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Published on: 7/2/2008
Last Visited: 7/2/2008
"One of the most important questions we struggle with in this field is how to define it," said Dr. Ronald Nathan, an Albany, N.Y.-based psychologist and author whom the American Psychological Association recommended to UTW as an expert on the subject of road rage.
He said the phenomenon we call "road rage" can't be tracked unless it's measured, and it can only be measured if it's defined.
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As Nathan defines it, "road rage" is an "intense hostility directed by one angry motorist to another motorist."
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"The media is following something and science is trying to catch up," said Nathan.
"But I can't say we've done that great a job of tracking it," he added.
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As hinted above, Nathan said that academic attempts to track the prevalence of road rage have sometimes had mixed results.
For instance, according to a telephone survey conducted in Ontario, Canada, the results of which were published in the Journal of Safety Research, 47.5 percent of respondents in 2001 reported having witnessed incidents of road rage, which decreased to 40.6 percent in 2003.
Respondents who identified themselves as road rage perpetrators, though, remained at about one-third between those years.
Nathan cited another report that surveyed Americans, the Response Insurance National Driving Habits Survey, which was released in December of last year.
According to it, he said, "Fully one-half of all drivers who are subjected to aggressive driving behavior respond with aggression of their own, thus risking a more serious confrontation."
Nathan said 50 percent of drivers reported that they respond to obscene gestures, tailgating or getting cut off with horn honking, yelling, retaliatory cut-offs or obscene gestures of their own.
"These are self-reports, though, so their real meaning is up for grabs," he said.
And it could just mean that Canadians are more easy-going than Americans.
"Or that," he concurred.
Nathan said the "road rage" phenomenon might also be a bit of a red herring on the part of the news media.
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Nathan also cited a 1998 article in the Atlantic Monthly magazine, entitled "Road Rage Versus Reality," which reported on several other factors besides aggressive driving contributing to various traffic accidents, which many studies in prior years had simply attributed to an increase in road rage.
"It's either a red herring, or it's a real phenomenon that's been overplayed," said Nathan.
Also, he said surveys typically find that people are roughly twice as likely to be afraid of road ragers than they are of drunk drivers, despite statistics that reveal a much greater likelihood of being killed or injured by a drunk driver than a merely angry or aggressive driver.
"People were more afraid of road rage than they were of drunk driving, which I don't think was an accurate assessment of risk," he said.
"It's important to convey that this is a phenomenon we need to pay attention to, but not get stressed out about," Nathan said.
"We need to protect ourselves from it while we figure out what all these surveys mean," he added.
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Nathan recommends essentially the same approach, but somewhat more systematically.
"Each of us can be aware of our potential for road rage, and there are many ways to protect yourself," he said.
Nathan recently completed an audio lecture entitled "Road Rage Happens: Be Prepared!"
He said the first part contains a lecture on how to train oneself to handle road rage incidents on the road.The second and third parts are instructions for various relaxation exercises designed to prevent succumbing to it.
It should be available for purchase on Amazon or other online outlets by October, he said.
Until then, though, there are a few tips he recommends.
He said drivers should get into the habit of mentally checking themselves according a particular acronym: HALTT.
Before getting behind the wheel, Nathan said people should ask themselves, "Am I hungry?Am I angry?Am I lonely?
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Nathan also recommended.
But if altruism and the Golden Rule aren't sufficient motivation, he said self-preservation is another consideration.
"Maybe that person has a gun under their dashboard, and they're willing to use it on you," he said.
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