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Road rage makes the highways less safe for everyone. Even if a motorist is not directly involved, a recent road rage incident in California demonstrates how they can be caught up in the aftermath.
A terrifying road rage incident in California made national news when it was caught on camera by a car passenger traveling nearby. The video, made available on NBC4 News in Los Angeles, shows a motorcyclist kicking a car as he drives down the freeway. According to the man who filmed the incident, the driver of the car had just cut the motorcyclist off during a lane change. The car’s driver responds to the kick by swerving wildly, nearly crashing into the motorcyclist. Instead, the car hits the freeway median barrier and ricochets back through the lanes of traffic, careening into a pickup truck and causing it to flip. The motorcyclist drives away down the freeway as the pickup truck comes to a rest upside down.
According to NBC’s coverage, only the driver of the pickup truck was injured. Despite being completely uninvolved in the altercation between motorcyclist and car, the pickup truck driver found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortunately, the injured driver is expected to heal without permanent injury.
The American Safety Council offers some frightening statistics on road rage, explaining that aggressive driving is responsible for nearly two-thirds of all traffic fatalities. Aggressive driving is an unsafe behavior that differs from criminal road rage actions. However, aggressive driving is often a trigger to deadly road rage. The best way to stay safe during a road rage incident is to stay calm and not respond in kind to another driver’s bad behavior. To avoid escalating a dangerous situation, drivers are encouraged to avoid any reaction to road rage, including making eye contact, and to continue driving safely and lawfully to their destinations.