Viewing Vehicular Violence through a Wide Angle Lens: Contributing Factors and a Proposed Framework

Abstract

Although vehicular violence is prevalent in North America, it is difficult to document because it is typically recorded as a violent act, without reference to the use of a vehicle, or as an “accident” or a traffic violation. It occurs anywhere in the motor vehicle transportation system when the vehicle is intentionally used as a weapon; as the supporting environment for violent acts; or as a platform for creating suffering, injury, or death. Vehicular violence can be directed outward, as, for example, in a carjacking or physical assault; or inward, as in deliberately crashing a vehicle in a suicide act. Common targets of vehicular violence include police officers and transportation workers like taxi drivers. Vehicles are also used as platforms for sexual assault or drive-by shootings. Social, psychological, and traffic-specific conditions contribute to vehicular violence; for example, competition for the roadway, stress, depression, anger, rage, vengefulness, and alcohol consumption. In the present article, a proposed framework for viewing vehicular violence is presented with three zones of immediacy – the mediate (tangential use of the vehicle in the violent act), intermediate (where the vehicle is used to facilitate the violence), and immediate (where the vehicle is the actual weapon). These zones reflect a continuum that reflects the proximity of the vehicle to the aggressive intent.