(WWJ) With another angry driver facing possible prison time, Michigan State Police are again pleading with the public not to engage in road rage.
MSP First Lt. Mike Shaw says troopers have been seeing a lot more road rage in the metro Detroit area in recent months.
"We've seen a lot of road rage incidents. A lot more than we've seen — honestly in my career anyways — from last year to this year," Shaw told WWJ's Sandra McNeill. "A lot of the shootings that have occurred on the freeways have been from these road rage-type incidents."
In one of the latest such incidents last Friday, Shaw said a woman riding in a car along I-75 in Oakland County gave a driver the finger after becoming upset that he was tailgating their car. That's when the man — a 27-year-old from Birch Run — pulled out a gun and opened fire.
Related
"Fortunately, nobody was struck and nobody was hurt," Shaw said. "But, again, you've just gotta let this stuff go. We can't keep going on as a society and keep doing things like this, just over a little thing as driving."
"And that's what it is. It's just driving from point A to point B; it's not a big deal. Nobody's involved in any kind of NASCAR racing or anything like that that you get paid for. Just take your time, and if someone wants to go past you, then just let 'em go on by you."
Shaw said a great majority of these recent freeway shootings could have been prevented, if only cooler heads prevailed.
"And most of them are are only for little minor events: It's not using a turn signal, or flipping somebody off... Or, you know, the famous, 'It felt like they were disrespecting me.' None of those reasons whatsoever is good enough to produce a handgun and shoot at somebody."
Shaw said we as a society need to learn how to calm down, step back and deescalate our disagreements.
"We've seen that with a lot of things though. Even some of the shootings that have been happening in our communities and things like that are family-related... Where the society is now just having a lot of trouble deescalate situations," he said. "So when before people may have walked away from something, now they're grabbing a gun and shooting at each other."
Related
