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As you make plans to take some weekend road trips this sweaty summer, a number of obstacles and annoyances await the average driver. Whiny kids, expensive gas, and traffic to name a few. But the most dangerous obstacle you face might be aggressive drivers.

You can probably subdue the kids with a portable DVD player and maybe OPEC will ramp up oil production to help lower gas costs. But how do you protect yourself from road rage?



According to a study by Colorado State University social psychologist William Szlemko, there's a simple trick to avoiding road rage incidents: Stay away from cars with bumper stickers.

That's right. Szlemko's study found a link between road rage and the amount of personalized items on people's vehicles... including bumper stickers.



Drivers with personalized "territorial markers" like bumper stickers, custom stereos and window decals are much more likely to express some form of road rage like tailgating, middle finger salutes, honking or even throwing an ax.

Does the nature or tone of the bumper stickers matter? Does someone with a "Save the Earth" sticker on their bumper make them nicer and less likely to want a confrontation? No. According to the study, it doesn't matter if you have peace or anarchy symbols on your car. Any form of personalized territorial markers on a vehicle means that the driver will be more likely to display road rage towards another driver. Drivers with road rage tend to think of public streets and highways as "my street" and "my lane."

"The more markers a car has, the more aggressively the person tends to drive when provoked," Szlemko said.

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Labels: offbeat