"Road rage" is a term that was coined by journalists in the late 1980s to describe the angry and aggressive behavior that seemed to be occurring more and more among automobile drivers in the nation's cities. By the mid-1990s, the term "road rage" appeared frequently in magazine articles, in newspaper headlines, and on television (see entry under 1940s—TV and Radio in volume 3) talk shows. Some sources state confidently that road rage is on the rise and has become a major problem of modern life. Others claim that the concept of road rage is largely an invention of the media.

Few people would argue that traffic became noticeably worse in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Highway systems (see entry under 1950s—The Way We Lived in volume 3) that were designed in the 1950s and 1960s and constructed in the 1970s and 1980s...