MELDA Crimeen has 50 years’ experience driving on roads across the country and she said she has never been to a place where drivers have worse road rage than Orange.
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She said she was astounded by the attitude of people who are too impatient to wait for a space to merge or abuse her for driving “a couple” of kilometres under the speed limit.
In her 50 years of driving, Mrs Crimeen had one driving infringement for speeding in a school zone 12 years ago because she said she was distracted by grandchildren squealing in the back seat.
Mrs Crimeen said the most dangerous type of road rage concerned tailgating and in Orange it is the worse she had seen.
“I’ve never seen such bad tailgaters,” she said.
“It is so dangerous, so, so dangerous.
“I can’t stand people who drive right up behind me.”
The NRMA conducted a survey in 2012 about courteous driving and 300 people from Orange and Dubbo responded and listed tailgating, lingering in the right hand lane and not letting others merge as the biggest issues in the region.
Mrs Crimeen said people who abuse other road users, honk horns, aggressively overtake and put pressure on other drivers need to wake up and realise they are going to cause an accident.
Victims of road rage become distracted by the event and if an accident does not happen instantly it can happen further down the road while the victim dwells on what happened, becomes stressed about the incident and loses concentration on driving, she said.
“It can be very upsetting.
“It’s usually young blokes who mainly do it,” she said.
Nicole.kuter
@fairfaxmedia.com.au
