Take it Easy, Calm Down

You’re cruising along, and another driver, peeved at a perceived slight in your driving, starts to tailgate or makes an obscene gesture.

To retaliate, you slam on your brakes or return the gesture.

Suddenly, both you and the other angry motorist are driving aggressively, which could get both of you killed.

To curb the angry-driving habit, Cpl. George Peach offers these simple words: Stop it.

“If you are a driver with a type-A personality, my advice would be to take it easy, calm down,” he urged.

Peach is the patrol supervisor at the state-police barracks in Jonestown. He himself recently witnessed aggressive driving. Last month, he was on his way to Scranton with his family when two motorcycles traveled between traffic going well over 100 mph. Peach called police, and the bikers were eventually caught.

According to PennDOT statistics, aggressive-driving crashes accounted for nearly 60 percent of all fatalities in Pennsylvania in 2004. In response to the more than 1,000 traffic fatalities in Pennsylvania that year caused by such driving, Gov. Ed Rendell this summer announced an unprecedented crackdown on motorists who drive aggressively.

Known as “Smooth Operator,” it’s a pilot partnership between state and local police and PennDOT, and it includes a media campaign designed to educate the public about the dangers of aggressive driving and a law-enforcement initiative to crack down on careless drivers who put others in danger.

“Aggressive driving has taken too many lives in Pennsylvania, and it is critical that we put a stop to it,” Rendell said in a news release. “Smooth Operator, the commonwealth’s new campaign to crack down on aggressive drivers and prevent car accidents, will make our roads safer and protect families.”

Aggressive driving characteristics include unsafe lane changes, speeding, running red lights and stop signs, following too closely, improper passing and failing to yield the right of way, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Aggressive drivers commonly:

• Are high-risk drivers, more likely to drink and drive, speed or drive unbelted.

• See themselves as anonymous, allowing them to take out their frustrations on other drivers.

• Consider vehicles as objects and fail to see the human element involved. Thus, they seldom consider the consequences of their actions.

• Tailgate, weave in and out of traffic, flash their lights, blow their horns, or make hand and facial gestures.

State police are using a wide array of conventional and unconventional traffic law-enforcement tools. They will share radar, reconnaissance aircraft, motorcycles and other strategies to help municipal police along stretches of highway seldom patrolled by state police.

And aggressive motorists should not think they are “safe” from prosecution if they don’t see a marked or unmarked cruiser, said Fritzi Schreffler, safety press officer for PennDOT’s District 8, which includes Lebanon County.

“It could be a pedestrian or someone sitting in a junker car or homeowners sitting on the front lawn seemingly watching traffic go by,” she said, “only they happen to have a small radio with them and call uniformed officers up the street.”

The two interstates that pass through the northern end of Lebanon County are a major hot spot for aggressive driving, Peach explained.

“Where 78 merges with 81, you have four lanes that very quickly merge into two lanes, and we get people jockeying for position, or they’re trying to pass a truck and they run out of roadway,” he said.

Recently, in fact, a woman was trying to pass another vehicle at the merge and ran off the road, killing herself and one of her passengers.

To avoid agressive drivers, Peach recommended avoiding contact with aggressive drivers by slowing down and staying behind them. If you have a cell phone, he suggested, call 911.

“A lot of times, there are two sides of every story,” he said. “Somebody will call in and complain and find out that they were part of the problem. If you make a mistake and somebody gets mad at you, avoid eye contact and back off. Don’t return an angry gesture with an angry gesture.”

Schreffler said the main goal of Smooth Operator is to reduce aggressive driving and speeding-related crashes and fatalities.

“It’s a combination of public education and enforcement, knowing that they need to go hand in hand,” she said.

Smooth Operator mainly targets 18- to 34-year-olds, Schreffler said, because they have a higher rate of aggressive driving, but it could be anybody.

“Part of the problem that we’re talking about, you could have somebody that’s elderly who runs a red light or stop sign,” she said. “Those aren’t necessarily considered aggressive drivers. We’re targeting people who do this on a regular basis. It’s their normal behavior.”