The number of reported road rage shooting deaths in the U.S. has doubled in the last four years and the deadly trend appears to show no signs of slowing down, according to a database of gun violence.
Everytown, an organization working to end gun violence, analyzed the Gun Violence Archive’s database and found that at least 70 road rage shooting deaths occurred in the United States in 2018. That number doubled to 141 in 2022.
“The same trend occurred with gun injuries: at least 176 people were injured in a road rage incident in 2018, with a staggering increase to 413 people in 2022,” Everytown reported.
That translates to a person being shot or killed in a road rage incident every 16 hours in 2022.
Several road rage incidents have made headlines in San Antonio in recent weeks, including a road rage shooting on Sunday that left a 6-month-old child injured on the city’s Northwest Side.
The family of a 22-year-old nursing student at the University of the Incarnate Word believes he was killed in a suspected road rage shooting on Saturday night. Police haven’t confirmed the motivation behind the shooting but did say the victim died from a gunshot wound to the head while he was diving on I-35 N in Selma.
Another incident occurred on March 7 when a man was shot on the Southeast Side. He told KSAT he had no idea what he did to set the other driver off.
A road rage shooting in February near Highway 90 and Loop 410 left a woman hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after police said a car with three people inside was shot at by someone in a passing vehicle.
“The southern United States, which has weaker gun laws on average than the nation overall, sees the highest rates of victimization from road rage shootings, double those in the Northeast,” according to Everytown.
The organization found that the highest rate of road rage shootings that resulted in injury or death occurred in states where people are allowed to carry a gun without a permit.
The research found that states with permitless carry had 27 percent more deaths and injuries in road rage incidents involving a gun than states that required a permit.
“More research on road rage shootings is needed, but one thing is clear: these trends are not slowing down,” Everytown officials said.