I’ll tell you a story about a friend of mine who passed away. He was a professional fighter who was shot point blank during a road rage dispute. It started when my friend’s car was hit in the back. As the driver pulled away, my friend got angry and started to chase the driver by foot. Because of traffic, my friend was able to catch up to him. He broke the driver side window with his bare hands and as he was about to grab the driver, the driver panicked and drew his gun, shooting my friend point blank on the chest. He died and fell instantly, left to lay on the street for hours. Such a tragedy could have easily been avoided.

According to the AAA Foundations, more drivers have been involved in some sort of road rage behavior. If they’ve been cut off, tailgated or slowed down by a vehicle in front of them, angry drivers can commit incredible acts of violence, including assault and murder. Studies conducted with more than 10,000 incidents of violent aggressive driving committed between 1990 and 1996 found that at least 218 people were killed and another 12,610 injured when drivers got angry. Although many drivers involved in these incidents are men between the ages of 18 and 26, anyone can become aggressive if anger over safe driving. In my own experiences, I’ve seen plenty of women tailgate, cut-off and even say some negative things on the road. The AAA Foundation study found that men and women can drive aggressively if they are in the wrong mood or circumstances. Some of the reasons drivers engaged in road rage were often incredibly trivial: “she wouldn’t let me pass,” “he kept tailgating me,” or, with one driver accused of murder explained, “he practically ran me off the road so what was I supposed to do?”
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