Under Pressure on the Road: Understanding Road Rage |
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Both external and internal factors contribute to aggressive reactions.
Reframing perceived threats is key to managing road rage.
Have you ever found yourself enraged after being cut off or blocked from merging into traffic, agitated by a rude hand gesture from another driver, or running low on patience in gridlocked construction-zone traffic? If so, you are not alone.
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. According to 2025 research, over 75% of people believe road rage is getting worse.
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........