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Saturday, January 10, 1998     Page:

Americans’ road rage drives them to destruction
   
Every driver has a road rage storyThat harried-looking soccer mom who cut
you off while careening onto an I-81 exit ramp in her Ford Explorer.
    The 20-something speeder in a Honda Accord who rode your bumper in the
passing lane on the Cross Valley Expressway.
   
The businessman who flipped you the bird while blowing by you on
Wilkes-Barre Boulevard in his Mercedes.
   
You know these people. And you’re probably one of them too, from time to
time.
   
Our lives are getting more hurried. Our highways are getting more
congested. Our vehicles are getting bigger and more powerful.
   
Add those factors together and you get a 51 percent increase in incidents
involving road rage in the first half of this decade, according to the
American Automobile Association. And aggressive driving is one national trait
that cuts across the traditional dividing lines.
   
All over the country, people of all races, genders, ages and creeds are
tailgating, ramming into each other and flashing headlights. And, as if
several tons of rolling steel is not weapon enough, they’re also attacking
each other with knives, guns and cans of mace. A recent study in Michigan
aimed at identifying aggressive drivers found that 53 percent of them are
woman.
   
Even celebrities have gotten into the act. Oscar winner Jack Nicholson was
once charged with using a golf club to smash the windshield and roof of a car
that cut him off in Hollywood.
   
Most of us have been guilty at one time or another of acting like buffoons
behind the wheel. Shoulder-belted in climate-controlled comfort with our car
phones, radios and coffee cups, it’s easy to forget how deadly the wrong
driving decision can be.
   
But there are things every driver can do about road rage.
   
Observing traffic laws would be a good start. Jotting down license plates
and reporting particularly aggressive drivers to police would be another.
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