Road rage more common among heavier drinkers

For immediate release - April 20, 2004 (Toronto) The more problems a person has with alcohol the more likely they will be a victim or a perpetrator of road rage according to a study recently released by The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The study entitled "Alcohol Consumption and Problems among Road Rage Victims and Perpetrators" appears in the most recent Journal of Studies on Alcohol and found that road rage is more common among those individuals who are heavier drinkers, and that the odds of road rage behaviour increases with greater alcohol problems.

The study suggests that the same underlying factors that cause a person to have problems with alcohol, may be similar to those that can cause road rage. Another possibility is that alcohol problems may somehow contribute to road rage behaviour. "A reason for the overlap between road rage and alcohol problems may be because these individuals are more likely to have low self-control with frequent rule breaking behaviour and a general disregard for legal sanctions," says Dr. Robert Mann, Senior Research Scientist at CAMH. "This can manifest itself in a variety of different ways including the abuse of alcohol and road rage." Previous studies on perpetrators of road rage behaviour have shown that it most frequently involves young people and men living in a large city.

The study also found that those who reported being a victim of road rage also had more problems related to alcohol. Road rage is understood as an incident in which a driver or passenger attempts to intimidate, injure or kill another driver, passenger or pedestrian or to damage another person's vehicle.

The misuse of alcohol is a major contributor to the global burden of injury, death and disease.
"This link between alcohol, aggression and violent behaviour leads us to believe that government policies that are critical in reducing alcohol-related problems, such as government monopolies for retail alcohol sales and lowering blood alcohol content limits, will also reduce harms that are linked to alcohol as well," says Mann. To learn more about CAMH's alcohol related policies, visit www.camh.net.

This research was supported by a grant from the AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence, which is a large national program with a goal of enhancing automotive research and development in Canada.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is a Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization Collaborating Centre and a teaching hospital fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.

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For further information, please contact Sylvia Hagopian, CAMH Media Relations Coordinator at (416) 595-6015.