Coloradans’ fear of road rage and reckless driving has grown from an irrational one based on a few tragic stories to a legitimate concern that they or someone they love will die on the streets of Denver, the roads in Colorado Springs, or on the side of a highway.
On a recent Friday evening in LoDo, a man was shot and killed during what police suspect was a road rage incident. The shooter remained on scene according to police. The incident — in broad daylight on the corner of Wazee and Park Avenue West just north of Coors Field — barely registered with a community inundated with news about anger, violence and death on our roads.
One must just look at recent Denver Post headlines:
“Denver DA drops one of two murder charges in I-25 road-rage killings,” Oct. 18.
“2 shot in Aurora during Sunday morning road rage incident,” Oct. 8
“Man pleads guilty in fatal Interstate 70 road rage shooting,” Sept. 26
“One injured suspect sought in Jefferson County road rage shooting,” Sept. 19
Road rage shooting incidents in the nation injured 413 people last year, according to a report released by Forbes Advisor in August.
In the Forbes report, a survey of Colorado drivers found 10% say they have been forced off the road, nearly 60% were blocked from changing lanes, 26% were cut off on purpose and 63% were “yelled at, insulted or threatened.”
It is not uncommon now to hear horns honking as angry and entitled drivers meet on our public roads. Mix the anger with our heavily armed society and add in undereducated, distracted, timid, tired drivers, and you have a recipe for disaster. The mix of social causes makes the problem intractable.
The Denver Post is drawing attention to this issue so Colorado authorities, including police and fire, state and city leaders, will take the lead in both improving driver behavior on our roads and ridding the streets of the criminal drivers. Officers need to be seen patrolling high-traffic areas and making stops.
The National Cooperative Highway Research Program recommends an emphasis on enforcing all traffic laws to address aggressive driving. “Such a strategy increases respect for all laws and the public’s expectation that traffic laws should be obeyed,” according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Yes, driver education in public schools has fallen by the wayside. Drivers under 18 are now required to have a driver’s education and to find it and pay for it themselves. Some high schools are incorporating driver’s ed for a fee in the schools.
But we can’t blame teenagers for what is endangering us while we are out running errands or commuting to work.
A different type of driver’s ed is needed. Call it a re-education. Denver’s transportation department has electronic signs now in parts of the city, reminding drivers that violence doesn’t solve their problems. On the corner of South Monaco Parkway and East Evans Avenue in Denver, there is an electronic billboard that states: “Road Rage: No one wins.” Video emerged on social media this year showing a driver shooting at another car near the intersection and circling back to shoot some more.
More public messaging like this, stressing patience and reminding us of common rules of the road would help. Armed drivers need to be made acutely aware of what is and is not considered self-defense in Colorado, and as we’ve been calling for recently, lawmakers need to update the state’s self-defense laws to raise the bar. Before people shoot and kill out of fear, they must be required to take reasonable steps to ascertain that there is an actual threat. The legal standard now for claiming self-defense is much lower.
Two shooters have yet to face charges for their actions in separate local incidents as police try to collect evidence to determine whether they were justifiable shootings or not. One incident was the shooting on Wazee and the other occurred months ago at an electric vehicle charging station after it is suspected two Tesla drivers had some kind of an altercation while driving that led to a shooting.
We need drivers to switch their mentality from aggressive driving during a conflict to defensive driving (anticipating trouble that lay ahead and keeping an eye out for drivers who are aggressive or dangerous). We all make mistakes and no one should die for cutting someone off. No one should die because they decide not to turn right on red.
Most Colorado drivers are calm, careful, and even courteous, and a neighborhood watch mentality is needed for our mean streets.
Dash cams are more common and affordable these days. Know the proper way to notify law enforcement of dangerous driving and road rage. Call 9-1-1 in an emergency or your police non-emergency line to report non-emergency crimes. In Denver, the number is (720) 913- 2000. Don’t try to pursue the bad actors, but try to be able to identify them. If more people reported aggressive (criminal) driving and more technology was implemented, these drivers could be tracked down and shut down. I
In a press release, the Colorado State Patrol reported that in 2022, its officers responded to 31,760 road rage or aggressive driving calls, up 4.5% from 2021. The CSP has a number for reporting aggressive drivers on our highways, star-CSP (*277).
The CSP cites examples of behaviors to report as “moving violations that put other motorists at risk.” This includes speeding, following too closely, weaving, and passing on the shoulder. Some of the behaviors seem obvious, such as showing a weapon and getting out of a vehicle to confront another driver. But honking in anger and making angry gestures are also examples of aggressive driving, according to CSP.
Colorado’s roads no longer feel safe, and road rage is a big part of the reason. Doing nothing in response to this problem is no longer an option.
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