After racing for five miles at speeds nearing 100 mph, the two cars involved pulled over. Robert Bruno walked over to Fernando Malagon's car, shot him in the head with a .45-caliber pistol and then drove off. Sadly, this isn't an isolated incident.

An average of at least 1,500 men, women, and children are injured or killed each year in the United States as a result of "aggressive driving," according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. The main weapons used are firearms and the vehicles themselves.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration defines aggressive driving as: "When individuals commit a combination of moving traffic offenses so as to endanger other persons or property." Contrast this with the more serious situation of ”Road Rage” which is a criminal act of assault, such as ramming another’s car or attacking another driver, as above. Road Rage incidents almost always begin with aggressive driving.

In another AAA study in 2008, most people said that aggressive drivers are the most serious traffic safety problem on the road. When questioned about their own driving habits, however, many in that study admitted that they drive aggressively themselves at times.

Protection from the tragic consequences of Road Rage, either by another driver or yourself, begins with avoiding aggressive driving and not reacting to aggressive driving by others. Here’s a few actions you can take:

• Make a realistic assessment of your own behavior behind the wheel, noting when and where you tend to drive aggressively.This is most often on a familiar road while commuting.Plan to leave early enough to allow for delays enroute.
  
• Speeding and changing lanes suddenly while trying to make up time, spark many rage incidents.
  
• Avoid distracted driving (cell phones, texting, etc.) which can cause driving errors that endanger and anger other drivers.
• If you’re in an accident, stay in your car until you can size up the emotional state of the other driver.
• Remind yourself that no one, yourself included, has any special driving skills that allow them to drive recklessly and still be safe.
• Humanize the other driver. He could be a friend, relative or neighbor. He may be rushing to the hospital, responding to an emergency or rushing to someone’s deathbed. He/she is probably a good person who’s just temporarily not acting that way.
• If you need to use your horn, do a quick toot-toot. Don't blare and glare.
  
• Don’t make eye contact with a road warrior since that makes it personal, in their view.
• If someone is driving very aggressively, to the point of creating real danger, report them to the police as soon as you can safely do so. Do get their license number.
• Be realistic. There are millions of drivers on the road and the odds that they will all drive the way we think they should are pretty small.

Here’s a few reasons not to drive aggressively yourself and reasons not to react to others who do:

• Most states have programs that specifically target aggressive driving. If you do it, you’re going to get ticketed or arrested eventually.
• When someone is injured or killed in a road rage incident, the other party usually ends up in jail or prison. (Commonly believing that it wasn’t their fault).
• Escaped convicts, insane people, psychopaths, gang members, serial murderers and off duty police officers all drive cars. Which one would you want a confrontation with?

As roads become more crowded, the daily commute becomes more and more like a battle for survival. Aggressive driving is on the increase and sooner or later you are going to come into contact with a potentially dangerous road warrior. Know what you’ll do ahead of time and bear in mind that things could end tragically if someone doesn’t calmly defuse the situation; that would be you.

If you know you have an aggressive driving problem, get anger counseling if necessary and at the very least start forming safer driving habits - habits good enough to mitigate another driver’s bad ones. Your family, your career and your freedom could all disappear from your life in an instant of poor judgment.