Where can you find America’s true feelings about pretty much anything? Social media, of course. The folks at the Auto Insurance Centre thus turned to Instagram to find out where and when America is most affected by road rage. The insurance company analyzed the use of the hashtag “#RoadRage” in more than 65,000 posts to get their answers.
More #RoadRage posts were shared during August than during any other month. It could be that drivers get shorter fuses in hotter weather, especially considering July took second place. However, March and October, separated by only three posts, were the third busiest times for road rage.
The frequency of #RoadRage posts was fairly well distributed through the week, with a slight increase occurring every day from Sunday to Friday. A significant drop-off on Saturday may be explained by good tidings related to the weekend but probably relates more to the lack of rush hour traffic on the weekends.
Instagram posters were most severely affected by #RoadRage during the evening rush hour from 5-7 p.m. There was not a matching peak for the morning rush hour, perhaps indicating that drivers are more concerned about getting home quickly than getting to work on time.
Across the country, #RoadRage posts were roughly correlated to population density. Hawaii was the leader by more than 2,800 posts. California and New York took the second and third place spots. Nevada and Utah were surprises in the top ten, but their sparse population densities overall were offset by posts from drivers in the busy cities of Las Vegas and Reno in Nevada and Salt Lake City and Provo in Utah.
Los Angeles was the source of more #RoadRage posts than any other city, with New York City a close second. Unexpectedly, Mount Pleasant, N.C., beat out the likes of Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., for third place.
