Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Latest word in road rage

"To you, that angry, horn-blasting tailgater is suffering from road rage. But doctors have another name for it ? intermittent explosive disorder ? and a new study suggests it is far more common than they realized, affecting up to 16 million Americans."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060605/ap_on_sc/road_rage_disease

And you thought it was just bad manners!

There'd be a lot less road rage if those lolly-gagging imbiciles stayed the hell out of my way!

-"By definition, intermittent explosive disorder involves multiple outbursts that are way out of proportion to the situation..."

So when my two year old daughter plays up at the hyper-market because she can't have the chocolate, then it's IED. I mean, crying because you can't have chocolate seems to be way out of proportion to the situation. You don't see me bursting into tears when my wife points to my belly and makes me drive past McDonalds - well not lately anyway since I realised that she doesn't give in.

So when will we get a drug solution specific to IED? There's money to be made there. Hyper-Markets full of parents pushing round well behaved blank-faced children too sedated to care about sweets.

Sorry, but I'm a little skeptical at the medicalization of Road Rage.

Blacknad.

"Sorry, but I'm a little skeptical at the medicalization of Road Rage."

I'm inclined to agree with you there. It seems too neat a package. But if it's treatable with medications, then I think it's a good thing to recognize and treat. Many people would be better off if their problems had so simple a solution.

Amaranth

It is rather amazing how they finally came up with a real reason why people think it is ok to harm another person due to bad driving.

I wonder what will be next...