Road Rage a mental illness?

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