‘Road Rage’ Tied to More Traffic Deaths

Reversing a long decline, traffic deaths on the nation’s roadways have now increased four years in a row, and federal highway officials Thursday attributed much of the carnage to “road rage.”

Testifying before a House transportation subcommittee, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration officials estimated that two-thirds of the 42,000 highway deaths last year were related to aggressive driving, which appears to have joined drunk driving as a perilous trait of American culture.

Researchers define aggressive driving by certain types of behavior, such as speeding, illegal lane changes and running red lights. “Road rage” involves that sort of aggressive driving taken to an extreme.

A study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety that sought to quantify road rage looked at 10,000 aggressive driving accidents reported around the nation since 1990. The study indicated that in 35% of the cases, a vehicle was used directly as a weapon. Men between the ages of 18 and 26 were the drivers most likely to be involved in aggressive driving accidents, the study indicated.

About 10% of overall traffic deaths occurred in car-dependent California, which has a higher population and more vehicles on the road than any other state. Even so, the state had fewer deaths per mile driven than the national average, a record the highway safety administration attributed to safety programs and the highest rate of seat belt use in the nation--85%.

“California has a lot to be proud of when it comes to traffic safety,” said Ricardo Martinez, the highway safety agency’s administrator. On the other hand, he noted--in an observation that will come as no surprise to the state’s drivers--California “has some real problems regarding congestion and the fact that you can make cars faster than you can make roads.”

Researchers have difficulty specifically tracking aggressive driving because it can be displayed in countless ways. But two different studies--one by the highway safety administration surveying police reports from around the nation and the other by the AAA foundation both portray aggressive driving as a growing problem.

“It is a quality of life issue. It frightens people, it makes driving unpleasant, it feels unsafe,” said Stephanie Faul, spokeswoman for the AAA foundation. Experts cannot be sure exactly how many crashes aggressive driving causes, she said, but “it’s a problem, and we think it’s on the increase.”

The highway safety administration report went further in quantifying the overall aggressive driving problem. According to the federal researchers, two-thirds of traffic fatalities last year involved behavior related to aggressive driving.

The highway fatality rate has been increasing by small increments for four years--enough to establish a clear trend, researchers say. Overall, the death rate is still relatively low, even while travel is at an all-time high, the highway safety agency reported. But the cause of crashes seems to be shifting to aggression. Overall, federal officials said, traffic accidents cost the nation $150 billion a year.

Researchers have yet to agree on the cause of the apparent increase in driver aggression. Some point to a highly stressed population, others to societal problems that carry over to the roadways. Somewhere along the way, they agree, the nation’s drivers have lost civility, giving rise to a rash of tailgating, hand waving, honking, screaming, weaving, dueling and cursing that helped contribute to 12 million crashes last year.

Freeway shootings and other highly publicized incidents of aggression once made Los Angeles the talk of the nation. The AAA report to Congress, for example, cited a case in which actor Jack Nicholson allegedly left his car at a red light and, with a golf club, whacked the windshield of a Mercedes he thought had cut him off.

But road violence is actually more prevalent in Eastern states, officials said. The attention of Congress was captured by a couple of recent tragedies in the Washington area, including one in which a driver forced an off-duty Washington police officer to the side of the road, smashed her car window and tried to strangle her because he thought she had cut him off.

Driver anger is clearly aggravated by increased traffic congestion, creating millions of tightly wound commuters whose lives are speeding up while the roads are slowing down, officials said.

Since 1987, the number of miles of roadway in the United States has increased just 1% while the number of vehicles competing for space on those roads has exploded by 35%, highway safety administration officials reported.

“When driver expectations are unmet, anger and aggression can be unleashed,” Martinez told the committee. “If a driver expects a trip to take 10 minutes and it takes more than 30 minutes, frustration grows. Many drivers respond by acting and driving aggressively, sometimes even after the gridlock ends.”

There are few drivers among us who have not acted out once in a while, the experts said, suggesting that the driving public needs to be educated about the dangers of blowing off steam while operating more than a ton of steel. Federal highway officials have taken their campaign to television, appearing on shows from “Oprah” to “Real Stories of the Highway Patrol.”

A nationwide cellular phone number is being established for motorists to use to report aggressive drivers. Tips on how to avoid road wars will be included in the bills sent to 20 million cellular phone subscribers.

Federal officials also have suggested a graduated licensing program that would restrict driving privileges of young drivers until they master basic skills, then upgrade the privileges as they learn more about safety.

California lawmakers have been debating a proposal this year to adopt a graduated licensing program for younger drivers.