It's, it's a perfect storm, is what we see happening from 2018,
2019 coming up. We literally have had an uptick.
And the last five years, uh,
the numbers statistically are just gone literally through the ceiling on road
rage shootings in the United States.
An epidemic of road rage, shootings, alarms Greg Freeman,
a retired 34 year veteran commander of the Houston Police Department.
On average,
44 people are killed or wounded on America's highways every month.
Hello, I'm investigative reporter Robert Riggs,
here to take you inside the crime scene of what has become the wild,
wild West on the nation's highways.
Honking at a person who cuts you off in traffic can get you killed these days.
Greg Freeman is a retired police captain who teaches in the College of Criminal
Justice at Sam Houston State University.
He has been tracking road rage violence and joins me to discuss causes
and how to respond if you are targeted.
Greg Freeman, thanks for sitting down to talk to me about road rage.
When you look at the numbers, certainly here in Texas,
it seems there's a better chance of getting shot in traffic than actually having
a, a fatal accident.
Uh, unfortunately, Robert, that's true. Um,
Texas unfortunately holds the dubious record of
having the largest amount and most statistically, uh,
highest amount of road rage shootings in the entire nation. And it is a, uh,
it is a dark statistical fact for our state, but it it's, it's real.
It's out there, unfortunately, and it does exist.
And Houston,
where you worked for so many years as a police captain leads the, the country.
Yeah.
Houston, uh,
is literally the epicenter of road rage violence in the entire
United States. And it's, it's, it's sad, but it is a sobering fact for our city.
Well, I, I mean, I've seen this over and over here in,
in Dallas where I am of somebody cuts off somebody in traffic mm-hmm.
,
and they're literally these days pulling over and pulling out their guns like
the wild West and shooting at each other.
Yeah. It's, uh, it's, it's surreal what we see happening.
And there was a time back in the day where this would be a, uh,
very rare event that you would see happening, but unfortunately,
this is something that,
it's literally almost every week now where somebody gets shot or
shots are fired,
or tragically someone is getting killed in our city or in the state.
So it's, uh, it has definitely been an epidemic of violence.
Well, and I talk to law enforcement around the country. This has not just Texas.
It's.
Everywhere. It's everywhere.
What's your sense from your experience, what's driving this?
There's a lot of research that's out there that exists, Robert, on,
on truly some of the motivating factors. And I have my own personal thoughts,
but I think first and foremost,
I think the pandemic had a lot to do with adding stress to our society.
That is a, that is something that most researchers and, and,
and law enforcement will give a general consensus on just the stressors that
went along with the pandemic.
The states that we have seen statistically that have very,
and I'll say this very liberally loose gun laws,
and I love living in the state of Texas, but statistically,
these states that have looser gun laws, we have constitutional carry.
You're going to see an uptick in road rage shootings for those states
that have very, very loose gun laws,
which are less restrictive for people carrying weaponry.
And research has shown that when people have weaponry in their car,
they're more prone to use violence. Unfortunately,
we have seen this statistically happening.
Another factor that I can throw out there,
and this is no condemnation on the media, but this has been normalized,
sadly to say almost like school shootings,
where if this would've happened 20 years ago,
people would've been shocked the fact that something like this could have
happened.
But when you see it playing out on the media time and time and time again,
unfortunately, society gets desensitized to, and lastly, I would,
I would throw in my own, um, opinion on this. There's a lack of deterrence.
And these people that are engaging in these shootings are not your Monday
through Friday, uh, working 40 hours a week, productive citizenry. These,
these are some violent felons that are roaming around,
or people that have very much antisocial behavior,
explosive temper and road rage is an extension of their
psychological makeup, Robert. And so when you have a lack of deterrence,
and especially in the criminal justice system with these weak bail reform laws
where these people are getting turned back out on the street in a revolving
door, there's, there's no deterrence.
So if they pulled their gun out because of a, uh,
disrespected infraction that they feel that comes upon them,
they're going to resort to violence. And I would say this,
we have a term that we use in criminality or in,
in the criminal justice world called the Code of the Street.
And a lot of these thugs that are out there,
and perpetrators and violent criminals subscribe to this term we call Code of
the Street,
where they don't believe in calling the police to handle their own issues.
They're gonna handle it themselves.
And respect is a big thing in their world of criminality.
We know this to be true. And if you disrespect someone that lives in this world,
they're gonna act on it.
And if you cut them off and it's a very innocent mistake,
and you accidentally cut them off,
they perceive that as a great disrespect that you just heaped upon them,
and they're gonna react on that. And unfortunately, their reaction is, uh,
is taking a gun and shooting at you, and that's gonna, that's,
that's gonna make them feel better to do away with this disrespect that you just
gave them.
So you think this is a, a mix of anxiety ridden law,
abided, ci citizens, and they're bumping into the,
the other element in society? That's right. It's hair trigger.
It's, it's a perfect storm, is what we see happening from 2018,
2019 coming up.
We literally have had an uptick in the last five years. Uh,
the numbers statistically have just gone literally through the ceiling on road
rage shootings in the United States. And it's, it's a combination of factors,
I think from what we, just, from what I just mentioned, and unfortunately,
we see this playing out in a lot of other states as well. Yeah,
and lemme just say this, Houston,
and one of the reasons that I think Houston has led, you know,
we have a lot of people in the city,
but I think one of the driving factors that makes Houston more prone for an
uptick in, uh, these shootings,
Houston is literally one of the largest cities in the United States Square,
mileage wise.
You have a vast amount of open roadway in the city,
just like our DWI fatality rate is extremely high in Houston because people are
on the road driving very long distances.
And I think as a result of that,
because the time factor of people being on the road,
and the vast majority of people are there,
their propensity for violence increases.
Here's a sample of recent road rage shootings just in Dallas, Texas alone.
A 26 year old man with his two year old child in his car pulled out a
gun and open fire and traffic,
he wounded another driver and an innocent 65 year old woman driving
in another car, not involved in the incident.
A 30 year old mother of four children was shot to death and crashed because two
men and another car thought she had dis disrespected them.
So how should you respond if you are targeted by an angry driver?
Greg Freeman will offer tips after this message.
I'm talking with Greg Freeman, a veteran police officer from the Houston,
Texas Police Department,
who is now teaching victim studies at Sam Houston
State University in Texas,
who speaks on policing issues literally around the globe. Greg,
on road rage, if somebody cuts me off on traffic mm-hmm.
or someone thinks I've cut them off and they're coming after me,
what, what should I do? What's the smart levelheaded thing to do.
Robert? One thing that we, we highly advocate to our drivers, uh,
from a preventative standpoint, take the high road on this. Literally,
if you can wave, like, hey, I'm sorry, you know, make some type of, um,
gesture that you did not mean to do that.
But the last thing I tell our citizenry and my students at Sam Houston State,
don't make direct eye contact. Don't get confrontational. Uh, continue driving.
Avoid them. If you have to slow down, you don't want to further exacerbate this,
this perceived injustice that they feel that has just happened.
When I say don't make contact,
I literally mean don't make eye contact because that's what they're looking for.
Let them go. If they get in front of you, they start again,
reacting aggressively, call 9 1 1,
but do not stop your car or pull over because they're gonna pull over as well.
Mm-hmm. , and that's what what they may be looking for,
but you don't want to give them a reason to act any further on what they're
doing. So avoidance, no eye contact, continue driving,
get away from them if you can, if it means you slowing down,
but don't engage them at all. Robert is what we were saying.
And eye contact is a big deal.
We literally have had citizens shot at traffic stop or at a,
at a stop sign because of road rage incidents,
or someone cut someone else off and they pulled up to a stop sign and they
looked at the other driver that the infraction occurred,
and he literally pulled out a gun and shot them at that intersection. Now,
what he has shot them had they looked at them, I don't know,
but we always say avoid con eye contact because that's a sign of disrespect that
they feel, and it's only gonna exacerbate it,
but they need to call and report it. Call nine one one, continue driving,
give the dispatcher a description of what's happening,
especially if there's continually engaging you in, in a very aggressive manner.
You know,
I know a state prosecutor here who's authorized to carry a weapon mm-hmm.
Who now doesn't in his car because he said, with what road?
The road rage going on.
I don't want something to happen where I decide I've got a resort to this.
Right. I I need to handle it another way. That's quite a commentary.
It, it is. And research will back this up, Robert,
from what they have done regarding surveys of, uh, armed motorists.
And what we have found is that people that have a weapon in their vehicle
legally carrying a weapon in their vehicle,
will make them more prone to resorting to use it if a road
rage incident occurs.
So we see that people that are carrying weaponry in their car are gonna be more
apt to engage with pulling out their weapon because it's there.
And if it wasn't there, then they probably wouldn't have, well,
they're not gonna have a weapon,
so they're not gonna resort to using some type of violent defensive. Mm-hmm.
reflection on that.
Do you see this just escalating because it, it's been doubling?
Yes, unfortunately, we look at, at the numbers,
and I pulled out some of the stats that we had,
our numbers have literally tripled in the United States since 2018.
So it is a growing trip that we see that is continuing to increase in,
and I think we collectively as society,
until we really wrap our arms around this thing and deescalate and come down
and stop seeing this as something that is being normalized.
Because there was a time back in the day,
if we had a minor fender bender or you cut somebody off,
we waved at one another. Hey man, I'm sorry, whatever. And we just drove on.
But the way that this has been playing out in the media,
and it's not the media's fault,
but it's being reported where people see this happening every day,
they're thinking, some people are thinking, well,
this is the way that I'm gonna handle it.
And so until these preventative measures start filtering down into
society and the collective conscious of this right now,
I think these numbers unfortunately, are gonna keep increasing.
You know, I had a friend who's a business executive, uh, he was driving,
I was talking to him on the cell phone,
and suddenly he's just pounding on his horn, pounding on his horn.
I was like, what's going on? He said, oh, somebody just cut over in the lane.
Mm-hmm. in front of me. I said, he blew.
Are you trying to get shot.
? Right. You know.
You, you don't know the state of mind of that other person. You know, chill out.
You, all you control is how you react.
And, and what you just said right there is so true. And I,
I mention this to my students literally all the time when we talk about this
issue, and I tell this to everyone that's listening right now,
you don't know who is in that other car. So when a rotor, when a,
when a traffic infraction occurs and a citizen decides to flip them off
or curse at them or blow their horn or, or, or aggressively dry,
you don't know who this person is in this car. And they could be carrying a gun,
they could be having a psychotic episode, they could be a violent felon. Uh,
they could be literally a criminal that just, uh,
has engaged in criminal activity multiple times. So to them,
you don't know who this person is. And so you're,
you're literally risking your life because this person's gonna pull a gun out
and they're gonna shoot you, and there'll be no witness to it at all.
All people are gonna see is two cars that got into it,
and now all of a sudden you've been shot and your car veers off the road,
and now we're making a death notification to your family.
Freeman says,
road rage shootings are a very hard crime to solve because it happens
very quickly. Unless witnesses saw the license plate or vehicle,
he advises, absolutely don't make eye contact and refrain from gesturing.
If you show your frustration, it's going to escalate the situation.
If you're on a multi lane highway, move out of the driver's way,
you could turn off the road to get away. But Freeman says, don't pull over.
If you pull over and stop, they're going to pull over and stop.
That's what they're wanting you to do, says Freeman.
If you do end up in a scenario where someone approaches your car,
lock the doors, lay on the horn and call 9 1 1.
Don't get out of the car. In closing,
here's my reporters' recap and reflections. In these stressful times,
I practice stoicism.
It's a philosophy from the Book of Meditations by Roman Emperor Marcus
Aurelius. The core principle for me,
when you don't control what happens,
the only thing you can control is how you react.
You've been listening to the True Crime Reporter podcast, stay true, stay safe,
and stay tuned for more stories from inside the crime. Scene tape.
This is Robert Riggs reporting.