Ms. Ivey
English 3 Honors
21 February 2017
Road Rage in United States
On 1 December 2016, NFL player Joe McKnight was killed in a road rage incident in Behram Highway and Holmes Boulevard in Tarrytown, Louisiana. (CBS/AP) Each day, many lives are being lost on the road due to road rage accidents which can range from running a red light to killing another person. As the new generation is growing up, road rage incidents are increasing in the United States of America; effecting and leading to harmful side effects on society. Looking at the history, the term road rage was first coined in the United States in the 1980s when highway shooting occurred in California. (Martin) From that point forward, it has often been referred to as …show more content…
(Aggressive Driving) One of the several facts that provides evidence to the previous statement includes a report from AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety which shows that at least 218 men, women, and children were known to have been murdered and 12,610 people injured because of 10,037 road rage accidents. (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety) With that in mind, the usage of weapons has been running parallel to the increase in road rage incidents. For instance, some of the weapons used during road rage accidents include “firearm, knife, club, fist, feet or other standard weapon for the attack”. (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety) To be even more precise, in 37 percent of cases, a firearm was used while in 35 percent, the vehicle itself was used as a weapon. (AAA Foundation) If this trend continues, the rate of injuries will decrease while the rate of murders will increase as weapons can used an instrument to ease …show more content…
In fact, there has been numerous research that shows the connection between violent games and aggressive behaviors. In the article by Gentile, Douglas A., it discussed how the youth who were introduced and exposed to violent video games at younger age often viewed the world as a hostile place in which they also have to act as angrily to survive. (Gentile) In addition to that, the article by Bushman, Brad J., and Craig A. Anderson, also showed how aggression is basically triggered by the aggression-related knowledge structures stored in memory. Based on the previous information discussed, we can see how violent games play a crucial role in casing aggression which results in aggressive behavior causing road rage accidents. Based on this information, we can conclude that accidents rate among Generation X and Generation Y is higher since they are the recent ones who have been greatly influenced by technology. In addition to that, a report from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration provides chart that shows the number of accidents among each age group. In that graph, accidents among age group 19-64 was the highest.