Road Rage: Old Wine in a New Bottle

Abstract

Letter to the editor discusses the debate about the relevance of temperamental factors and psychopathology in driving research. Tillman and Hobbs' classic 1949 article, "The Accident Prone Automobile Driver," is the first in the psychiatric literature to describe a link between psychiatric illness and driving problems. Smart and others' timely article "Psychiatric Distress Among Road Rage Victims and Perpetrators" (2003) raises several important points regarding underlying psychopathology in this condition. This differential diagnosis of impulsivity is very important with regard to clinical management. Impulsivity also occurs in a range of unconnected categorical conditions that have their common pathway of expression through deficits in executive function. Impulsive road rage may reflect separate orthogonal variables of cognitive impulsivity and emotional lability, which may require quite different treatment modalities. Further careful research into this nonspecific syndrome, which appears to be presenting with increasing prevalence, seems to have merit, both for public health measures and, possibly, for psychiatric practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)