I was sad and disappointed to hear of a recent road rage incident in which a young man was severely beaten. I don’t know a lot about the case, but from what I understand, a driver became enraged when the young man did not proceed through an intersection as quickly as the driver wanted him to. One thing led to another, and the young man was followed home and beaten by the enraged driver and a couple of friends that he called to the scene. His injuries were severe and disturbing. As a psychologist writing a blog for the general community, I generally try to stay relatively impartial and to be clear when I’m expressing my own idiosyncratic opinions. So, let me be clear: In my opinion, the behaviour of the enraged driver and his allies was absolutely ridiculous and abhorrent.
This behaviour also raises a broader issue that I feel quite strongly about: The issue is this general urgency that many drivers seem to feel and the rage that is spawned by any perceived threat to expediency. One Canadian study found that one-third of adult drivers reported having been shouted or cursed at while driving (Smart et al., 2003). My hunch is that one of the most common precipitants of this shouting and hostile behaviour is that the perpetrating drivers were being prevented from getting from place to place as quickly as they wanted to. Other precipitants probably involved unsafe driving, which understandably provokes fear and frustration. Arguably, however, yelling and cursing are not the most effective strategies to manage these emotions while driving. In short, I believe (and admittedly, I really am not a road rage researcher) that the majority of road rage incidents are triggered when a driver must go slower than she or he wishes to. In the next blog or two, I’ll spend some time discussing why this might contribute to road rage and what we might be able to do about it. To be continued… Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.