Road-rage incidents could be driven by pandemic: expert

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This article was published 22/12/2020 (1906 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As if driving through a Winnipeg winter isn’t bad enough.

An American road-rage expert says bottled-up frustration over the pandemic and the effect it’s having on the holiday season could have played a role in a couple of notable incidents on Winnipeg streets over the past few days.

“I think people are just stressed and weary, in general,” said Steve Albrecht, a threat-management consultant and former San Diego police officer who works as an expert witness in road-rage cases.

“I think people are tired of following rules.”

Last Thursday, a Winnipeg woman driving with her father in the vehicle was followed for more than 10 minutes by another driver who repeatedly rammed her vehicle, eventually causing both to spin out in traffic on Portage Avenue.

In a post on Reddit, Kiana Jobo described how the incident began when she was making a left turn from Sargent Avenue onto Milt Stegall Drive, angering the driver of a white Chevrolet pickup truck, who began aggressively pursuing and colliding with Jobo’s small Hyundai sedan.

“This man was ramming my vehicle into cars ahead of me and cars beside me, endangering the lives of not just mine, but everyone else. It was clear this man was not stopping and I had to do everything in my power to escape,” Jobo wrote in the post.

“This attack finally ended on Portage Avenue where I was heading westbound (towards Polo Park), where he smashed into the driver side of my vehicle, causing me to spin out and crash into the large concrete median.”

While no one was injured, Jobo described the incident as “one of the most horrific and traumatic moments” of her life, adding that the violence exceeded typical road rage. A video accompanying her post shows the car being hit numerous times while a male voice inside Jobo’s vehicle says, “The guy’s trying to kill us.”

The 57-year-old driver of the pickup truck, who has not been identified, was charged with one count of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, Winnipeg police said. He has been released on a promise to appear.

“I don’t feel safe knowing this person was released,” Jobo said in her post. “I don’t wish this type of experience on anyone and I don’t want to see this happen to anyone else.”

Albrecht said what happened to Jobo is rare, but noted road rage is a symptom of other anger issues that could be heightened by the bottled-up frustrations of living under the constraints of the pandemic.

“The holiday season makes it tougher, but there’s a sense that we’ve been trapped by the pandemic for 10 months and certain people just can’t cope with that sense of having their lives controlled like that,” he said, adding there’s a sense of anonymity when someone is in another vehicle.

“So being able to act out in their car is a bit of freedom that they think they can give themselves.”

Albrecht said road rage is typically a sign of “unmastered anger” and a lack of insight into the consequences of the aggressor’s actions.

Meanwhile, early Monday, a Hydro pole was toppled near Henderson Highway and Roosevelt Place after a “heated exchange” between drivers at a nearby parking lot, a police spokesperson said.

Shortly after the 4 a.m. exchange, one driver collided with the pole and both vehicles drove off, police said, adding no arrests have been made but the investigation is continuing.

Manitoba Hydro expected the damage to be repaired by early Monday evening.

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers