Road rage rampant, recent reports reveal
by Stuart Stuebing, reporter

    Females are as likely as males to participate in road rage, a NW Campus counselor said last week.

   In Road Rage/Stress Manage-ment, Larry Kimble pointed out a 1981 survey conducted by the Michigan State Police that revealed that road rage or anger among women drivers is slightly above that of men.

   This seminar taught various skills that one could use if confronted with an angry driver.

   The counselor identified key signs to look for when a driver feels stressed out.

   At the beginning of the seminar, students took a quiz (the Larson Driver Stress Profile) designed to help people identify and quantify those driver characteristics and behaviors that reflect driver stress, which can ultimately lead to road rage.

   Kimble, who mainly instructed from the book, Road Rage to Road-Wise by Dr. John Larson with Carol Rodriquez, J.D., talked about several key points that can lead one to engage in a road rage type scenario.

   For instance, people react differently to one another if they are walking down a hall and bump into each other.

   Most likely, the average person would say, “Excuse me,” and the confrontation would end without incident, Kimble said.

   However when somebody is in a motor vehicle, their attitudes seem to change.

   “People react differently when they are in cars,” he said.

   “People in a 4,000-pound vehicle feel that they have more power,” he said.

   Kimble made reference to a scenario in which two adults were involved in a simple altercation.

   One of the individuals rear-ended another at a stop sign at only five miles per hour.

   The person who was hit was so angry that the situation escalated to violence.

   Kimble also identified some key events that make people angry when they are driving.

   He repeated several statements made to law enforcement by individuals who were involved in road rage confrontations:

   “He cut me off”; “He took my parking space”; “She pulled in front of me and then slowed down,” and “He tried to run me off the road.”

   Unfortunately, people die every day as a result of stressed-out drivers.

   “You never know what state of mind the other driver is in when you have a confrontation. It’s quite possible that the other individual is suffering from home life situations or even alcohol or drug abuse,” he said.

   The seminar did teach some techniques to help one combat road rage stress.

   The Larson Driver Relaxation Exercise is designed to do just that. This exercise consists of three segments.

   First, there is a regulated breathing segment. Someone should practice breathing in each time to the count of five and then let the breath out more and more slowly to the counts of five, 10, 15 and 20.

   Second, a progressive muscle relaxation involves the major muscle groups.

   The third segment focuses one’s attention on the sensation of breathing.

   Students at the seminar said they walked away with the necessary knowledge to keep them from being victims of road rage.

   Gina Wood, a deaf student, with the help of an interpreter, Anna Peterson, said, “I will take all of the course material home to my father, so he can read it and learn as well.”

   Doug Watson, a criminal justice forensics major, said, “I’m going to take the material home for my girlfriend to read.”

   Watson said that at the beginning of the seminar, he took the quiz and failed.

   “Now I know what I need to do in order to change my driving habits,” he said.