Joshua Wordel/Unsplash
Audio By Carbonatix
On June 27 an image of a man holding another man at gunpoint on the side of a freeway in the Dallas area began making the rounds on social media. The man on the left side of the picture, wearing dark cargo shorts and a blue shirt, had the weapon trained on the other man, who was backed up against the side of a vehicle with his arms outstretched. Another vehicle a few yards beyond the man with the gun had a badly damaged rear bumper.
This specific scenario might’ve been unique, but the cause behind it was anything but. This confrontation was yet another example of road rage in North Texas.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), Christiano Pinheiro De Abreu pulled a gun on a man after “road raging” and striking the other vehicle with his own. De Abreu was apprehended and no injuries were reported, but in recent weeks, plenty of other road rage stories in this part of the state have ended differently.
@DallasTexasTV saw this on George Bush this afternoon, don’t know if you guys heard anything more pic.twitter.com/CEmVgY4eqy
— Ryan Haddox (@MrHaddox) June 27, 2023
On July 10, Paola Nunez Linares was killed after being shot in the head during a road rage incident in Hurst. Linares’ husband, Zane Jones, detailed the events leading up to the shooting to CBS 11: “I completed the pass. I got into the right lane, and he started to zoom past me, but then he leveled off when he got to me, and he like moved over, like pushing me but not touching me because I moved over too.” The report continued: “That’s when Jones says he flipped off the other driver. He thought the driver was returning the gesture – and then realized it was a gun.”
An uptick in road rage incidents isn’t unique to North Texas. In 2022 Houston also experienced a sharp rise in reported road rage shootings and incidents, and those numbers remain high. San Antonio has also experienced a high number of these confrontations. Some suggest the pandemic has made people more prone to road rage.
Understandably, road rage incidents often become headline news. Type “road rage dallas 2023” into the search bar of your choice and you’ll see a trove of links from the past few weeks describing a large number of recent problems.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. The rash of road rage incidents across North Texas became so pronounced that in April 2022, several agencies from the region teamed up to form the North Texas Road Rage Task Force.
“Over the last several years, police departments across the country have seen an increase in the number of road rage incidents,” DPD Assistant Chief Michael Igo said at a 2022 introductory press conference for the task force. “Here in Dallas, it’s happening not only on our freeways but also on the streets that connect directly to the roads where people live and work. Unfortunately, aggressive driving has become commonplace, and that driving is leading to aggressive acts.”
But in a potentially positive, somewhat surprising twist, the Dallas Police Department says that road rage incidents, in Dallas at least, are down quite a bit this year compared to 2022’s data.
“As of May 3, 2023, we were down 26.4% total offenses related to road rage and down 28.1% aggravated assault offenses related to road rage,” said DPD Senior Corp. Brian E. Martinez. Numbers since May 3 have not been available due to the outage caused by the recent ransomware attack.
According to Martinez, there were 303 road rage-related offenses in 2022 between Jan. 1 and May 3, and this year, 223 such offenses during that same time period. The DPD didn’t comment on whether it believes the task force has had a hand in the decrease so far this year, but Martinez did explain the task force’s mission.
“As of May 3, 2023, we were down 26.4% total offenses related to road rage and down 28.1% aggravated assault offenses related to road rage.” – DPD Senior Corporal Brian E. Martinez
“The task force works to reduce the number of road rage incidents, aggressive drivers and impaired driving,” he said. “The Dallas Police Department conducts monthly operations targeting aggressive driving in an effort to decrease the number of incidents and make our roads safer.” Martinez later added that monthly task force operations focus on areas that have seen upticks in what he called “aggressive driving.”
The tricky part of any attempt to curb road rage is its unpredictable nature. Flashes of anger that lead to altercations typically happen in an instant. And because right now, everything is somehow connected to the historically hot weather, DPD says that 38% of all road rage incidents take place during the summer months. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that oppressive heat can help cause supreme crankiness behind the wheel.
While it’s a step in the right direction that road rage incidents this year were initially down from 2022, again, those numbers represent what DPD knows before the scorching temps arrived. For now, Martinez says a driver’s best bet is “to drive carefully, follow the laws and rules of the road and be courteous to other drivers.”
As for how one should act if they find themselves in a possible road rage scenario, Martinez also provided some tips. “Safely change lanes and stay away from the aggressive driver,” he explained. “Don’t respond to any aggressive behavior that could escalate the situation; don’t stop. If followed, drive to the nearest police station or call 911.”
