Road belongs to me, who are you?

The brutal killing of a 20-year old boy in Bihar’s Gaya town is the latest incident of road rage following an altercation over overtaking. The culprit? The son of history-sheeter-turned-JD (U) MLA Bindeshwari Prasad Yadav aka Bindi Yadav.

Sadly, this will not be last road rage incident across the country. Examples abound: Delhi dentist Dr Pankaj Narang was killed with iron rods by some youths after he accosted two bikers for rash driving last month. In another occurrence, a 40-year old man was beaten to death in front of his two teenage sons after his motorbike grazed the assailants’ car in the midst of a wedding ceremony April last year.

More shocking a DTC driver was bludgeoned to death by a hysterical motorcycle-borne youth after the bus hit his bike slightly from behind. His mother was pillion-riding when the unfortunate incident took place. Instead of preventing her son from mercilessly hitting the driver with his helmet, she instigated him by asserting “teach him a lesson of life. He must know that we are from Mundka.” The driver died on the spot in full public view, with nobody mustering courage to stop the attack.

Raising a moot point: Why are people so angry and impatient on roads?
Notably, Indian drivers are angry, particularly the youth who are more susceptible to indulge in road rage. Psychologists aver that young male drivers are three times more risky given their proneness to untoward consequences than mature adults. Older drivers seem to be more law abiding and less risk taking thereby decreasing chances of anger and road rage.

Besides, reckless, fast and dangerous driving is more prevalent among young drivers and increases the chances of road rage. Thus, age is the most important factor in aggressive driving confrontations with a majority of belligerent drivers being men between 18 and 26 who are sensation-seeking. Other causes for anger could be less experience in dealing with such situations, influence of substance taking, peer influence as also a reduced attention span.

Undeniably, the incidents of road rage are on the rise in India, resulting in increasing crime in the form of arguments and assaults ending up in grievous injuries and fatalities. According to Delhi Police, they receive 10-12 phone calls daily about scuffles, trivial or big, on roads. What is road rage? An incident where an angry or impatient vehicle driver or passenger intentionally attempts, threatens to injure, injures or kills another automobile driver, passenger, or pedestrian in response to a traffic dispute, altercation, or grievance.

In order to tackle this menace, addressing people’s ability to deal with stress and anger and discouraging risky driving behaviour is of paramount importance. There is also an urgent need for effective screening and educating a driver to reduce the risk of driving anger, accidents and road rage incidents.

Clearly, road rage is a serious crime in India and is ever-increasing. One of the best ways to avoid becoming a victim of road rage is to stop responding, or making eye-contact, refuse to fight with the offender and shun making driving a road competition or a show of speed. The time to enact stringent legislations to deal with road rage offenders has come.

By Vinod Sharma