Photographer : Spanish Flea
You’re driving along happily singing to the radio when a speeding car cuts you off from the right lane. You honk your horn loudly, launch a tirade of expletives at the driver and shake your fists angrily. You also hope that the driver doesn’t retaliate…
Road rage appears to be a growing problem on our roads. In AAMI’s 2007 Crash Index Survey, nine out of ten Australian drivers believed motorists were becoming more aggressive. With recent road violence making news headlines, road rage is enough to put you off driving all together.
Road rage refers to anti-social behaviour or aggressive acts that occur on the road. It is usually triggered by bad driving habits either intentional or otherwise. But does awful driving deserve to attract verbal abuse or even assault?
Like many young drivers, I’ve been a victim of verbal abuse whilst driving. In a recent survey of over 5000 Australian drivers, 74 per cent said they had experienced some form of road rage, of which 70 per cent were victims. Rude hand gestures and abusive shouting were the most common types of road rage encountered.
However, road rage is no longer confined to horn blaring and shouting matches. In August, a Perth mother and her two young children were injured in a road rage-related assault. After having an incident on the road, two men followed the woman to a car park where they used a wheel lock to smash the windows of her car. Her two-year-old daughter received an eight centimetre-long wound to her face and needed plastic surgery.
With stories like these it comes as no surprise that the fear of physical violence from angry motorists is increasing. The Australian Automobile Association’s annual survey of drivers found that other drivers’ behaviour ranked as the second most important issue for motorists, behind motoring costs. Drivers were particularly concerned about aggression, frustration, speed and distractions.
Unfortunately ‘road rage’ is often used as an umbrella term for all road aggression in the media. A report by the Australian Institute for Criminology identified three distinct types of road rage—road violence, road hostility and selfish driving. Road violence refers to spontaneous driving-related acts of physical assault targeting strangers. These cases are generally quite rare.
Road hostility and selfish driving are typically more frequent forms of ‘road rage’. Road hostility involves incidents that cause verbal abuse whilst selfish-driving refers to impatient motorists who weave in and out of traffic unintentionally causing harm. Appropriate measures are required to address each different type of road rage.
For drivers who behave like they own the road, tougher penalties may be the only adequate deterrent. In Western Australia the aptly nicknamed ‘hoon’ laws crack down on speeding and dangerous drivers who put themselves and other motorists at risk. After three reckless driving convictions in a five year period, drivers permanently lose their vehicles. Other intervention strategies include aggressive drivers taking anger management courses or special training programmes.
Why are motorists so angry? Perhaps road rage is so widespread because it’s all too easy to take your frustrations out on other drivers? Consulting psychologist for AAMI, John Cheetham, believes that anti-social behaviours, like speeding, drink-driving and justifying aggression towards other drivers, are reflective of a belief among drivers that their needs are more important than others. People have lost a sense of social responsibility, putting other road users at risk purely out of their own selfishness, he argued.
When we’re consumed by the stress of work, school or uni and absorbed in our individual lives, we tend to forget being tailgated by a driver shouldn’t require us responding with words that are too vulgar for ActNow.
We need to take a Zen approach to driving—pause to take a breather. By exercising a bit of self constraint, all drivers can help make our roads a safer place. Driving is a social behaviour that implicitly needs cooperation and respect among motorists. Behind the wheel of every car is a human being that would prefer to avoid being abused and seeing your middle finger. It’s time to stop before you honk.
How do I know this?
AAMI 2007, ‘It’s all about me: Selfish attitude sets drivers on crash course’, Road Crash Index 2007,
http://www.aami.com.au/about_aami_insurance/
aami_news_centre/pdf/special_reports/AAMI4822%20Crash%2007%20LR.pdf
‘Age of rage on roads”, The Age, 23 August 2007,
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/age-of-rage-on-roads/2007/08/23/1187462384604.html
‘Brothers accused of road rage appear in court’, 720 ABC Perth, 11 September, 2007,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/11/2029737.htm?site=perth
Cullen, D 2006, ‘Road rage: Out of control’, The Age, 23 November
http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=21719
Elliott, B 1999, ‘Road rage: media hype or serious road safety issue?’ Drivers.com, 12 May,
http://www.drivers.com/article/165
Indermaur, D 1998, ‘Preventing driving related violence’, Paper presented at 7th International seminar on Environmental criminology and Crime Analysis, Barcelona, 21st – 24th June
http://www.crc.law.uwa.edu.au/__data/page/50334/roadrage.pdf
Australian Automobile Association 2007, Motoring directions,
http://www.aaa.asn.au/publications/motoring/2007/Sept07.pdf
‘Road rage rules in Australia’, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 August 2007,
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/road-rage-rules-in-australia/2007/04/27/1177459953386.html
Smith, R 2005, ‘Measuring Road Rage’, Paper presented at the Australian Institute of Criminology Conference, 6–7 June,
http://www.aic.gov.au/conferences/2005-abs/smith.pdf
‘Three-time hoon driver halts bid to seize car’, The West Australian, 14 September 2007,
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=40416
