LONDON — A speeding car can be a deadly weapon on its own, but a new survey reveals that many Americans make sure they are armed when they get behind the wheel.
A survey of 1,000 US residents, commissioned by circuit route planner, finds that a staggering 65 percent of drivers keep a gun in their vehicle in case they need to defend themselves during a road rage incident. The most common weapon concealed by drivers is a knife (50%), followed by pepper spray (45%). However, 40 percent admit to carrying a gun while traveling.
Other weapons that American drivers keep on hand include tire wrenches (39%), baseball bats (38%), hockey sticks (31%), tasers (31%), and lacrosse sticks (14%).
As for the cars you’ll want to steer clear of if things heat up on the road, the survey finds that BMW, Hyundai and Mercedes drivers are the most likely to keep a dangerous weapon in your car By the way, researchers report that highway shootings hit a record in 2021.
Regarding, it doesn’t seem to matter where Americans drive, local residents believe that the rage that builds up on the roads is worse where they live. While 39 percent of urban drivers believe road rage is worse where they live than anywhere else in the country, 53 percent still believe urban drivers are just as prone to road rage. More than half of rural (54%), small-town (58%) and suburban (67%) people think road rage is just as bad where they live as anywhere else, including cities.
Who are the biggest culprits for road rage?
Whether true or not, men have the worst reputation when it comes to angry behavior in the path. Half of the survey thinks that men are those most prone to road rage incidents, closely followed by younger drivers (42%). Sports car owners (35%), women (31%) and older drivers (28%) also get a bad rap for being overly aggressive drivers.
Interestingly, women seem to be the most critical of women drivers. In fact, women surveyed were 71 percent more likely than men to accuse other women of succumbing to road rage.
So what do we mean when we talk about “road rage”? These actions include everything from accelerating (which 40% of those surveyed admit they do), honking their horn (28%), braking suddenly or “slowing down” another driver (26%), making angry hand gestures ( 24%) and yelling (23%). %).
However, things can get out of hand quickly, resulting in some drivers chasing or racing other cars (20%), purposely intercepting vehicles (16%), tailgating (16%) and even pointing a gun at another driver (4%).
The capital of road rage is in… Oregon?
While busy streets and bumper-to-bumper traffic would seem to make big cities the perfect place for road rage, the survey found that the road rage “capital” of the United States is actually Eugene, Oregon.
Using data from Twitter, the survey found that for every 100,000 people, 500 #roadrage tweets come from this Pacific Northwest city. That’s more than 100 more than the next closest location: Atlanta, Georgia. Interestingly, famously congested areas like New York and Los Angeles didn’t even make the top 20 cities for road rage.
Since road rage can easily lead to accidents, injuries and even deaths, researchers say it’s critical drivers learn to keep a cool head. Here are some tips from AAA To handle potential road rage incidents while driving:
- Keep a safe following distance
- Honk only when necessary
- Do not make others change their speed or direction
- be nice (Imagine that the person who just retired in front of you lost their job today)
- Don’t get involved with angry motorists
Methodology
Circuit Route Planner surveyed 1,000 Americans about their perceptions of road rage and their own driving behaviors. This data was combined with a Twitter scraping of #roadrage and analyzed by the location of each tweet. All data is per 100,000 residents in the top 150 cities by population in the US.
