Under Pressure on the Road: Understanding Road Rage

"A 2024 survey found that a whopping 96% of respondents witnessed an act of road rage in the previous six months. A 2025 AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety report found that 96% of drivers admitted to engaging in aggressive driving or road rage behaviors at least once in the previous year. What's more, not only is road rage common, but it can also seem to be contagious. Survey participants in this same report identified other drivers' poor driving behaviors as a key factor in their own driving behavior."

"Buffalo State University psychology professor and driver stress and aggression researcher Dwight Hennessy described today's daily urban traffic environment in a 2024 American Psychological Association podcast as "full of these everyday stressors that on their own might seem mundane, but they tend to accumulate." With many people having to "spend a considerable amount of time on the road," he explained, " many people end up dealing not only with stressors that come from the situation itself, but also in our transactions and interactions with other people.""

"These transactions and interactions run the gamut from mildly rude responses, like horn honking, refusing to allow others to merge into traffic, and angry hand gestures, to more aggressive and dangerous behaviors, like tailgating, cutting off other drivers, aggressive lane changes, running traffic lights, weaving through traffic, deliberately slowing down or speeding up out of anger."

Road rage is common and appears to spread through drivers’ reactions to others’ behavior. Surveys report that nearly all drivers witness road rage and admit to engaging in aggressive driving at least once in a year. Many people believe road rage is getting worse. Stressors in daily traffic accumulate over time, including stress from the driving situation and from interactions with other people. These interactions range from rude gestures and honking to dangerous actions such as tailgating, cutting off, aggressive lane changes, running traffic lights, weaving, and deliberately speeding up or slowing down. Managing road rage involves reframing perceived threats to reduce aggressive responses.

Read at Psychology Today