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How smiling in the car can save your family's life.

You might think speeding or alcohol would take the title of ‘biggest killer on the roads’, but you’d be wrong.

Contrary to popular belief , ‘road rage’ takes the top spot… the phenomenon lurks behind a whopping 66% of traffic fatalities according to safemotorist.com.

If you’re hitting the road with the family, Holly Wainwright and Andrew Daddo have the games, quizzes and stories to keep everyone entertained. Post continues after audio…

‘Road rage’ is never a concept I’ve been familiar with. I thought there wasn’t much more to it than muttered profanities, and the occasional horn-honk.

But then I had my first run-in and it’s utterly terrifying.

Read about Mia Freedman’s experience watching two drivers battle it out with a mallet and cricket stump.

Driving along a quiet neighbourhood street, a man in a parked white BMW pulled out in front of me. Without indicating. I replied with a firm application of the brakes and reactionary horn honk.

His toddler was strapped into a child seat in the back of his car.

It’s not up to me make judgment on who was at fault (it was him). But I can say, definitively, that the way he reacted to the situation was unwarranted. And violent.

Instead of driving on, he stopped his car. In the middle of the road.

I thought he might’ve been winding down his window to apologise. Or he realised, all of a sudden, he forgot to do his child’s seatbelt up. Maybe he accidentally left the handbrake on.

Then the door opened. He got out onto the road and slammed it behind him.

What followed was a barrage of offensive filth, insulting me, my driving skills, and my family members. None of whom he knew. I wound down my window in an attempt to have an conversation. You know, like adults.

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But he wasn’t interested. He shouted at me, as if catching a spouse cheating mid-sex: a bitter stream of vitriolic fury.

It was clear the anger was stemming from something else. Because a minor traffic disagreement isn’t enough to warrant blood-curdling fits of rage. But regardless of what the root of his anger was, taking it onto the roads was downright dangerous.

His mind wasn’t there. His mind was on the fight with his wife he’d just had. Or the business deal that didn’t go his way.

His mind wasn’t on the safety of his four-year-old son in the back seat. It wasn’t on indicating. Or driving safely. Or being aware of the cars on the road around him.

"His toddler was strapped into a child seat, in the back of his car." via iStock.

I'm not saying I'm a hero. Or that I'm exempt from scrutiny. But if I hadn't reacted quickly the situation could've been a whole lot worse. Cars would've been damaged, obviously. But people could've been injured. Namely, the young child sitting in his back seat.

Sometimes it's unavoidable. You can't simply hop out of the car when you're struck by frustration. And you can't simply turn it off.

But having some awareness - acknowledging you're head is in a bad place; acknowledging you're annoyed or irritated or irate - might just pull your focus back to reality... might just pull your focus back to the road in front of you and the cars around you.

And it might just save your life. Not to mention, the lives of the person sitting next to you... and the little one buckled up in the back.