Keeping the streets safe.

• Author: Bilodeau, Steven

Criminal courtrooms are full enough with dyed-in-the-wool criminals: the murderers, con artists and burglars. Neither judges nor prosecutors want to see otherwise law-abiding citizens brought to the prisoner's dock because of an isolated incident.

That, however, is happening more often than usual, and the offences are much more serious than the typical impulsive shoplifter. Courts around the world are seeing crimes of violence perpetrated by people with no prior criminal history, and with significant enough circumstances to justify prison sentences. It is the phenomenon of road rage that is to blame.

The underlying causes of road rage are best left to sociologists, psychologists, and city planners. All that the criminal justice system can do is express society's disapproval and intolerance for the behaviour.

Instances of road rage have occurred in the past; they are not a phenomenon of the last decade. In 1965 for instance, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the conviction of Allen Dyer for assault causing bodily harm. The complainant had stopped his car ahead of Dr. Dyer's, got out, and started writing down Dyer's licence plate number. Dr. Dyer left his vehicle and, in a fit of anger, struck the complainant in the face, breaking his jaw.

What is new, though, is the prevalence and escalation of the behaviour. The gunfights and murders, which occurred on Los Angeles free-ways in the 1990s, depict road rage taken to the extreme.

Those accused of dangerous driving, assault, or mischief arising out of road rage situations should not be surprised when the prosecutor bangs the table for jail and the judge nods approvingly. Whether it is in England, the United States, or any Canadian jurisdiction, courts are sending consistent messages that this is simply intolerable conduct.

Justice Collins of the English Court of Appeal remarked in Ramsden that because of the prevalence of the offence, if there is injury caused, it will almost always involve a custodial disposition, even on a plea of guilty by a person of good character. Justice French of the same court, in the 1995 decision of Michael Arnold, rejected the oft-made submission that these sorts of cases should receive more lenient treatment because of the usually good nature of the offender: "It is no more excusable that people who are involved in traffic incidents should commit offences of violence than that similar events should occur in public places where as is so often the case drink is...