Road Rage a mental illness?
June 7, 2006 by Alborz Fallah
I wrote a little article about road rage in Australia a few weeks ago and I pretty much admitted that I suffer from road rage. Not much has changed since then! Today I found an interesting article over at News.com.au which discusses a recent study at the University of Chicago in the USA that shows Road Rage as being a Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). In otherwords, if you lose your temper and get angry at other drivers for merging into you, you are, for a better word, mentally ill! The only good news for Australians who suffer Road Rage is that we can now legally get a Disabled Parking Permit!
Intermittent explosive disorder involves multiple outbursts way out of proportion to the situation, often including threats or aggressive actions and property damage.The disorder typically first appears in adolescence – the study identified the average age of onset as 14.
What The? Given that the survey has been conducted in the US, I am not sure whether or not it really applies here in Australia. I mean for a start we don’t carry shotguns in our cars and don’t tend to kill people when they merge into us without indicating. Thats more an American tradition.
“It is news to a lot of people, even specialists in mental health services, that such a large proportion of the population has these clinically significant anger attacks” Prof Kessler said.
It news to me too buddy! Nevertheless, there WAS a survey of similar nature conducted by Proton Australia (yes odd source) to find out the statistics for Road Rage for young drivers (17-20):
60 percent of the 3000 respondents had at some stage in the past year either perpetrated or been witness to a road rage incident.
Proton
It seems to me that Road Rage occurs when I have had a bad day and I’ve just about had it and then someone in a Toyota Landcruiser decides to cut me off. If getting angry and swearing at the driver is a Mental Illness, then please send me my disabled parking permit.
Update :
Spinopsys gives a view on the article
Print it: 
Well, I’m an American and I don’t own a gun. Not sure what your source of information is, although I’ve heard the same false information, but if you’ve never been here, don’t talk poorly about us. In all honesty though, I have been to Australia and loved it. Everyone is so much more pleasant.
Now, to your point regarding road-rage. Since we have the same problem here in America, I feel that I can make some educated remarks but I’ll simplify it to this: If the gov’t wants to get rid of road rage, make getting a driving license more difficult and make people actually learn how to drive. Teach drivers common courtesy, like how to move over when possible if another car is merging onto the highway. Require drivers to be retested every so many years so old people that can’t even see properly don’t put the rest of us at risk.
Okay…that’s all. Thanks for reading.
“Australians who suffer Road Rage is that we can now legally get a Disabled Parking Permit!”
LOL :D
Fri 27 Feb 2009 – road rager (vic reg PLT 550) hangs lighted cigarette out of driver side window, on total fire ban day, shouting “dickhead” to other drivers sharing road.
PS – ref to PLT 550’s “delightful” behaviour – the location was Melbourne Victoria Australia, where recently more than 200 deaths occurred and thousands of people’s houses were burned to cinders because of forest & bushfires.
Road Rage. Report other road ragers.
Fri 27 Feb 2009 – road rager (vic reg PLT 550) hangs lighted cigarette out of driver side window, on total fire ban day, shouting “dickhead” to other drivers sharing road. The location was Melbourne Victoria Australia, where recently more than 200 deaths occurred and thousands of people’s houses were burned to cinders because of forest & bushfires.