A bellowing motorist pulled a gun on two-off-duty cops in Brooklyn yesterday, shooting one in the hand and leg in what investigators said was an outburst of road rage. After wounding Officer Jamayne Anthony in a traffic jam in Crown Heights, the gunman spun his car into a U-turn and sped away, blowing his horn at scores of stunned motorists who witnessed the shooting. Anthony, 25, a cop since 1992, was taken to Kings County Hospital, where doctors last night said he was in stable condition. His injuries were not considered life-threatening.

The other officer, Shadene Carter, 26, was unharmed. The two cops, both assigned to the 71st precinct, are friends and were spending their day off together, investigators said. Carter, who joined the force last year, was behind the wheel, and Anthony was a passenger in her car, when the trouble started about 3:30 p.m. Investigators said Carter got stuck blocking the intersection of New York Ave. and the service road of Eastern Parkway when she apparently misjudged traffic backing up because of road work. As Carter tried to inch her way clear of the gridlock, they said, a dark, late-model Nissan Maxima or Acura with tinted windows roared up and began honking.

When Carter was unable to move fast enough, the angry driver started shouting, pulled out a gun and began walking toward Carter. At this point, police said, Anthony got out of Carter's car and tried to head off the gunman. Before he could say or do anything, the assailant shot him twice point-blank. As Anthony lay writhing on the ground, the assailant tried to cover his license plate with paper or a piece of cloth, then drove off. Mayor Giuliani, who visited Anthony at the hospital last night, said the cop was "in a great deal of pain, but he looks like he'll make a full recovery." Carter, he said, was suffering from shock but would be okay, too. Investigators said that at least one of the two cops was armed with a service revolver, but it was unclear which officer had a gun. Probers said the armed cop apparently didn't have a chance to pull out the pistol.

À(2) Road-Rage Van

NANUET, N.Y., Dec. 15 (UPI) _ Angry drivers are going to have to start thinking twice about cutting off those mild-mannered appearing drivers in minivans plying New York roads. That's after New York Gov. George Pataki announced Monday the state was putting video camera-equipped ``road-rage vans'' on the highways to catch aggressive drivers. At a press conference at Nanuet High School, Pataki said the state was already making progress on highway safety, making 1996 the safest year on the state's roads since World War II.

He said the biggest improvement came in drunk driving-related deaths with 361 fatalities compared to 448 in 1995. He said the road-rage vans would contribute to the trend, using two video cameras to tape agressive drivers zipping in and out of traffic, cutting off safer motorists. According to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, aggressive driving contributed to nearly 60 percent of accidents where causes were attributed, and to 70 percent of fatal crashes where a cause was determined. The first undercover van is taking to the roads in the five bedroom counties north of New York City. More vans were planned statewide in the new year.

(3) Maryland Aims Laser Technology at Aggressive Drivers

Saturday, November 22, 1997; Page G01
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Maryland State Police launched their latest weapon against aggressive drivers yesterday -- a Bronco bristling with high-tech equipment that will roam the congested Capital Beltway to finger violators, photograph their behavior and record it on a film print that will be sent to their homes with a written warning. Maryland's 43-mile stretch of the Beltway was chosen for the Ford Bronco's range, police said, because the road is usually jammed and the speeding, tailgating and weaving from lane to lane that characterize aggressive driving are endemic on the busy interstate.

"Aggressive drivers pose a danger to all of us. What they do often escalates into violent incidents . . . even criminal acts," said Henry Rockel, a federal official involved with the project. "We know the problem is growing in our area." Officials said they plan to immediately deploy the $400,000 prototype vehicle for several hours a day, in an experiment that will last a year. The vehicle, which will pack lasers, video equipment and cameras, will typically be parked on the shoulder of the Beltway, with cameras aimed into traffic.

The equipment is unique in law enforcement circles in its ability to spot aggressive driving behavior almost automatically, officials said. It has the ability not only to take photos of license plates on rear bumpers, but it also can shoot the identifying numbers on the cabs of trucks -- even when they blow by at 90 mph. Violators caught on camera will get only warnings during the 12-month test phase of the program, but that could change, according to David B. Mitchell, superintendent of the Maryland State Police. Police said they are considering seeking authority from the General Assembly to issue citations.

Even without such authority, Mitchell said, the new equipment offers police the ability "to radio instantly to troopers on the Beltway about an aggressive driver," who can then be pulled over and given a ticket. Video recorded on board the Bronco can be used as evidence in court, he said. Moreover, police hope that warnings issued under the program will gradually change behavior by making violators aware of their dangerous driving. Cameras are becoming increasingly common as a law enforcement tool, for instance to catch red-light runners at busy intersections in Fairfax and Alexandria. But this is the first effort to use law enforcement cameras on the region's busiest interstate, which carries more than 200,000 vehicles a day.

Virginia State Police, who patrol a third of the 64-mile Beltway, have nothing like Maryland's Bronco. "We hope they'll catch the aggressive drivers before they get here," said state police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell. About a decade ago, Maryland's efforts to use cameras to catch speeders and issue tickets by mail were quashed when many residents complained about the intrusive nature of the technology. "But with the increase in road rage today, the public is fed up," said Ray Cotton, who directs the project for the state police. "They're now ready." Already, thousands of aggressive drivers are ticketed by Maryland State Police on the Capital Beltway. In the first 10 months of this year, 41,000 traffic citations were issued on the Beltway, half of them to aggressive drivers, state police statistics show.

Ultimately, if legislation were to give police the authority, dozens of tickets could be issued in an hour or two by a single officer using the kind of equipment on board the Bronco. The officer would never have to give chase, or pull over a violator -- actions which themselves can cause accidents on busy roads. The special Bronco, which was developed and promoted with federal and state highway safety funds and help from scientists at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center, works like this: The clearly marked brown and tan vehicle is parked alongside the road, in the direction traffic moves, with its rear mounted video camera and a speed-measuring laser aimed at oncoming traffic. A car or truck traveling above a threshold speed -- which police will not reveal -- triggers the equipment that then videotapes the vehicle's movements and measures its length as it passes. If the vehicle is a truck, an on-board computer activates a side camera which photographs the truck's federal identification numbers. Then, as the vehicle speeds by, another camera takes six shots of its license plate.

The warning letter that officials said they will send to the vehicle's owner cites the date, time and the Maryland law being violated, such as going 78 mph in a 55 mph zone. The letter explains the Aggressive Driver Imaging & Enforcement Program and advises the driver that "this is not a citation." This will not be a stealth program, police said. Signs on the Beltway warn drivers that Aggressive Driver Imaging is underway, and commercials are running on local television stations. Clearly marked as a State Police vehicle, the Bronco is hard to miss. That's not going to change anyone's aggressive behavior, Mitchell predicted. "When I'm out in my cruiser, speeders slow down just enough to look at me, and then they just blow by," Mitchell said. But he warned: "By the time you see this vehicle, it'll be too late."

HOW IT WORKS

The $400,000 experimental vehicle patrolling Maryland's stretch of the Beltway uses lasers and cameras in an effort to catch aggressive drivers. Violators caught on film will get warnings -- for now.

Live Video: Provides view of approaching traffic.

LIDAR: Laser device measures speed and size of approaching vehicle.

Autosense: Determines speed of vehicle and triggers appropriate camera.

Rear Camera: Photographs rear license plates of cars.

Side Camera: Photographs DOT number on side door of trucks.

Drawing is schematic (not to scale).

SOURCES: Army Aberdeen Test Center, Federal Highway Administration, Maryland State Police.

(4) ROAD RAGE

Tailgating, giving the finger, outright violence--Americans grow more likely to take out their frustrations on other drivers

Some of the incidents are so ludicrous you can't help but laugh--albeit nervously. There was the ase in Salt Lake City, where 75-year-old J. C. King--peeved that 41-year-old Larry Remm Jr. honked at him for blocking traffic--followed Remm when he pulled off the road, hurled his prescription bottle at him, and then, in a display of geriatric resolve, smashed Remm's knees with his '92 Mercury. In tiny Potomac, Md., Robin Ficker--an attorney and ex-state legislator--knocked the glasses off a pregnant woman after she had the temerity to ask him why he

bumped her Jeep with his. Other incidents lack even the element of black humor. In Colorado Springs, 55-year-old Vern Smalley persuaded a 17-year-old boy who had been tailgating him to pull over; Smalley decided that, rather than merely scold the lad, he would shoot him. (And he did. Fatally--after the youth had threatened him.) And last year, on Virginia's George Washington Parkway, a dispute over a lane change was settled with a high-speed duel that ended when both drivers lost control and crossed the center line, killing two innocent motorists.

Anyone who spent the Memorial Day weekend on the road probably won't be too surprised to learn the results of a major study to be released this week by the American Automobile Association: The rate of "aggressive driving" incidents--defined as events in which an angry or impatient driver tries to kill or injure another driver after a traffic dispute--has risen by 51 percent since 1990. In those cases studied, 37 percent of offenders used firearms against other drivers, an additional 28 percent used other weapons, and 35 percent used their cars. Fear of (and participation in) aggressive driving has grown so much that in a poll last year residents of

Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia listed it as a bigger concern than drunk driving. The Maryland highway department is running a campaign called "The End of the Road for Aggressive Drivers," which, among other things, flashes anti-road-rage messages on electronic billboards on the interstates. Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey have initiated special highway patrols targeting aggressive drivers. A small but busy community of therapists and scholars has arisen to study the phenomenon and counsel drivers on how to cope. And several members of Congress are now trying to figure out ways to legislate away road rage.

Lest one get unduly alarmed, it helps to put the AAA study's numbers in context: approximately 250,000 people have been killed in traffic since 1990. While the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that two thirds of fatalities are at least partially caused by aggressive driving, the AAA study found only 218 that could be directly attributable to enraged drivers. Of the more than 20 million motorists injured, the survey identified 12,610 injuries attributable to aggressive driving. While the study is the first American attempt to quantify aggressive driving, it is not rigorously scientific. The authors drew on reports from 30 newspapers--supplemented by insurance claims and policies. But researchers believe there is a growing trend of simple aggressive behavior--road rage--in which a driver reacts angrily to other drivers. Cutting them off, tailgating, giving the finger, waving a fist--experts believe these forms of nonviolent fury are increasing. "Aggressive driving is now the most common way of driving," says Sandra Ball-Rokeach, who codirects the Media and Injury Prevention Program at the University of Southern California. "It's not just a few crazies--it's a subculture of driving."

In focus groups set up by her organization, two thirds of drivers said they reacted to frustrating situations aggressively. Almost half admitted to deliberately braking suddenly, pulling close to the other car, or taking some other potentially dangerous step. Another third said they retaliated with a hostile gesture. Drivers show great creativity in devising hostile responses. Doug Erber of Los Angeles keeps his windshield-wiper-fluid tank full. If someone tailgates, he turns on the wipers, sending fluid over his roof onto the car behind him. "It works better than hitting the brakes," he says, "and you can act totally innocent."

Mad Max. While the AAA authors note there is a profile of the lethally inclined aggressive river--"relatively young, poorly educated males who have criminal records, histories of violence, and drug or alcohol problems"--road-rage scholars (and regular drivers) believe other groups are equally represented in the less violent forms of aggressive driving. To some, it's tempting to look at this as a psychologically mysterious Jekyll-and-Hyde phenomenon; for others, it's simply attributable to "jerk drivers." In reality, there's a confluence of emotional and demographic factors that changes the average citizen from mere motorist to Mad Max. First, it isn't just your imagination that traffic is getting worse. Since 1987, the number of miles of roads has increased just 1 percent while the miles driven have shot up by 35 percent. According to a recent Federal Highway Administration study of 50 metropolitan areas, almost 70 percent of urban freeways today--as opposed to 55 percent in 1983--are clogged during rush hour. The study notes that congestion is likely to spread to currently unspoiled locations. Forty percent of the currently gridlock-free Milwaukee County highway system, for example, is predicted to be jammed up more than five hours a day by the year 2000. A study by the Texas Transportation Institute last year found that commuters in one third of the largest cities spent well over 40 hours a year in traffic jams.

Part of the problem is that jobs have shifted from cities to suburbs. Communities designed as residential suburbs with narrow roads have grown into "edge cities," with bustling commercial traffic. Suburb-to-suburb commutes now account for 44 percent of all metropolitan traffic versus 20 percent for suburb-to-downtown travel. Demographer and Edge City author Joel Garreau says workers breaking for lunch are essentially causing a third rush hour. He notes that in Tysons Corner, Va., it takes an average of four traffic signal cycles to get through a typical intersection at lunchtime. And because most mass transit systems are of a spoke-and-hub design, centering on cities and branching out to suburbs, they're not really useful in getting from point A to point B in an edge city or from one edge city to another. Not surprisingly, fewer people are relying on mass transit and more on cars. In 1969, 82.7 percent drove to work; in 1990, 91.4 percent did. Despite the fact that the Washington, D.C., area has an exemplary commuter subway system, it accounts for only 2 percent of all trips made.

Demographic changes have helped put more drivers on the road. Until the 1970s, the percentage of women driving was relatively low, and many families had only one car. But women entered the work force and bought cars, something developers and highway planners hadn't foreseen. From 1969 to 1990 the number of women licensed to drive increased 84 percent. Between 1970 and 1987, the number of cars on the road more than doubled. In the past decade, the number of cars grew faster (17 percent) than the number of people (10 percent). Even carpooling is down despite HOV lanes and other preferential devices. The cumulative effect, says University of Hawaii traffic psychology professor Leon James, is a sort of sensory overload. "There are simply more cars--and more behaviors--to deal with," says James.

As if the United States couldn't produce enough home-grown lousy drivers, it seems to be importing them as well. Experts believe that many immigrants come from countries that have bad roads and aggressive styles. It's not just drivers from Third World countries, though. British drivers are considered among the safest in Europe, yet recent surveys show that nearly 90 percent of British motorists have experienced threats or abuse from other drivers. Of Brits who drive for a living, about 21 percent report having been run off the road. In Australia, one study estimates that about half of all traffic accidents there may be due to road rage. "There are different cultures of driving all over the world--quite clearly, if we mix new cultures in the melting pot, what we get is a culture clash on the roadway," says John Palmer, a professor in the Health Education and Safety Department at Minnesota's St. Cloud State University.

The peak moment for aggressive driving comes not during impenetrable gridlock but just before, when traffic density is high but cars are still moving briskly. That's when cutting someone off or forcing someone out of a lane can make the difference (or so it seems) between being on time and being late, according to Palmer. Unfortunately, roads are getting more congested just as Americans feel even more pressed for time. "People get on a time line for their car trips," says Palmer. "When they perceive that someone is impeding their progress or invading their agenda, they respond with what they consider to be `instructive' behavior, which might be as simple as flashing their lights to something more combative." Suburban assault vehicles. This, uh, "instruction" has become more common, Palmer and others speculate, in part because of modern automotive design.

With hyperadjustable seats, soundproof interiors, CD players, and cellular phones, cars are virtually comfortable enough to live in. Students of traffic can't help but wonder if the popularity of pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles has contributed to the problem. Sales have approximately doubled since 1990. These big metal shells loom over everything else, fueling feelings of power and drawing out a driver's more primal instincts. "A lot of the anecdotal evidence about aggressive driving incidents tends to involve people driving sport utility vehicles," says Julie Rochman of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. "When people get these larger, heavier vehicles, they feel more invulnerable." While Chrysler spokesman Chris Preuss discounts the notion of suburban assault vehicles being behind the aggressive-driving phenomenon, he does say women feel more secure in the jumbo-size vehicles.

In much of life, people feel they don't have full control of their destiny. But a car--unlike, say, a career or a spouse--responds reliably to one's wish. In automobiles, we have an increased (but false) sense of invincibility. Other drivers become dehumanized, mere appendages to a competing machine. "You have the illusion you're alone and master, dislocated from other drivers," says Hawaii's James. Los Angeles psychologist Arnold Nerenberg describes how one of his recent patients got into an angry road confrontation with another motorist. "They pulled off the road and started running toward each other to fight, but then they recognized each other as neighbors," he says. "When it's just somebody else in a car, it's more two-dimensional; the other person's identity boils down to, `You're someone who did something bad to me.' "

How can aggressive driving be minimized? Some believe that better driver's education might help. Driver's ed was a high school staple by the 1950s, thanks to federal highway dollars given to states. But a 1978 government study in De Kalb County, Ga., found no reduction in crashes or traffic violations by students who took a driver's ed course compared with those who didn't. Rather than use these results to design better driver's ed programs, the feds essentially gave up on them and diverted money to seat belt and anti-drunk-driving programs. Today, only 40 percent of new drivers complete a formal training course, which may be one reason 20 percent to 35 percent of applicants fail their initial driving test. The inner driver. But governments are looking anew at the value of driver's education. In April, Michigan passed sweeping rules that grant levels of privilege depending on one's age and driving record. States with similar systems, like California, Maryland, and Oregon, have seen teen accident rates drop.

Those who lose their licenses often have to return to traffic school. But some states have generous standards for these schools. To wit: California's theme schools. There, errant drivers can attend the "Humor's My Name, Traffic's My Game," school, in which a mock jury led by a stand-up comic decides who the worst drivers are; the "Traffic School for Chocoholics," which plies errant drivers with chocolate and ice cream; and the gay and lesbian "Pink Triangle Traffic School." But the real key to reducing road rage probably lies deep within each of us. Professor James of the University of Hawaii suggests that instead of emphasizing defensive driving--which implies that the other driver is the enemy--we should focus on "supportive driving" or "driving with the aloha spirit."

Of course that's hard to do if (a) someone has just cut you off at 60 mph or (b) you live in Los Angeles instead of Hawaii. Nerenberg, the Los Angeles psychologist, has published an 18-page booklet called "Overcoming Road Rage: The 10-Step Compassion Program." He recommends examining what sets off road rage and to "visualize overcoming it." Other tips: Imagine you might be seeing that person at a party soon. And remember that other drivers "are people with feelings. Let us not humiliate them with our aggression." In the chapter titled, "Peace," he suggests, "Take a deep breath and just let it go." And if that doesn't work, the windshield-wiper trick is pretty clever.

(5) Traffic Crashes Involving Young Missouri Drivers

Traffic crashes continue to take a toll on young Missourians. A young driver was involved in 28 percent of all fatal traffic crashes in 1994, up from 24 percent in 1993. This is an increase of 30 percent. The Missouri State Highway Patrol defines a young driver traffic crash as "any crash in which one or more drivers of motorized vehicles directly involved in the traffic crash were under the age of 21." The following is a summary analysis from the State Highway Patrol Statistical Analysis Center's annual Traffic Safety Compendium 1994.

Of all 1994 Missouri traffic crashes, 29.5 percent involved a young driver. Of all fatal traffic crashes, 27.9 percent involved a young driver. A total of 311 persons were killed and 25,996 were injured in traffic crashes involving young drivers. (See Map 1: Young Driver Involved Crashes, County Quartile Analysis, 1994 and Table 1: Young Driver Crashes in Missouri, 1994.) There was an increase of 5.4 percent in the rate of change when comparing 1994 young driver traffic crashes with those occurring in 1993. However, there was an increase of 29.5 percent when comparing 1994 fatal young driver traffic crashes with 1993. (See Figure 2: An increasing number of young driver traffic crashes involve fatalities.)

In 1994, one person was killed or injured in young driver related traffic crashes every 20 minutes in the state of Missouri. Of all young driver related traffic crashes, the first harmful event in 75 percent of the incidents involved one motor vehicle striking another motor vehicle while both were moving. In 15.6 percent of the cases, the first harmful event involved a motor vehicle striking a fixed object. In young driver fatal crashes, 33.6 percent of the cases involved a motor vehicle striking a fixed object. Of all 1994 young driver crashes, 60.6 percent occurred in an urban area and 39.4 percent occurred in a rural area of the state. However, 80.3 percent of the fatal young driver crashes occurred in a rural area. (See Figure 3: A greater proportion of the crashes occurring in rural areas result in fatalities.)

Of all young driver traffic crashes, 34.8 percent occurred on Friday or Saturday. Of all young drivers involved in traffic crashes, 59.8 percent were male and 40.2 percent were female. However, of all young drivers involved in fatal crashes, 73.9 percent were male. The average age of young drivers was 17.8 years. (See Figure 4: Most fatal young driver crashed involve a male driver.) The vast majority (90.6 percent) of the young drivers had a Missouri driver's license/permit, 5.9 percent had an out-of-state driver's license, and 3.5 percent were unlicensed at the time of the crash. Three out of four (77.2 percent) were driving an automobile and 15.4 percent were driving a pickup truck at the time of the crash.

In 40.5 percent of the 1994 young driver related fatal traffic crashes, a young driver was either exceeding the speed limit or driving too fast for conditions that contributed to the cause of the crash. In 17 percent of these fatal crashes, the young driver's drinking condition contributed to the cause of the crash.(See Figure 5: Inattention, speeding, driving on the wrong side of the road, and drinking continue to be leading contributors.) Steer clear of speeding moron motorists

(6) Most drivers on the road today are complete idiots.

Only a few courteous motorists and I drive perfectly and with safety as our chief concern. The majority tailgate, speed, weave back and forth to change lanes repeatedly, block traffic, never signal, cut off other vehicles or drive while brain-dead. The fools could kill me, and their inconsiderate, dangerous roadway antics make me wish for machine guns mounted under my hood. Many other motorists feel the same, which explains the increasing "road rage" on the nation's pavement. Stories in the Dallas Morning News, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and USA Today documented this increase in "aggressive" driving and the anger behind it. Traffic safety experts estimate that road rage was involved in almost 2,000 accidents each year in 1996 and 1997. Most drivers blame the "other guy" for the increase in aggressive driving and road rage. In a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, 74 percent of respondents said others are driving more aggressively than five years ago, but only 13 percent said they drive more aggressively than five years ago. Almost half, however, admitted an act of road rage in the past five years.

Men admitted being more aggressive than women. Acts of road rage in the survey included honking at a driving idiot; shouting, cussing or gesturing at a motorized moron; slowing down when an imbecile honked or flashed lights from behind; flashing high-beams at a pinhead for driving too slow; having an argument with a dumbbell driver; or physically fighting with the simpleton operator of another motor vehicle. Only 5 percent of men and 2 percent of women admitted fighting with a dunce driver. A fatal act of road rage happened in Dallas in February 1997. A delivery van driven by a 33-year-old man collided with a pickup truck driven by a 42-year old man. A side mirror was broken in the minor collision. The delivery driver got out of the van and argued with the pickup driver. The delivery man started punching the older man as he sat in his truck. The punchee pulled out his licensed, concealed .40-caliber handgun and shot the puncher in the chest. Police charged the shooter with murder, but a grand jury refused to indict him, clearing him in the road-rage killing. Texas justice, baby. I am the ultimate defensive driver. As a news reporter, I have seen too many brains and guts splattered on the road to drive like a fool. But I would be included in the 21 percent of men who admitted having a "verbal exchange" with another driver in the past five years.

I was driving a 37-foot, 19,000-pound 1978 Lincoln Town Car and entering a freeway on-ramp, when a speeding ninny in a Mercedes shot out of nowhere to within two feet of my back bumper. That's where he stayed as I accelerated to get on the freeway, past 35 mph, 45 mph, 55 mph. At that speed, I finally decided that two feet was too close for the brainy driver of the German automobile to be following. The Mercedes was boxy, large and heavy, enough metal to run most cars off the road, but not enough to push my 37-foot Town Car out of the way. So I slowed way down and pulled to the right, forcing the Mercedes to go around or go real slow. The Mercedes and aggressive driver went by. I held the wheel with my right hand and extended a middle-finger salute with my left. Mr. Mercedes entered the freeway, and I followed. Soon, I noticed he had slowed and taken the same lane directly behind me. He followed me at my exit. I stopped on the access road, and he pulled behind. He got out and approached my car, one clue he was crazy. A screaming exchange of all known cuss words in the English language commenced. He accused me of pulling in front of him. I said the way was clear and that he must have been driving like a bat out of hell to pull up on my bumper so fast.

"Where'd you get your license, Kmart?! What were you trying to do by following right on my ass?! Kill me?!" I screamed through the open window. The man cussed back and inched closer to the car. "You better get back!" I said, pondering whether to jump out and go to fist city with the lumpy man, who appeared about 10 years older. I think I could have kicked the living crap out of him. But his cockiness-- unwarranted by his age, stature and physical condition -- and the right arm he kept behind his back, told me something wasn't right, that I better not get out. We continued the spew of cussing for a couple of minutes before he got back in his car and left. Road rage. My blood pressure goes up just thinking about it. Mount the machine guns!

(7) Road Rage symbolizes our deepest fears

One of the persistent paradoxes of modern life is that crime rates and fear of crime do not always bear a close relation to one another. Even as crime rates drop substantially, majorities of Americans polled continue to say that crime is increasing or staying the same, and voters continue to put crime near the top of their lists of concerns. In 1996, for example, 47 percent of Americans in one Roper poll named "crime and lawlessness" as one of their top two or three concerns. Between 1981 and 1996, the proportion of Americans who said they felt very safe alone at night in their neighborhood plummeted from 46 percent to 28 percent. If crime rates don't completely explain our fear of crime, what does?

More violence on TV news? Perhaps. But there is another explanation as well. What worries Americans is not just crime, but lawlessness -- the feeling that one can't be sure how the people we meet on the street will behave. Incivility is a lot scarier than crime, in large part because it is far more frequent. A sense of unease in public spaces is a consequence of a society in which there are no social rules, no set standards of behavior. In the absence of shared conventions, the behavior of strangers becomes difficult to interpret. Sometimes a man with his pants hanging halfway down over his underwear is just a man without a belt, but hey, you never know.

The disquieting sense that there are no rules, that strangers cannot be trusted, stems as much from small, angry confrontations with seemingly respectable passersby as with personal experience with muggers, thieves, rapists. Watching a fellow citizen go berserk can be even scarier if he is behind the wheel of 3,000 pounds of steel, a.k.a. the American family sedan. Or she. In Cincinnati, People magazine reports, a young woman, angry at the way others were driving, slammed on her brakes, causing an accident that cost a pregnant woman her baby. An extreme example of an everyday occurrence that trendologists are calling "road rage." It's a big problem. A 1995 survey by Texas A&M University and Sam Houston State University found that fully 38 percent of Americans worry very or somewhat frequently about being attacked while driving a car. "Road rage murders are happening all over the country," Arnold Nerenberg, a psychologist who specializes in treating -- what shall we call them? driving disorders? -- told People. One estimate, culled from newspaper stories, put the number of people killed by road rage each year at more than 1,800, according to USA Today.

In the USA Today poll, men and women were equally likely to honk at those who upset them. When it comes to shouting, cursing out or making, shall we say, aggrieved gestures at another driver, just under half of men (46 percent) confess to having done the dirty deed, compared to about a third of women. Few drivers let it go on to physical blows, but those who do are twice as likely to be male as female. Why is it that on the road of life, a little injustice makes so many of us see red? More people, driving longer commutes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Yet many of us claim to be immune from the frustration. Just 13 percent of Americans, according to a USA Today poll, admit that they themselves drive more aggressively than they did five years ago. The rest of us blame the other guy. And maybe we're right. After all, how many mad, tailgating, cross-weaving speedballers do there have to be to give the rest of us the impression it's not safe out there anymore? They can't all be running from paparazzi, can they?

(8) Cornhill takes a tough stance on "Road Rage"

Convictions related to "Road Rage" type incidents will have serious implications warns Cornhill Insurance. When applying for motor insurance or renewing an existing policy it is an obligation on the customer to disclose any convictions or pending prosecutions for any motoring offence and certain activities linked to "Road Rage" fall into this category. For example, a conviction for reckless driving is a serious offence and will result in stiff insurance penalties ranging from cover restrictions and substantial premium increases to refusing to offer cover. Some incidents involving road users such as deliberately causing personal injury or damage to property may not be classed as motoring offences. However, a prosecution for such an offence arising out of the use of a motor vehicle will be regarded as a material fact which should be disclosed. Any such conviction will be treated very severely by Cornhill.

Commenting on the issue Denis Loretto, Cornhill's General Manager, UK Branch Division said: "As a responsible insurer we are determined to adopt a hard line on what are serious breaches of the law. There can be little excuse for engaging in what have been termed "Road Rage" incidents so we hope people will think again about the consequences of their actions before getting involved in this type of activity. Not only will they have a criminal record they may also find it very difficult to get motor insurance." He added: "Cornhill's claim files are showing that more and more motor accidents include an element of "Road Rage" mentality which has either caused the accident or made matters worse." Examples of "Road Rage" incidents include:

1.A Surrey woman driving a convertible was involved in an incident where another driver took exception to a traffic maneuver and began spitting at the woman at a set of traffic lights. This was followed by the contents of a hot cup of coffee from a Thermos flask. The woman sped off but the other driver followed her home where he attacked the vehicle with a wheel brace causing over £1,000 worth of damage.

2.The Leeds motorist who was threatened by a driver brandishing a machete following a minor accident which only cost £130 to repair.

3.A Kent woman driving a Metro overtook an elderly gentleman believed to be in his 70's. He took exception to the maneuver and attacked the other car with his walking stick, smashing the windscreen causing more than £150 worth of damage.

4.In Glasgow, a cyclist incensed that a motorist had knocked him off his bike, picked up the badly damaged machine and repeatedly hurled it at the car.

5.A Liverpool builder who believed he had been "cut up" by another motorist, removed a club hammer from his van and repeatedly hit the roof of the other vehicle, completely writing it off.

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