NCJ Number
214303
Date Published
May 2006
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This paper considers how best to define the phenomenon called "road rage" in Australia and how to measure its prevalence.
Abstract
In studying violence associated with motor vehicle use, the Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee of the Parliament of Victoria (Australia) rejected the term "road rage" as so imprecise as to be meaningless. Instead, it described motor-vehicle-related violence with the following three terms: "road violence," "road hostility," and "selfish driving." The committee defined "road violence" as "spontaneous, driving-related acts of violence that target strangers, or where strangers reasonably feel they are being targeted." "Road hostility" refers to "spontaneous, driving-related nonviolent but hostile acts that target strangers, or where strangers reasonably feel they are being targeted." "Selfish driving" is "time urgent or self-oriented driving behavior that is committed at the expense of other drivers in general, but which does not specifically target individuals." The author of this paper notes that most acts could be placed in a combination of these three motor-vehicle-related behaviors. The committee noted the difficulty of determining victims from offenders in many such incidents. Measuring the financial and personal impacts of such driving behaviors is particularly difficult. The primary data sources for road violence include victimization surveys, official police statistics, and analyses of media reports. Most of the problems in obtaining reliable data on road violence are due to lack of uniform and precise definitions rather than data inaccuracy. Data collection could be improved by having a specific road-violence offense, identifying road-violence incidents in official statistics, conducting large-scale victimization surveys, and by using media analyses to determine which aspects of road violence are being reported. 1 table, 3 figures, and 6 references