America at its worst

In New Orleans, a former NFL player was shot Thursday in a deadly episode of road rage. It happened in broad daylight. This is America at its worst: a privileged nation with enough pent-up anger to turn traffic aggravations into violent confrontations with strangers. Many of these incidents end tragically.

You may not even know why someone is flipping the bird at you, honking his horn or trying to force you off the road. I stopped at a red light once, glanced down at my directions to make sure I was making a right turn, and looked up to see the driver behind me fuming mad and pounding his steering wheel.

Then, as I turned, he darted into the lane by me, rolled down his window and tossed a wine bottle at my car, striking my side mirror.

I called police, who told me that because no one was hurt, it might take them a while to get there. So I left, shaking, feeling both disgusted and lucky nothing worse happened.

As a recent study found, many motorists are driving around with a chip on their shoulders.

Nearly eight of every 10 drivers reported that they’d engaged in angry or aggressive behavior at least once in the previous year, according to a survey released last summer by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Nearly nine in 10 drivers consider aggressive driving “a serious threat to their personal safety,” the AAA study found.

If you don’t want to be a road-rage victim, you can either stay off the roads or, better yet, stay cool and steer clear of the angry masses.