Stick it in your rear-view mirror: aggressive driving is all the rage.

Aggressive driving. Road rage. Demolition derby driving. Most of us have experienced it. Some of us have engaged in it. Many of us witness it every day -- every rush hour -- and hope we don't get killed because of it.

Police are likening the frequency and deadly consequences of aggressive driving to that of drunk driving. Others are convinced air bags and sport utility vehicles contribute to it because they give drivers a false sense of security. Public safety campaigns and citizen action groups are trying to heighten awareness of the problem.

Make no mistake about it, civility behind the wheel has gone out the window. A study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, published in late May, found that 12,828 people -- including 94 children under the age of 15 -- were injured or killed as the result of aggressive driving.

According to the study, reports of violent traffic incidents have increased nearly 7 percent a year since 1990. The study, prepared by Mizell & Co., an international security firm in Bethesda, Maryland, analyzed 10,037 police reports and newspaper stories about traffic incidents between January 1, 1990, and September 1, 1996, that led to violence.

Roadway madness between strangers is turning more,deadly all the time. In August 1995, a highway fender bender enraged one driver so much that he pulled the other driver out of her car and forced her to jump into the Detroit River, where she drowned. He is currently serving a 16-to-40-year prison term. (William J. Cook, Mad Driver's Disease, U.S. News & World Rep., Nov. 11, 1996, at 74.)

Last year, a tailgating incident between two drivers near Washington, D.C., escalated into a high-speed chase during the height of rush hour. The drivers lost control and veered into oncoming traffic. The four-car crash left one driver and two innocent commuters dead. A jury convicted the other driver on two counts of involuntary manslaughter. A federal judge sentenced him to 10 and a half years in prison -- more than three times the suggested federal guideline. The judge said she hopes "to deter the general public." (Linda Feldmann, `Mad Max' Drivers Become a Major Road Hazard, Christian Sci. Monitor, Apr. 7, 1997, at 1.)

"What's very clear is that 100 percent of aggressive drivers have temper tantrums on the road, if not outwardly, then inwardly," said John Larson, a Norwalk, Connecticut, psychiatrist who is director of the Institute of Stress Medicine. "Aggressive driving is a medically diagnosed stress disorder that is characterized by feelings of impatience, anxiety, and rage. People who suffer from it do not make good driving judgments, and a relative few become temporarily psychotic."

Larson's personal and clinical experiences led him to write a book on the subject, Steering Clear of Highway Madness. In the book, he classifies five types of aggressive drivers -- the speeder, the competitor, the passive-aggressor, the narcissist, and the vigilante. "All of the first four types can escalate into vigilantes," Larson said.

David Willis, president of the AAA Foundation, said that "for every aggressive driving incident serious enough to result in a police report or newspaper article, there are hundreds or thousands more which never got reported to the authorities."

The AAA Foundation study found that the majority of perpetrators were males between the ages of 18 and 26. However, in hundreds of reported cases, the aggressive driver was 26 to 50 years old. In 86 cases, the driver was between 50 and 75.

As Larson said, there seems to be no definitive profile of an aggressive driver. The AAA Foundation said most are relatively young, poorly educated males with criminal records, histories of violence, and drug or alcohol problems, and many have recently suffered an emotional or professional setback. But hundreds of others are successful men and women with no such turbulent personal histories.

While most of the drivers reported in the study were men, 413 of the recorded incidents, or approximately 4 percent, involved women. Women used their vehicle as a weapon in 285 cases. In 31 other incidents, women drivers assaulted police officers, usually while the officer was attempting to issue the woman a traffic citation.

The study also found that the events precipitating violent incidents can be remarkably trivial and the people involved are often just ordinary citizens. "People have been shot because they drove too slowly or played the radio too loud," Willis said. "But violent traffic disputes are rarely the result of a single incident. Rather, they seem to be the result of personal attitudes and stress in the motorist's life." The traffic incident that turns violent, he said, is often the last straw.

According to the AAA Foundation study, the most popular weapons used in traffic altercations were firearms and motor vehicles. In approximately 44 percent of the incidents, the perpetrator used a weapon such as a firearm, knife, club, or tire iron. In 23 percent, the driver used the vehicle as a weapon, and in 12 percent a vehicle and a "standard" weapon. More unusual weapons reported in the study included pepper spray, eggs, golf clubs, and, in one instance, a crossbow.

Taking the cure

Cops will tell you that most aggressive drivers are in denial about their habits behind the wheel. Leon James, a psychology professor at the University of Hawaii, readily admits that he was, too -- until he put a tape recorder on the dashboard of his car and voiced his feelings as he motored through traffic. "It was not a pleasant tape to play back," he said. These days, James teaches an undergraduate course in traffic psychology.

James is adamant that aggressive driving is a worldwide problem. He said applied psychologists in Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland estimate that 30 percent to 80 percent of all traffic accidents are due to driver aggressivity. In Turkey, James said there is a traffic sign posted along many highways that says, translated: "Control your driving dragon inside you."

Under the self-dubbed moniker "Dr. Driving," James maintains an extensive Internet site on the World Wide Web (http:// www.aloha.net/~dyc). There, visitors can learn more about the origins of their road rage and how to modify their behavior by applying psychological principles to their driving routines.

Asked for a doctor's remedy for aggressive driving, Larson offers this analogous prescription. "We've been eating together for thousands of years, but we've only been driving cars for about 90," he said. "We don't have established manners and courtesies for being in the car the way we do for being at the dinner table."

To receive a copy of the AAA Foundation's aggressive driving study, fax your request to [phone] or write to the group at its headquarters, 1440 New York Avenue, N.W, Washington, DC 20005. The group also maintains a Web site on the Internet at http://www.aaafts.org/aaa.