Increasing Stress, New Generation of Drivers, Leading to Rising Incidents of Road Rage among Truckers

The term "road rage" was coined several decades ago to describe the violent incidents among traditional car drivers; now, there is evidence that the phenomenon is increasingly being seen in over-the-road truck drivers as well.

Somewhat anecdotal reports of increased incidents by and between truck drivers rose to a new level of scrutiny in January, when a fatal incident involving two drivers in Chicago caught some national attention.

According to police reports, two truckers went at it in their vehicles for more than 10 miles on a busy Chicago-area expressway, swerving in front of each other and riding each other's bumpers, fueled in part by escalating CB banter.

Then, one of the drivers challenged the other directly.

"Let's do it!" one driver radioed the other.

That ultimately led to a death, as the drivers pulled over and began fisticuffs, when at some point David Seddon of Racine, WI allegedly pulled out a knife and fatally stabbed his combatant. Seddon has been charged with first-degree murder.

In November, Maryland State Police arrested a tractor-trailer driver for pointing a fake gun at a dump truck driver after some incident on the roadways.

Last August, New York state troopers arrested a driver hauling a load of kerosene after he rammed a car that wouldn't move out of his way near Utica. After the car pulled off the road, the driver pulled over as well, walked up to the car and started choking and hitting the driver of the car - a woman with two children in the vehicle.

Just last month, a truck driver in his personal vehicle was arrested after he fired several shots at a trucker in Missouri whom he felt was tailgating him.

Is the level of truck driver road rage increasing?

Some say yes - and that it is often fueled by CB chatter that seems to be turning even more aggressive with the latest generation of younger drivers.

"Sometimes, when drivers are tired, they will play a little game called "CB Rambo" to stay awake," says Jason Cox, who has a popular blog site for truck drivers. "Other times it is just some idiot who really does not know how to interact with normal people. Regardless, this is how road rage will sometimes start off among truckers."

Cox says that often the road rage begins when a driver with faster truck will be moving in the left lane and another truck will move into that lane to avoid an accident or other issue.

"The driver with the faster truck has to slow down, and then usually if the slower truck doesn't jump back over out of the faster truck's way, the argument will begin," Cox says.

CBs Chatter is the Catalyst 

Not surprisingly, the communications on "Channel 19" on the CD radios used by truckers is often the catalyst for these dust-ups, which usually end harmlessly but sometimes do not.

Some truckers are saying the newest generation of younger drivers is causing many of the problems, using the over-the-road equivalent of the "trash talk" now common in basketball and other sports - and that doesn't sill well with older drivers.

"A lot of truckers don't even turn on the CB anymore because we don't want to listen to all that trash," the Los Angeles Times quotes Rollin Pizzala, a truck driver from Wisconsin, as noting.

Some say that trash talk is fueled by increasing driver stress, especially among independents, as they have been pummeled for several years by soaring fuel prices and more recently a dearth of volume, leading to tens of thousands of independents leaving the market. Already a stressful job under the best of conditions, the economic pressures can raise the temperature quickly if the CB chatter or driving maneuvers leave a driver feeling aggrieved.

Some say that the growing percentage of minorities and even women becoming truckers has also fueled some increase in nasty CB banter. This makes some wonder how things might play out if the Mexican truckers are even allowed to operate in the US, as promised under the NAFTA agreement but which has yet to be permitted in the US 15 years later under deep political squabbles over the issue.

Trucker Abdool Gafur, 68, an Indian American from Connecticut, says he frequently encounters the same taunt on his radio: "Why the hell don't you go back to your country?"

A female driver named Gloria adds: "Apparently us "mudbuggy" drivers aren't considered real truck drivers and are reminded of that every day by the "billy big riggers" out there. I barely escaped with my truck intact one day from an extremely PO'd driver who tried to run me into a barrier, all because I tried to pass him and I was a woman."

Our advice: if you see dueling truck drivers near you, get off at the next exit.

Source: http://www.scdigest.com/