http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=638992Australian drivers are getting angrier and they're not shy about showing other motorists exactly how they feel.
Figures released by insurance company AAMI shows driver aggression is at an all-time high with acts of revenge becoming increasingly popular.
The figures show 68 per cent of drivers had been tailgated at some point, while 32 per cent said they had been followed.
The number of motorists who considered tailgating to be an acceptable response to road rage had more than quadrupled since AAMI first canvassed road rage among drivers in 1997 when just five per cent said they had been angry enough to tailgate another driver.
Alarmingly, one in seven drivers surveyed said they had been forced off the road, while one in 10 have had their car wilfully damaged as a result of an altercation with another motorist.
Two-thirds, or 69 per cent, said they had been verbally abused, while four in five, or 83 per cent, had received rude hand gestures.
More than half (57 per cent) of those surveyed admitted to gesturing rudely or yelling at another driver when they had done something dangerous or rude.
Of those, 83 per cent thought the payback was justified.
"While many of us have sworn or gestured rudely at other drivers from time to time, it is completely unacceptable that one-fifth of drivers have become so angry with the actions of another motorist that they have resorted to tailgating," AAMI public affairs manager Geoff Hughes said.
"If this wasn't bad enough, 60 per cent of those drivers thought tailgating as retribution was entirely justifiable."
"The rise in road rage is worrying in itself, however, also concerning is the increasing number of motorists who believe this sort of retaliation is entirely acceptable," Mr Hughes said.
What people fail to realise is that 95%+ of road rage incidents occur because people can't drive.
On Sunday my girlfriend and I were riding (two bikes) from Norman Park to Acacia Ridge. I was cut off once, she was cut off three times. Yesterday, she had her license test and was cut off once on the way there. The icing on the cake was DURING HER TEST whilst she was ONE OF FIVE BIKES IN A LINE, ALL WEARING FLUORESCENT VESTS someone pulled straight out in front of her.
Topping it off, when I picked her up from her license test (passed, but not able to ride alone until you take the slip to QLD Transport) we were sitting in a turning lane on Ipswich Road and a guy pulled out of a driveway and stopped HORIZONTALLY ACROSS TWO LANES as he couldn't get into the turning lane from that angle and decided to sit there and block traffic until the light went green... after a solid two minutes of blocking traffic he finally changed his mind and drove off.
I'm not so sure that road rage is the problem...
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).......on the way there, I had to go through a new roundabout near the airport. So far so good......in the right hand lane approaching said roundabout is a Mercedes coupe of some description.....travelling about 50kmh in a 60 zone.........so far so good.
