‘Outrageous’: Dashcam videos reveal huge problem as road rage grips Australian roads
Every week, dashcam footage catches Aussies performing an “alarming” act that puts other drivers at risk.
Drivers brawling in the streets, cutting each other off, tailgating and brake-checking.
Every week, a stream of dashcam and phone camera footage is uploaded to social media showing Aussies flying into fits of road rage. One page dedicated to the videos, Dash Cam Owners Australia, has garnered up to 10 million views on some of its compilation videos.
If the snapshot is any indication, our roads are increasingly chaotic and drivers have shorter fuses than ever.
Criminologist and former detective Vincent Hurley is worried the spread of dashcam footage is making viewers more likely to engage in that type of behaviour themselves.
“They may not consciously think about it at the time, but subconsciously, if people see something in the media or social media, often enough, it becomes really normative,” Mr Hurley told news.com.au.
“It becomes normal to them in their behaviour.”
Australia doesn’t keep official data on road rage incidents, so it’s unclear whether the problem is getting worse. But recent surveys show it remains common.
“Some of the behaviours that are now getting caught on camera are outrageous,” National Roads and Motorists’ Association (NRMA) spokesman Peter Khoury said.
“We’re seeing people getting out of their cars and throwing haymakers in the middle of busy highways; people ending up on median strips and throwing punches at each other; one person getting out and then charging at another vehicle and throwing punches inside the window.”
Research conducted by the NRMA last September found almost half of Aussies (44 per cent) had been the victim of road rage over the previous 12 months.
“What was really alarming is of those, about one fifth occurred when there were kids in the car, so that’s also very worrying” Mr Khoury said of the survey of 1500 members.
Younger drivers aged 25-34 were significantly more likely to have experienced it (62 per cent), the survey showed.
The most common road rage behaviour reported was tailgating (71 per cent), followed by drivers beeping other drivers (67 per cent), and drivers deliberately cutting in front of other vehicles (58 per cent).
NRMA also found almost one-in-five drivers now have dashboard cameras installed in their vehicles, and five per cent of drivers reported they had recorded bad driving behaviour on their phone.
“Each dashcam is effectively an extra set of eyes for the police, and for TV news, and the same goes for anybody who might be walking past with a smartphone. So you’re going to get caught, is the message,” Mr Khoury said.
“You become a national embarrassment overnight, because what we see increasingly is that this footage ends up on the nightly news and it ends up all over social media.
“I don’t think people think about that in the moment but it certainly has time to sink in afterwards.”
Mr Khoury urged anyone who was targeted by road rage not to engage with the behaviour.
“We encourage people to just drive away.
“It’s really important not to react. If there’s a police station nearby, drive to the police station, and get out of that situation as safely as possible.”
What causes road rage?
Mr Hurley, a lecturer in criminology at Macquarie University, said it was the “anonymity” of driving that tended to make people more aggressive than they were in other areas of life.
“They cannot see that actual person (driving), they can’t see their facial expression, they don’t know their age.
“All they see is another car. There’s a disconnect between the identity of the individual and the driver.”
He believed a range of other environmental and psychological factors played a role as well.
“The roads are arguably in worse condition - there’s congestion and an increase in tolls and larger four-wheel drives.
“People are generally more aggressive on the road and when you’re adding to that the increase in mental health issues around Australia, and society becoming more instant - tap and go, click and collect - there is an expectation that we get to our destination immediately without any problems at all. But that is just not the reality.”
Research suggests young men are the most common perpetrators of road rage, according to the American Psychological Association.
People who experience road rage are more likely to misuse alcohol and drugs, and to take risks on the road – going over the speed limit, rapidly switching lanes and running red lights.
A 2008 study also found the quantity of bumper stickers and other adornments on a driver’s car was a predictor of road rage.
Drivers with more personalised cars admitted to driving more aggressively, confirming researchers’ suspicions that vehicular adornment was a “sign of territoriality”.
