Events & Issues

New Delhi, 13 May 2016

Increasing Road Rage

ROAD BELONGS TO ME, WHO ARE YOU?

By Vinod Sharma

The brutal killing of a 20-year old boy in Bihar’s Gaya town is the latest incident of road rage following an altercation over overtaking. The culprit? The son of history-sheeter-turned-JD (U) MLA Bindeshwari Prasad Yadav aka Bindi Yadav.

Sadly, this will not be last road rage incident across the country. Examples abound:  Delhi dentist Dr Pankaj Narang was killed with iron rods by some youths after he accosted two bikers for rash driving last month. In another occurrence a 40-year old man was beaten to death in front of his two teenage sons after his motorbike grazed the assailants’ car in the midst of a wedding ceremony April last year.

More shocking a DTC driver was bludgeoned to death by a hysterical motorcycle-borne youth after the bus hit his bike slightly from behind. His mother was pillion-riding when the unfortunate incident took place. Instead of preventing her son from mercilessly hitting the driver with his helmet, she instigated him by asserting “teach him a lesson of life. He must know that we are from Mundka”. The driver died on the spot in full public view, with nobody mustering courage to stop the attack.

Raising a moot point: Why are people so angry and impatient on roads?

Notably, Indian drivers are angry particularly the youth who are more susceptible to indulge in road rage. Psychologists aver that young male drivers are three times more risky given their proneness to untoward consequences than mature adults. Older drivers seem to be more law abiding and less risk taking thereby decreasing chances of anger and road rage.

Besides, reckless, fast and dangerous driving is more prevalent among young drivers and increases the chances of road rage. Thus, age is the most important factor in aggressive driving confrontations with a majority of belligerent drivers being men between 18 and 26 who are sensation-seeking.

Other causes for anger could be less experience in dealing with such situations, influence of substance taking, peer influence as also a reduced attention span.

Undeniably, the incidents of road rage are on the rise in India, resulting in increasing crime in the form of arguments and assaults ending up in grievous injuries and fatalities. According to Delhi Police, they receive 10-12 phone calls daily about scuffles, trivial or big, on roads.

In addition, risky driving is one of the most common causes of road accidents. In fact, the prevalence of Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs) has been drastically increasing every year.

According to a study, it is estimated that by 2020 road traffic disability-adjusted life years lost will move from being the 9th to the 3rd leading cause in the world and 2nd leading cause in developing countries. According to World Health Organization RTAs are the sixth leading cause for hospitalization, disabilities, death and economic losses in India.

Pertinently, there are several factors responsible for rising road rage incidents in our country. One, Escalation of Driving Anger Scale (DAS) is the root cause of this behavioral problem. Two, traffic congestion, weather conditions, noise, time constraint and underlying emotions of anger, frustration and irritation. Three, individual characteristics like age, gender, socio-economic status and family leanings along-with a person’s personality are other factors for road rage.

However, a narcissistic approach and feudalistic mentality of off-springs of high and mighty people and neo-rich also plays a major role in youths resorting to deadly road rage crimes, that too, within a fraction of a minute. The Gaya case of a legislator’s son is an offshoot of this feudalistic approach.  

What is road rage? An incident where an angry or impatient vehicle driver or passenger intentionally attempts, threatens to injure, injures or kills another automobile driver, passenger, or pedestrian in response to a traffic dispute, altercation, or grievance.

It includes verbal abuse, threats, obscene gestures, flashing headlights or high-beams, honking, malicious braking, blocking other vehicles, threatening with weapons, firing gun shots, hitting vehicles with objects, chasing a vehicle and trying to run the car/van off the road.

Comparatively, on assessment of DAS sub-scale scoring with other countries like US, UK and Australia anger levels are high in India in all the sub-scales. Alas, tolerance to anger and not provoking a situation is decreasing day-by-day especially in developing countries like India due to a callous attitude of both the driver and pedestrians to follow traffic rules.

Furthermore, overcrowding of both vehicles and people leads to more of unauthorized parking and traffic congestion. Alongside the long working hours and extreme hot weather conditions in the country reduces the threshold of anger among drivers.

Studies suggest that road rage is not an official mental disorder but a behavior typically associated with road rage could be the result of a disorder known as intermittent explosive disorder.

Interestingly, one-third of Indian drivers acknowledge various forms of road rage, with the majority being young and male. Contributory variables to road rage include environmental inconsistencies such as crowded roads and high levels of traffic density and psychological factors like displaced anger, illogical attributions, and high life stress and bona fide psychiatric disorders.

Regarding those with psychological malady those with road rage appear to have high rates of alcohol and drug difficulties; elevated general psychiatric symptoms of anxiety and depression These findings suggest that individuals with road rage come from a variety of psychological substrates, all of which might culminate in an event that not only places the victim at risk, but also the perpetrator.

In order to tackle this menace, addressing people’s ability to deal with stress and anger and discouraging risky driving behaviour is of paramount importance. There is also an urgent need for effective screening and educating a driver to reduce the risk of driving anger, accidents and road rage incidents.

Like India, other countries, namely, US, Canada, Australia, England, Ireland, Japan and New Zealand are taking steps to find some solution to this perennial problem. But, approaches to the crisis vary according to the different cultural norms of each country.

Clearly, road rage is a serious crime in India and is ever-increasing. One of the best ways to avoid becoming a victim of road rage is to stop responding, or making eye-contact, refuse to fight with the offender and shun making driving a road competition or a show of speed.

The time to enact stringent legislations to deal with road rage offenders has come. Undoubtedly, unambiguous laws and penalties are also needed along-with proper education given to road users about the legal consequences of such laws. Needless to say that spoilt progenies of big-wigs often driving in inebriated condition who consider roads as their father’s property must be dealt with sternly to reduce the menace of road rage incidents in India. ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)