Road rage is aggressive or angry behavior by a driver of an automobile or other road vehicle which includes rude gestures, verbal insults, physical threats or dangerous driving methods targeted toward another driver in an effort to intimidate or release frustration. Road rage can lead to altercations, assaults and collisions that result in serious physical injuries or even death. The term originated in the United States in 1987–1988 (specifically, from Newscasters at KTLA, a television station in Los Angeles, California), when a rash of freeway shootings occurred on the Interstate 405, 110, and 10 freeways in Los Angeles. These shooting sprees even spawned a response from the AAA Motor Club to its members on how to respond to drivers with road rage or aggressive maneuvers and gestures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_rage
Road rage can be a very terrifying experience if you come across someone that starts taking their rage out on you especially if you don’t even know what you might have done to make the other driver angry. You can start to protect yourself by refusing to get angry with them. Don’t engage with them in any manner. Avoid eye contact with them. Think twice before honking your horn at them. By all means, do not retaliate against them. This could cause an incident to escalate quickly. Aggressive driving occasionally escalates to gesturing in anger or yelling at another motorist, confrontation, physical assault, and even murder.
And for those who are guilty of displaying road rage, aggressive behavior on the road, the citation in Tennessee is for “reckless driving”. Reckless driving is a Class B misdemeanor and is punishable by up to 6 months in jail and fines up to $500.00 (TCA 55-10-205).
Alabama drivers can expect the following: (b) Every person convicted of road rage when charged with reckless driving shall be punished upon a first conviction by imprisonment for a period of not less than five days nor more than 90 days, or by fine of not less than $25.00 nor more than $500.00, or by both such fine and imprisonment, and on a second or subsequent conviction shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than 10 days nor more than six months, or by a fine of not less than $50.00 nor more than $500.00, or by both such fine and imprisonment, and the court may prohibit the person so convicted from driving a motor vehicle on the public highways of this state for a period not exceeding six months, and the license of the person shall be suspended for such period by the Director of Public Safety pursuant to Section 32-5A-195.
