Stupidity is all-season. Winter, spring, summer or fall, you can find drivers committing futile senseless acts. Road rage, however, seems to flourish in warmer months. Perhaps it’s because during the summer practitioners can leap angrily from their vehicles armed with baseball bats (who doesn’t drive with a baseball bat beside them) or roll down their windows to curse without getting hit with a blast of winter cold. In the days before universal air-conditioning, you could blame oven-like automobile interiors for road rage; as temperatures rose, so did anger. Today, however, most cars are climate-controlled and equipped with Apple CarPlay and the like. You’d think that drivers might have evolved.
They have not.
They rage, rage as if driving was their divine right.
If you can’t beat them, avoid them. It’s with this mantra in mind that I offer the “Road Rage Quiz” designed to test your knowledge of this most human of human failings. If you know the nature of the beast, you’ll – hopefully – be able to avoid it on the roads and highways.
1. What percentage of Canadian drivers have admitted to acting out Road Rage behaviour?
a) 25 per cent
b) 51 per cent
c) 100 per cent
d) 17 per cent
2. In March, James Macdonald, former pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel in Illinois, struck a 59-year-old woman’s car while trying to parallel park in Coronado, Calif. After the collision, 62-year-old Macdonald…
a) Exited his car and blessed her.
b) Exited his car and attacked her.
c) Exited his car, attacked her after which she was taken to hospital and treated for serious injuries.
d) Exited his car, attacked her, after which she was taken to hospital and treated for serious injuries. He was then charged with battery causing serious bodily injury and assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury.
3. True or False
a) In February, Maharaj Kaushal Giri, who has adopted the title sadhu, attempted to use a sword to clear traffic congestion at the Jadan Toll Plaza in India.
b) A Southern California couple, who operated a YouTube channel that offered viewers more than 160 dashcam videos of “vehicle crashes, close calls and road rages” was charged with insurance fraud, assault with a deadly weapon and child endangerment.
c) A Land Rover dragged a man more than three kilometres in a road rage incident in Delhi. The driver claimed, “My car did not even touch his car, I was driving when he deliberately jumped on the bonnet of my car. I asked him to get down but he did not listen. I then stopped my car and asked him what was he doing?”
d) A 31-year-old Alabama woman named Erica Cole accidentally shot her own husband in the head during a road rage incident. Her better half was having a physical dispute with another driver. Cole produced a pistol and, apparently, thought the best way to resolve the dispute was to shoot the other driver, but missed. Her husband survived. “The main thing is don’t let annoyance cause you to do something that you will have to pay for or regret for the rest of your life,” said County Sheriff Matt Gentry.
e) Beyond Meat chief operating officer Doug Ramsey was arrested in September for “allegedly biting off the tip of a man’s nose” in a road rage incident.
4. The worst place in Ontario for road rage in 2022 was:
a) Toronto
b) Ottawa
c) North York
d) Hamilton
e) Brampton
5. When you think of it, road rage makes sense because it…
a) Allows people with poor self-control to become lethal liabilities because of their occupancy of several tons of rolling automotive steel.
b) Doesn’t fix traffic congestion, but does cause unnecessary suffering and grief.
c) Makes the “rager” feel good for a few seconds before the police arrive.
d) Sets a good example for the kids.
e) None of the above.
6. What’s the difference between road rage and “discourteous driving?”
a) Tailgating is an example of discourteous driving.
b) Drivers use discourteous driving as a warm-up before committing acts of road rage.
c) Road rage is what other people do. Discourteous driving is what people admit to doing occasionally.
7. The only positive thing ever to come out of road rage was the 2003 video game “Simpson’s Hit & Run.” Which of the following features did it not have?
a) You could be one of five characters – Marge, Homer, Lisa, Bart or Apu.
b) It was Grand Theft Auto for kids.
c) Mr. Burns shaves his head and drives a 1971 Chevelle.
d) Hit & Run had a third-person view sandbox-style format.
e) Krusty the Clown releases a “new and improved” brand of Buzz Cola and black vans appear in Springfield. Homer is sure a black van is spying on his family.
f) Barney is the mastermind behind the black vans.
8. According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), fatalities related to road rage incidents in the United States rose by what percentage between 2006 and 2015.
a) 50 per cent
b) 100 per cent
c) 500 per cent
d) 78 per cent
9. How many American drivers admit to keeping a weapon or safety device in their vehicle?
a) 1 in 4
b) 1 in 6
c) 1 in 3
d) 1 in 10
10. What percentage of drivers regret keeping their cool and not succumbing to road rage.
a) Zero
b) Zero point zero.
c) All of the above
Answers:
1) B, according to a poll conducted by Leger and published by Ratesdotca last July.
2) D
3) Of course, they’re all true.
4) C – North York
5) D
6) C
7) C and E
8) C - Almost 500 percent. According to NHSTA, fatal crashes linked to aggressive driving rose from 80 in 2006 to 467 in 2015.
9) A - Florida drivers are way above the national average - 35 per cent.
10) C
Score: one point for every question answered correctly.
Your score –
1 to 3: Anger management would be a good idea.
4 to 6: Even Steven.
7 to 9: Excellent self-control.
10: Buddha behind the wheel.