Recent surveys find more Canadian motorists are witnessing road rage

From swerving lanes, to tailgating and even flipping the bird, two recent surveys find that road rage appears to be on the rise right across the country.

“Canadians tend to have a tendency to get really angry on the road,” said Daniel Ivans, licensed broker and expert for rates.ca.

According to a recent Leger survey conducted on behalf of rates.ca, 83 per cent of drivers have witnessed road rage, up five percentage points from 2022.

“What it seems is that an overall lack of human consideration seems to be a trigger for a lot of Canadians,” said Ivans.

“I feel like when I come out and drive there’s someone honking their horns, doing something they shouldn’t be,” said one motorist.

Frustration also seems to mount when drivers are dealing with construction.

“A lot of repairs being done to roadways expansions, which have been causing additional delays to people’s commutes,” said Ivans.

Ivans adds that drivers could see their insurance coverage impacted by the actions they take on the road.

“We were talking to a consumer a couple of weeks ago, who initially was paying $260 a month, but ended up with an at-fault accident and a dangerous driving charge as a result of an incident and their insurance has gone from $260 to $911 a month.”

Another recent survey from CAA finds that more than half of Ontario drivers admitted to engaging in unsafe driving behaviours in the past year.

“Those top five behaviours were speeding, aggressive driving, distracted driving, unsafe lane changes and running red lights,” said Michael Stewart, community relations consultant for CAA South Central Ontario.

The numbers, though, are higher for those considered younger drivers.

“Those 18 to 34, that 55 per cent jumped up to 61 per cent, which is really concerning for us,” said Stewart.

Also according to the CAA survey, 35 per cent of Ontarians said penalties and fines for speeding and stunt driving influenced their driving behaviour – up seven per cent from last year.

“Tell everyone to get dashcams, it’s the only way you can protect yourself nowadays,” said another motorist.

“Hopefully the more we can tell people about the consequences of these actions, hopefully they will choose not to engage in these behaviors going forward,” said Stewart.

“Not only from a personal health and safety perspective, but also from a budgetary perspective, never worth it to engage in road rage,” said Ivans.