Everyday traffic can turn quickly deadly when drivers can't keep control of their emotions and behavior. (Getty Images)
When I was a kid I witnessed my first example of road rage, although then we didn’t have a name for it. I was in the back seat of the family Ford and we were coming back across western Kansas from vacation one summer. It was maybe 2 in the morning, because my dad had a habit of driving all night to save money on motels, and near Garden City a pair of headlights on bright came up behind us.
Thinking it might be a trooper, my dad drove the speed limit and was careful. The car behind tailgated for a few miles, then surged around us with blaring horns. It was a dark car, and if I knew the make I’ve forgotten it. The driver swerved toward us, as if to send us into the ditch, and then sped off down the dark highway.
It shook my father, who chalked it up to a drunk driver.
Then we saw the car’s brake lights flash, far ahead of us, as the car did a U-turn and came racing back our way in a game of chicken. This time, they nearly did put us in a ditch.
What did they want?
My mother, who had read “In Cold Blood” about the Clutter family murders, thought robbery and worse was on their mind. My dad wasn’t going to wait to find out, and he pushed the Ford above 100 mph to make it to the next town. The menacing car dropped back as we entered the city limits.
It left us, for years, wondering what we had done to become targets.
The term “road rage” was coined by a Los Angeles news station in the late 1980s to described a series of freeway shootings. Since then, it has been used to describe a broad range of antisocial behaviors behind the wheel, from uncontrolled outbursts of anger to gun violence and vehicular murder.
We’ve all experienced this: drivers who appear enraged that you share the same road as they do and operate their vehicles with seemingly murderous intent.
As they roar by, with horns blaring and fingers flying, you’re left wondering what exactly you did to deserve such wrath. Was driving the speed limit too slow for them, did you not pull away quick enough from a stop light, or did they just not like the color of your bumper stickers?
The experience can range from fairly unpleasant to fatal, depending on how close to mayhem you come — and whether the other motorist has other weapons at hand.
Consider the following.
On the night of Sept. 1 last year, a couple in a silver Honda Ridgeline truck was chased by a young man on a motorcycle. The rider was one of s group of about 30 outlaw “stunt” riders blocking the street near the intersection of Greenwich and Central in east Wichita, doing wheelies and running red lights. He was angry because the Ridgeline and his stunt cycle had collided.
The Ridgeline driver and his wife, 69-year-old Norma Williams, were heading home after a football game.
The motorcyclist drew a .40 caliber Glock 23 semi-automatic pistol, according to court records, and fired four shots at the truck. Two of the bullets went through the back window of the cab. One of them struck Norma in the head.
Her husband pulled into a nearby QuikTrip parking lot to summon help, and Norma was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. Wichita police described it at the scene as a “sickening” example of road rage.
Last Tuesday, the motorcycle rider, 20-year-old Daryon Boone, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the incident. He remains in custody on $500,000 bond, awaiting sentencing in October.
Violent road rage incidents increased by more than 400% in the decade ending in 2023, according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive . The violence began ramping up during the pandemic and peaked in 2022, with 502 incidents. While the causes are not fully understood, there appears to be a correlation between general societal unrest and driving rage. In addition, traffic enforcement plummeted during COVID-19 and still has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to a review by the New York Times.
Topping the list of states with the most confrontational drivers were California and Missouri, according to Forbes Advisor . Kansas ranked in about the middle, at 29. The state with the least confrontational drivers was Hawaii.
“We are experiencing what can only be described as a crisis on our roadways as it relates to safety, and it is imperative that transportation agencies address this crisis using all means and methods at our disposal,” said Craig Thompson, president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, in a news release last month for TRIP, a highway safety nonprofit.
But not all deadly road rage incidents involve guns.
Last October, a 75-year-old man was followed to a El Dorado convenience store parking lot after a road rage incident. Ashton McCoy, who was 23, beat elderly Alton Algrim so severely that he was hospitalized and later died.
McCoy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and three counts of aggravated battery, according to court records. He was sentenced last month to 21 years in prison.
The cases of Boone and McCoy (no relation) are typical for road rage assailants, who tend to be young white men, according to the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing at Arizona State University.
“There is a strong correlation between such young white men and violent crimes, serious traffic offenses, license suspensions, and minor moving violations,” according to a guide published by the center. “These young white men also appear to be the most likely group to engage in more extreme road rage behaviors. … In general, younger people tend to lack the impulse control gained with age, and men tend toward more aggressive behavior than women.”
Revenge and retaliation are common motives for antisocial drivers who tend to feel disrespected, motives also associated with domestic and gang violence. Trivial events, such as perceived insults to a driver’s self-image, can tap into deeply held anger.
If you are the target of road range and the kind of person to respond in kind, things can escalate to violence damned quick.
Let me say now that I am in the latter category, having been in the past quick to return gestures and curses in equal measure. When I was young I had an obsession with fast cars and often raced them, but I never contemplated using one as a weapon or pulling a gun to settle a score with another motorist.
I suppose I will always have a quick temper, but in the last few years I have endeavored to remain calm and cautiously ignore irate drivers. I’ll pull over and let them pass if safe to do so. But some drivers are so unhinged — either from blind rage or alcohol or drugs — that nothing seems safe.
When walking or bicycling, things can get even scarier.
Crosswalks can seem impossibly long when drivers are impatiently gunning their engines. Bike lanes can seem impossibly small when motorists seem to come close to you on purpose. And the smaller the town, the worse the attitudes seem to be.
I’ve crossed plenty of intersections in downtown New York City where cabs were nosing their way past, but I wasn’t afraid because the cars seemed aware of the pedestrians — and it didn’t seem personal. In my Kansas hometown, motorists seem unused to watching out for other traffic and appear irritated that you’re crossing at all. It’s those times that my legs turn to lead and it seems like I’ll never reach the safety of the far curb. My wife, Kim — who rises before dawn and gets a 5-mile walk in every other day or so — has come even closer to being hit, close enough that she could feel the heat of the passing car.
Lately I’ve noticed an increase in people who are impatient, ticked off, reckless. And it’s just not on the roads. Our interactions with others, online and in-person, have become more hostile. I’m for vigorous and sometimes passionate debate — and believe civility is often a call from the authorities for you to get back in your lane — but I draw the line at hurting others.
Some think our growing hostility is a mirror of our national politics, but I think it may be the other way around. Americans have always had deep wells of grievance to draw from, and some of those wells spring from righteous outrage at historical and societal injustice. But I suspect road rage is an expression of our increasing isolation and our diminishing empathy from one another.
We are sealed into our own reality bubbles when online and also when we are encased in the glass and metal of our vehicles. For some, others are just an irritating abstraction. Young men are prone to violent acts of road rage not because they are bad but because they are immature and don’t see other drivers as human beings — as mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons.
As we grow more lonely as a society, retreating into a virtual online existence, the less capable we are of dealing with the frustrating challenges that confront us in real life.
Rage is blind and is not to be confused with outrage, which is often righteous. The tragedy of road rage is its lack of any meaning other than an expression of a desire to lash out. We all have monsters within us, but those who surrender themselves to road rage unleash that beast on others.
As in all crises, when confronted with road rage the best course is to remain calm. Distance yourself from the threat, if you can do so safely. You might even have some compassion for those honking and weaving and making obscene gestures by embracing the fact that you don’t know what kind of day they’ve had — they may have lost a job, suffered a death in the family or been given an incurable diagnosis.
The thing about rage is that it’s infectious. It spreads like a disease, and if you fall victim to it, you’re going to pass it on — to another motorist, a friend next to you, maybe even your kid watching you drive from the back seat.
And if you fall victim — as I sometimes have, red-faced and inventing new curses — first calm yourself. You could try singing or telling yourself jokes. Then you might want to make a mental note to review tips on how to cope, such as in this Psychology Today piece or this advice from WebMD. If you found yourself in danger of hurting yourself or others while at the wheel, then seek professional help.
Why did the driver of the dark car on that Kansas highway so long ago subject my family to vehicular terror? I will likely never know. But that is the challenge with hostile drivers: We just don’t know the reasons why they are so murderously angry.
But we can control our reaction. And in remaining calm in the face of rage, we are using our most powerful safety tool — our compassion for others.
Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here .
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