Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of Highway Warfare

Book Synopsis: Do you drive with stress and frustration? Do you frequently complain about other drivers or get involved in hostile interactions with other motorists? Are you afraid for your teenage drivers in this climate of highway warfare? We're in the midst of an escalating epidemic of aggressive driving, which eats up 250 billion dollars a year in economic cost and causes the misery associated with 6 million injuries every year. Now the government has declared war on road rage with tough new laws that can land people in jail for behaviors they're used to doing every day. Traffic psychology educators Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl trace the aggressive driving problem to its roots in childhood when child passengers imbibe their parents' aggressiveness towards other motorists and their cynicism towards regulations and the law. By the time teenagers begin to drive they've been exposed to years of media portrayals of the fun and excitement of aggressive driving with no serious consequences. The authors argue that road rage and aggressive driving are common traffic emotions experienced by the vast majority of drivers.

This authoritative book-the first to synthesize the subject of aggressive driving-presents conclusions of recent studies, highlights citizen activism, and summarizes legislative and police initiatives. Besides vivid anecdotal evidence and personal stories of typical road rage incidents that we have all experienced, James and Nahl present self-tests that readers can use to estimate their own road rage tendency, and they prescribe activities to help every driver learn self-improvement and self-awareness skills behind the wheel. The authors outline their innovative three-step program to help people transform themselves from aggressive to supportive drivers.

This book redefines driver education for all drivers, including commercial drivers and truckers. Our traffic emotions need to be trained, the authors stress, and they provide the explanations and activities needed to strengthen critical thinking about road events.