Road Rage Injuries Cases

What is Road Rage?

Obviously, road rage is a well-known term but what exactly is it and how did we end up using road rage as a main term for “bad road conduct”? Road rage is a term that was coined in the 1990s by media outlets to describe an emerging trend of extreme aggressive driving cases. Road Rage has grown so much since then, and while it’s still primarily classified as a traffic violation most places around the country, many states have made this crime punishable with fines or even jail time. Road rage is not just a “thing” that happens in the movies. It’s an unfortunate reality on American highways and byways, with 75% of American drivers admit to aggressive driving, a less severe form of road rage every day. Driving aggressively is dangerous for road users of all types, but it has been shown to be especially harmful for victims in car crashes who are then left with physical injury or mental trauma. In fact, it’s estimated that there are more than 1.5 million cases of road rage each year with more than half of them happening at intersections. What’s even scarier is how pervasive this issue has become among both drivers and passengers – especially those who have to commute during rush hour traffic every day.

Road Rage in Simplified Numbers

Road rage cases in mid 2000’s are significantly increasing up until now as these numbers according to Insurance Information Institute. Though, these numbers are rough estimations as behavior exhibition on any category is hard to measure or quanitfy. These numbers expresses how road rage events in american roads progresses in windows of years.

  • Nearly 80% of road users experienced road rage and aggressive behavior in a day of a month in 2019.
  • From 100,000 cases of road rage, there were 218 murders and 12,610 injuries in those numbers.
  • In a study conducted by NHTSA, it was found out that delayed arrival to workplace is the leading cause of road rage apparently.
  • In relation to running late, ignored speed limits in between over 25 years has resulted to an estimation of 37,000 fatalities and among those are 2000 cases in 2017 alone.
  • Each year has averaging 30 murders in relating to road rages.

To expound murder cases in road rages, in the span of two years from 2014 to 2016, 136 shootings road rage related cases recorded and it was higher than previous numbers jotted proportional to the growth of economy resulting to a significant increase in numbers of car owners as observed.

What are aggressive driving and road rage? Its distinctions?

Aggressive driving is a deliberate act that poses risks on both sides of the road. In addition to risking property damage or injury from an accident caused in part due to reckless maneuvers, there’s also risk for any pedestrian unfortunate enough find themselves crossing paths with this driver who has little concern for their safety as they barrel down the street at break-neck speed without regard for people already walking about. While, road rage is a dangerous reaction to anger that results in deliberate throw of violence ignoring its surrounding that can happen on the road. As more and more drivers become impatient, it becomes easy for them to lash out at other people they meet during their commutes.

What are its indications?

Aggressive driving manifests risky driving behavior including: tail gating, ignoring red light, constant lane changing, cutting lanes, and inappropriate speeding. Road rage exhibits rude and violent behavior among other road users and traffic personel including: impolite gestures, use of explicit words to other road users, tempted to ram other cars to make way for him, unnecessary use of headlights and horn to other drivers. Some properties of aggressive driving can be adapted to and can be deem as road rage’s but road rage behaviors can’t be accounted into aggressive driving.

 How can a driver as a possible victim can protect himself against sustaining injuries or harassed?

Sure, there are driving laws imposed to prevent or amend these high numbers of cases of road rages, though they vary for every state, they still stood for the same purpose. If a case of such escalated to a higher and more risky degree, assistance from specialized entity would highly help such as a Personal Injury Law Firm when sustained an injury caused by reckless driving and violent actions by driver surround a victim. As many people who are injured because of a car accident or other dangerous driving incident caused by road rages cases, need the assistance of an attorney. If you’re hurt, get in touch with Personal Injury Law Firm and they will help protect your rights to compensation for medical expenses and any lost wages during recovery time that is out of coverage from the driver that has caused someone the accident. Ryan Injury Lawyers is an expert law entity that specializes in representing individuals that has sustained injury in a car accident or any road accident that demands coverage for their hospital bills and other potential expenditure caused by the accident.