Road Rage Car Accident Lawyer BIG AUTO

Navigating the roadways is a stressful and often frustrating experience. While many drivers can get through it with little more than heightened annoyance, some people are prone to great waves of anger. These drivers become increasingly aggressive and vindictive when traversing the roadways, leading them to take unnecessary risks and even act out in retaliation towards drivers they feel are causing problems.

While some forms of aggressive driving can stop at just that, others may begin to escalate. One of the hallmarks of road rage is when a driver or passenger seeks out another vehicle as a target to unload their anger and the situation becomes violent. In some instances, this might manifest as dangerous driving practices, such as forcing a vehicle off the road, and in other cases, it may lead one driver to follow another to a stopping point. The angry driver may then confront the victim driver in a verbal and/or physical manner. Road rage can be the catalyst or precipitating event to a physical assault.

Common triggers for road rage may include:

• Drivers who go under the speed limit
• Drivers who drift across lanes due to distracted driving
• Drivers who do not maintain a consistent speed
• Drivers who switch lanes without checking

However, not everyone who encounters the driving habits above becomes set off and violent because of them. At the root of road rage is some other stress or issue in a person’s life that makes them more prone to snap in frustrating driving circumstances. For instance, someone who is running late may be more impatient with busier roadways, as might someone who tends to overreact emotionally to any kind of setback. While these are never excuses for violence, they may help identify people who are more prone to become triggered by events on the road than others.

Road rage incidents usually start small and escalate quickly. This means that there are some signs that you can keep an eye out for when driving to identify possible drivers and/or passengers that may be more likely to go from aggressive to worse while in a vehicle. Watch out for some of these indicators that you may be dealing with a road rage situation:

Gesturing: Drivers who tend to make their frustrations known by flipping up a middle finger or pulling up alongside and unleashing a verbal attack at others may be more likely to escalate into full-blown road rage.

Honking: Some drivers barely use the horn and others lean on it. Those drivers who default to honking at anyone who does something they don’t like are demonstrating more aggressive driving tendencies.

Flashing Headlights: Drivers who believe they have the right-of-way may come up behind another vehicle and either leave their high beams on or flash them until the car in front yields the lane.

Tailgating: A common form of aggressive driving is tailgating, but it can take a turn in a fit of road rage. A vehicle, especially a larger one, that leaves no space between its front bumper and your back one may make you feel overly nervous, and you may feel pressured to drive faster to escape the tailgater.

Sporadic Lane Changing: Some drivers change lanes frequently and with the intent to intimidate or punish others. For instance, a driver who weaves in and out may also cut in with little to no room and then tap or even slam on the brakes, bringing the vehicle directly behind dangerously close to a collision.

Speeding: The top cause of motor vehicle accidents remains excessive speeding. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently released data that shows that speed-related crashes account for one-third of all accidents, and have reached their highest levels in 14 years. Since roadway conditions often dictate the posted speed limit, drivers who exceed it put themselves and others at serious risk for an accident. During a road rage incident, speed can become a weapon, propelling the target driver to speed up and avoid the aggressive one. Doing so, however, more often than not leads to a crash versus a means of escape.

Crashes caused by the aggressive maneuvering of road rage can result in a whole host of injuries. However, some are more common than others.

Head Injuries

The brain may be protected by the skull, but as the most delicate and vital organ in the body, it remains the most at risk for injury in an auto crash. Hitting the head on a part of the vehicle or on the ground can cause trauma that is irreparable and may lead to what is known as a catastrophic injury. A person is deemed to have this when the damage to the body forces a victim to drastically alter their lifestyle as a result.

Spinal Cord Trauma

Much like head injuries, any damage to the spinal cord can result in widespread consequences around the body. Since the brain and spinal cord work together to send messages to other organs and body parts, when those instructions are intercepted, or worse, cut off, those body parts may no longer work. This leads to paralysis and sometimes death.

Broken Bones

While many bones that break heal with a bit of intervention, some require constant medical care and surgeries. An open compound fracture is one that can result from a traumatic car accident. The bone snaps in pieces, often pushing through the skin and muscle, allowing dirt and debris to enter. Not only does a surgeon need to set the bone with metal, but frequent monitoring of the tissue is required to ward off infection. In some instances, pieces of the body around the break need to be removed to stop the infection from creeping and spreading to other organs.

Burns

Burns can come from a couple of different places in a car crash. The most common is from the chemicals that eject when the airbags deploy. While this may not seem serious, in some instances, these can enter the mouth, nose or eyes, leaving catastrophic damage. Other burns may result from chemicals under or within the vehicle igniting and leading to a fire.

Blunt Force Trauma

Getting struck with an object or even a fist may lead to blunt-force trauma injuries. Road rage incidents may also take place outside of vehicles where assaults with or without weapons may occur. Assaults of any kind may leave a person dealing with contusions, internal bleeding, fractured bones and other forms of body trauma.

The most violent manifestation of road rage incidents leads to serious bodily harm and death from a vehicle crash, a physical assault or an assault with a weapon, such as a firearm or knife.

There is a difference between aggressive driving and road rage; however, one may lead to or be indicative of the other. A driver who is already operating a motor vehicle in an aggressive manner may tip the scales further when they get angry. Some states have reckless driving statutes that address aggressive driving and accidents, while other states have actual road rage laws when the incident becomes overtly violent.

Road rage laws can result in the arrest and prosecution of the driver or passenger responsible for damage, injury and death that is directly related to a vehicular incident. For example, if the aggressive driver follows the victim driver home and then alights from the vehicle with a weapon, the incident may qualify under road rage statutes. In some instances, the aggressive driver uses the vehicle itself as the weapon, and often, while still on the road. Chasing another vehicle down with the intent to cause harm to another falls under the purview of road rage statutes in the states where they exist.