Assaulting Someone Under the Influence of Road Rage is

Is Road Rage a Offense?

Baronial 24th, 2021 by

Just nearly anybody has heard of road rage. Incidents are shown on the news all the fourth dimension. Many people study having been a victim of route rage or know a person in their cycle who is more than than an aggressive driver.

Despite the growing media attending, in that location are a lot of misconceptions and false information floating around nearly this phenomenon taking place every day on the roads and highways of America. For example, most people don’t know the deviation between ambitious driving and road rage. Even more don’t know whether information technology is considered a criminal offense. (It is, but more on that in a moment.) Let’due south start by defining road rage.

What Is Road Rage
?

Although both involve

dangerous driving practices
, route rage is not the aforementioned affair as ambitious driving. Ambitious driving occurs when someone commits one or more than moving traffic offenses that endangers other drivers or their belongings. These offenses tin include speeding, tailgating, of a sudden changing lanes without warning, cutting off other drivers, and failure to yield the right of way. These offenses can all result in receiving a traffic ticket, but they exercise non plant road rage.

Road rage is the act of using your car as a weapon to retaliate against other drivers in diverse ways. Acts of road rages include:

• Tailgating dangerously close or actually nudging the bumper of another vehicle
• Sudden braking in front of another vehicle
• Prolonged sounding of your horn to harass another driver
• Forcing another driver off the road
• Getting out of your vehicle with intent to hurt another driver

In short, route rage involves deliberate and purposeful acts designed to crusade harm to another driver. Road rage rarely gets triggered past a unmarried event. Instead, it usually results from a series of stressors, some of which have nix to do with driving. A driver may be worried nearly work, fiscal, or relationship problems. The stress leads to aggressive driving, which escalates into road rage as a result of deportment taken by another driver.

Legal Definition of Aggressive Driving

The

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

defines ambitious driving as an case in which a driver commits multiple traffic offenses that endanger other people or property. An ambitious driver may:

• Ignore cease signs, yield signs, and other traffic signals
• Drive illegally on the shoulder or sidewalk
• Pass in zones where doing so is prohibited
• Fail to point turns or lane changes
• Speed
• Tailgate
• Brand erratic and unsafe lane changes
• Run crimson lights
• Ignore other drivers
• Fail to provide the right of fashion
• Drive recklessly
• Have their frustrations out on other drivers

Is Road Rage A Criminal Offense
?

The biggest difference between ambitious driving and route rage is how the law treats it.

Aggressive driving tin can result in misdemeanor traffic tickets. Y’all pay your fine. You lot become a point or two on your driving record. Your auto insurance premiums might even go up. Just that’s it. Road rage is considered a criminal criminal offense, because the driver engaging in it has the intent to cause harm. You lot tin go to jail. You can pay plush fines. In a worst-case scenario, you lot tin can exist convicted of a felony.

The problem with road rage, and a major reason for the lack of agreement nearly information technology, is the laws vary from state to land. Almost every state considers road rage a criminal offence. But, not all have laws prohibiting road rage and prescribing specific punishments for it. If you’re not sure about your state, cheque its DMV website or search online about route rage in your state.

In states that don’t have route rage laws, the aggressive and violent behaviors are typically punished under

whatsoever of the following

laws:

• • An unlawful attempt to commit a fierce injury on another person.
  • Whatsoever willful and unlawful apply of strength or violence upon another person.

• Assault with a deadly weapon, i.e., an instrument with enough force to produce smashing actual injury.

• Hit and run,
  
  which involves
  
  leaving the scene of an accident without exchanging information with the other driver.
• Reckless driving;
  
  this involves
  
  a driver who willfully or wantonly drives with a condone for the prophylactic of other people or their property.
• Making a spoken, written, or electronic communication that causes another person to fear for their safety or that of their immediate family.

The punishments for breaking these laws vary depending on whether the confidence involves a misdemeanor or felony. They can include a fine, jail time, or both.

How Does Road Rage Bear upon Your Driving
?

Road rage tin can put a driver into an angry, hostile state. Information technology tin can atomic number 82 to behaviors that provoke other motorists or cause them to worry about their safety. These behaviors tin include:

• Shouting
• Excessive use of a horn
• Use of obscene gestures and threats
• Cutting off other cars
• Drive too closely to other cars
• Block a car, so it cannot admission a traffic lane
• Chasing a motorcar or running it off the road
• Deliberately slamming into a car
• Stopping a vehicle at the side of the route and getting out to threaten, attack, fight, or injure another motorist or rider or a pedestrian, bicyclist, or another person

Beingness in a land of rage tin can

affect your blood pressure level

and ability to reason and make decisions. You are more prone to brand errors. And, yous are at a greater risk of being involved in an accident.

Causes Of Road Rage

Road rage may be

no more an initial reaction

triggered by another driver’s irresponsible beliefs. It becomes more serious, yet, when a commuter decides to human action on this reaction.

There are several factors that can lead to road rage, including:

• Heavy traffic.
  
  An impatient driver waiting in heavy traffic can hands get frustrated.

• Anonymity.
  
  Some drivers experience emboldened due to the fact that they are unlikely to interact or meet some other motorist, regardless of their actions. This tin lead drivers to become less humble about driving aggressively or recklessly.

• Distracted driving.
  
  Those who notice a distracted driver may feel the urge to take out their frustrations on the commuter.

At that place is no telling exactly what volition cause a commuter to experience route rage. Yet, those who understand how to place this issue can take steps to avert it.

Tips For Avoiding Road Rage

The

Insurance Information Establish

notes aggressive driving plays a major role in route rage and fatal highway collisions each year. Information technology also points out that aggressive driving can be difficult to quantify.

Nearly 80% of drivers said they express meaning road rage, aggression, and acrimony when they’re behind the wheel, according to

AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s 2019 data
. Simply, there are many things you tin can practice to

protect yourself and others against road rage
, such as:

• Give yourself time to go where you’re going.
  
  If you’re upset, take fourth dimension to at-home downward before getting backside the wheel.
• Exist patient with slow drivers or those who seem to be getting in your way.
• Don’t utilize threatening mitt gestures.
• Don’t tailgate.
• Don’t lean on your horn – no thing how frustrated you may be.
• Never stop to face up some other driver.

If another driver acts aggressively towards you:

• Change lanes or gradually deadening down to create distance between the two of you.
• Get out the highway if necessary.
• Don’t make centre contact or respond to the other driver.
• Don’t stop or pull over to the side of the road.

If another driver is following y’all, lock your doors and bulldoze to the nearest police station. Drive safely, be courteous to other drivers, and don’t drive when angry or upset. When your vehicle needs professional body repairs, bring it to the experts at Fix Auto

USA
. We’ll set information technology correct the first time and put a smile back on your face.

This blog was contributed past Fix Auto Palm Springs, a leading industry expert and collision repair store servicing Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Mountain Center, and other nearby communities.