Notes

It’s all the rage!!

To many people the term “Road Rage” describes a relatively modern concept of drivers ‘getting worked up due to some incident whilst on the road and resorting to physical violence or damage to property’. Most people would say that this has only really become a problem in the last five years or so. It has certainly attracted great media interest in recent times but it has, in fact been part of motoring for quite some time now.

A psychologist, employed by the Royal Automobile Club (RAC), defines “Road Rage” as: “unchecked behaviour designed to cause harm to another road user; behaviour which is not normally in the behavioural repertoire of the person. “Road Rage” is an altering of an individual’s personality whilst driving cause by a process of dehumanisation. This dehumanisation is cause by road use frustrations and an artificial sense of insulation, protection and empowerment provided by the car. This leads the person to behave in a way designed to cause harm or endanger other road users”

Most motorists can remember an occasion at some time in their motoring career when an impatient, or short-tempered, driver has “cust them or someone else up” with an aggressive display of driving, forcing the victim to take evasive action to avoid a collision. At the time, they probably thought, what a dreadful piece of driving and mentally clapped themselves on the back for being such controlled, calm drivers. Media attention, focused on particularly gruesome incidents, has bestowed a certain notoriety on this sort of driving. As a professional driver in inner London and a motorcycle instructor, I have witnessed such driving all too often over the years.

The 1996 Lex Report on motoring, published by Lex Service PLC, the UK’s leading vehicle retailing and leasing group provides us with some startling statistics. In the last 12 months, there have been: 1.8 million instances of people who have been forced to pull over or off the road; 800,000 instances of people being physically threatened; 500,000 people in their cars being deliberately driven into; 250,000 people attacked by other drivers; 250,000 people having their cars deliberately damaged by another driver. A surey also carried out by Lex confirms tha up to 80% of motorists have been the victims of “Road Rage” and that driver confrontation is on the increase.

The RAC has also much to say on the topic. One of their surveys reveals that as many as 90% of motorists have suffered at the hand of seriously anti-social drivers and that the effects upon them have in many cases been wholly disproportionate to the level of the threat or actual violence inflicted.

The examples are both chilling and legion: a driver had his nose bitten off following a row with another motorist; a 78 year old man was killed after being punched by a man half his age; an RAC patrolman, flagged down on the motorway by a motorist, was violently assaulted and verbally abused by the motorist. The list goes on and on...

The 1991 Road Traffic Act takes a very dim view indeed of dangerous and careless driving and, as with assaults, provides stiff custodial sentences for those guilty of such crimes. To date, however, there is no such offence in the statute books know as “Road Rage”. There can be assaults or criminal damage, followed or preceded by dangerous driving, but no offence that incorporates both – a change in the law which the public are clamouring for in the face of increasing anarchy on the roads.

Conversely, the Association of Chief Police Officers denies that “Road Rage” exists; or, in deed, that there is a trend. There have been suggestions from the same quarter that “media interest and reporting are, in fact, creating the problem by causing unnecessary anxiety in the minds of the motoring public in a direct analogy with fear of crime”

Most of us probably imagine violence on the road to be an entirely male preserve, as men are naturally more competitive and aggressive, especially when it comes to driving. Melanie Flowers of Oxford Brookes University however has the following to say: “Women can be more aggressive in cars than they ever would be when they are walking along the street. In fact, you could even argue that smaller or weaker people, who might be victims when they are out of their cars, often feel they can even things up a bit when they are behind the wheel. When you are driving you’re judged by your car rather than your physical attributes. It makes some women feel stronger than they really are”

If all this is a general reflection of the driver of the ’90s, the professionals have an uphill struggle. But they are tackling the problem head on. The RAC and Auto Express, a motoring journal, have joined forces in a Campaign Against Rage (CAR). They aim to promote driver courtesy, offer advice on avoiding, “Road Rage”, and even Rage Rehabilitation for violent offenders in an attempt to avoid re- offence.

The courts are looking at stiffer penalties. And the RAC is suggesting that sign-posting be improved to try and stop city drivers losing their way, a constant source of annoyance and aggression, and they have also proposed the introduction of variable message signs that can help improve driver behaviour. Some police traffic control cars are now equipped with these message signs on the roof of rear of their vehicles.

And the future? The Autoclass survey, published in 1997, shows that parents are creating the next generation of road-ragers. The research among 10-16 year olds found that 62% of fathers and 55% of mothers get angry while driving.

One this is a certainty: the Road Rage phenomenon is not going to disappear overnight, even after stiffer sentencing or improved driver training.