Road rage is an aggressive behavior witnessed on the roads when a driver commits traffic violations while driving that tend to endanger the lives of people and property. In the United States, these incidents have been a problem and are continually growing worse. Drivers that depict this type of violation present it through screaming, rude gestures, violence, honking and chasing among others. The behavior is a harmful practice that emanates from various reasons and causes significant results.
The problem of road range primarily occasions from overcrowding on the roads. The present society has invested hugely in vehicles that have seen increased traffic on the roads and highways. Due to the high number of vehicles as people move to and from work, schools, businesses among others, gridlock and traffic jams occasions that anger motorists. Hence, people get emotional when they cannot get to their destinations on time or at speed, they prefer, thereby experiencing episodes of anger that results in road rage.
Anger is another contributor to rage on the roads. Drivers, even those that are usually calm and often collected experience road rage when they become annoyed with the behavior of other drivers. For instance, some drivers get annoyed when other drivers drive slowly and out of anger begin driving recklessly or using abusive signals towards them. Moreover, individuals considered violent in other parts of their life such as at home or work readily experience road rage. Such people tend to burst into anger for minor or no reasons at all and end up portraying aggressive behavior on the road.
Activity in the car causes numerous incidences of road rage. Activities such as texting or talking on the phone, eating, and reading, make an individual occupied and instead of being keen. In this scenario, drivers find themselves losing focus and end up driving recklessly, moving across lanes and blasting of horns for no reason. Such behavior attracts disapproval from other motorists and causes the said drive to act even more erratically and irresponsibly.
The act of road range predisposes drivers and other road users to several consequences. First, accidents are the primary results of road rage whereby the U.S Department of Transportation estimates that about 66 percent of accidents are because of aggressive behavior on the road. When drivers become aggressive out of engaging in disruptive activities in the car, they forget about safety. Their attention becomes disrupted and end up driving unsteadily and cause accidents such as bumping into other motorists, crushing, running other drivers off the road and hitting pedestrians.
Secondly, road rage elicits physical altercations. Aggressive and angry drivers tend to get physical with other motorists they deem to be the problem. Fights in the form of shouting matches and pointing of fingers at each other escalate to fights and assaults of other drivers. In other cases, the fights end up with the use of firearms where some drivers shooting other drivers to death.
Thirdly, road range negatively affects the health of drivers. Recurrent episodes of bursting I anger activates the fighting responses in the body during stress that trigger glands to produce more adrenaline and cortisol hormones. These hormones increase the heart rate, elevates breathing, and heightens the blood pressure. Consequently, they lead to hypertension, heart ailments, headaches, ulcers, and depression.
People all over the world who drive vehicles need to control their aggressiveness on the roads, as it is evident that road rage is a dangerous offense. They should look out for overcrowding on the roads, anger, and activities in the car as potential causes of this offense. Moreover, they should employ calm, practice proper driving to alleviate effects such as accidents, physical altercations, death, and health issues.
