Angry Behind the Wheel

Angry Behind the Wheel Have you ever gotten mad while you were out driving? If you saw somebody else driving while using their cell phone, failing to yield while merging or driving recklessly around you, would you not become a little upset by their actions? Chances are, you have had road rage at some point. Unfortunately, road rage affects some people more strongly than others, and those people who get angrier or more impulsive are then the ones who are becoming a danger to themselves and to those around them. Two-thirds of fatalities are at least partially caused by aggressive driving, or road rage. Roughly 38,000 highway deaths in 2004 were related to aggressive driving(Strickland). As scary as those numbers are, it may seem surprising that most vehicle-related injuries or deaths are blamed on alcohol or drugs, cell phone use, or inattentive driving. Perhaps we all need to calm down a little to look at another side of the problem. If such procedures can be encouraged to educate, reform, and prevent the dangers of driving with road rage or developing bad habits, we may be able to help make streets and highways an even safer place for people to travel. An evaluation of national and state-specific driver 's education requirements may prove helpful to determine if young or uneducated drivers are properly informed of the dangers of driving recklessly. The power of having a two-ton vehicle in your control may be a daunting idea, especially if a person is feeling heated or upset. Looking back to the basics, driver 's education can certainly be improved to address issues with aggressive driving. Road rage is a common enough term amongst the public, but does it have a section or even a proper definition in a driver 's education syllabus? Something besides standard procedures would also help to minimize the number of accidents resulting from road rage and discourage repeated incidents. Most vehicle-related accidents are reported for distracted driving, or driving

Cited: Marano, Hara E. "The Solution to Road Rage? Find Compassion." Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 18 Feb. 2003. Web. 20 Oct. 2012. . Strickland, Jonathan. "How Road Rage Works." HowStuffWorks. Discovery, n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2012. .