars on the road.
Triggers of road rage
Road rage probably has a negligible effect on road fatality statistics but, as the Western Australian study shows, it may constitute a significant proportion of violence between strangers and is therefore a phenomenon that should not be ignored. The authors of the Western Australian study identified five ‘triggers’ that may provoke a road rage incident:
- encounters with slow drivers;
- other drivers cutting in or overtaking;
- stereotyped sex roles (attributions of driving incompetence by males about females);
- accidents between vehicles; and
- competition for parking spaces.
Minor incidents can lead to violence partly, perhaps, because of the stress of driving. Road rage incidents tend to occur more commonly in heavily congested traffic and are often perpetrated by people spending long periods on the road. Moreover, being inside the car ‘cocoon’ reduces the ability of both victims and aggressors to defuse potentially violent situations with conciliatory gestures and language. In the absence of such pacifying feedback, every silly act of driving could be interpreted by an angry driver as aggressive and insulting and thus provoke an aggressive response.
The identification of road rage triggers may help us understand the psychology behind road rage. The act of cutting in or overtaking, for example, can infuriate people who feel their ‘status’ is being challenged. According to the Western Australian study:
violence is then seen as a necessary and justified response to what is perceived to be an injustice, usually some form of degradation or threat to the value of the self. Violence is thus a defence of honour and a means of restoring the self.
The use of violence to address a perceived injustice or to defend one’s wellbeing is probably as old as the human species itself; to some extent such reactions are an evolutionary defence mechanism designed to increase the chance of survival (Box 1: Hormonal hotheads – stress and the nervous system).
Preventing road rage
Using evolutionary biology as an excuse for road rage would burn little rubber with either the law or the victim. How can road rage be prevented? Some psychologists recommend that people who tend to get angry on the road should undergo relaxation therapy, while driving manuals emphasise that drivers should use defensive driving techniques to help diminish the risk of provoking a road rage attack. For example, following at a safe distance and using your indicator lights before changing lanes are defensive driving strategies that could minimise confrontations on the road.
Some new technologies have also been developed in an attempt to diffuse potential road rage incidents. One of these, the Pod, was unveiled recently by Toyota and Sony. It replaces the traditional operating apparatus of a car – the steering wheel, gear stick and pedals – with a single joystick. By simplifying the driving task, it is hoped that fewer mistakes will be made on the road. Moreover, the Pod monitors the driver’s stress levels and will play soothing music and blow cool air if they rise too high.
Researchers are developing traffic control systems that allow optimal traffic flows and therefore reduce road congestion. And the ability to flash messages such as ‘Sorry’ to other road users has also been proposed. In addition, an inquiry conducted in 2005 by the Victorian Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, recommended a range of ways to reduce road rage. These included improving traffic flow, education of drivers and making road violence an offence.
Road warriors?
In the heat of the battle, perhaps little can be done to prevent road rage, although defensive driving should help reduce potential flashpoints. Nevertheless, despite some media sensationalism, Australia’s road system is not a war zone, it’s just another place where people interact and try to get along. The phenomenon of road rage simply tells us that not everyone is capable of that.
Page updated May 2008.