Road rage is aggressive or angry behavior exhibited by people driving a vehicle. These behaviors include rude and verbal insults, yelling, physical threats or dangerous driving methods targeted at other drivers, pedestrians, or cyclists in an effort to intimidate or release frustration. Road rage can lead to altercations, damage to property, assaults, and collisions that result in serious physical injuries or even death. Behaviour has included (but is not limited to) cutting motorists off, inappropriate honking, flashing headlights, directing obscene gestures at another driver, swerving, tailgating, brake checking, and physical confrontation.

According to a study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety that examined police records nationally, there were more than 1,250 incidents of road rage on average reported per year between 1990–1996 in the United States. Many of these incidents have ended with serious injuries or fatalities. These rates rose each year throughout the six years of the study. As of 2010, a number of studies have found that individuals with road rage are predominantly young (33 years old on average) and 96.6% male.

In some jurisdictions, there can be a legal difference between "road rage" and "aggressive driving." In the U.S., only a few states have enacted special aggressive driving laws, where road rage cases are normally prosecuted as assault and battery (with or without a vehicle), or as vehicular homicide.^{[citation needed]}

The legal definition of road rage encompasses a group of behaviors expressed while driving, or stemming from traffic-related incidents. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration defines road rage as when "an intentional assault by a driver or passenger with a motor vehicle or a weapon that occurs on the roadway or is precipitated by an incident on the roadway." This definition makes the distinction that aggressive driving is a traffic violation and that road rage is a criminal offense.^{[according to whom?]}

Road rage can include:

Road rage shootings, being instances of road rage in which a gun is fired, are typically impulsive events in which participant(s) in a road rage incident already had a gun in their car or on their person. In the United States, a person was shot in a road rage incident every 18 hours in 2023 based on data from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which relies on police reports and news coverage.

A stressed driver's behavior depends on that driver's coping abilities. Driving presents many stresses because of high speeds and the actions of other drivers. As stress increases, the likelihood of a person exhibiting road rage increases dramatically. Typically, younger males are most susceptible to road rage. Most reported cases of road rage occur because of cutting in and out of traffic, lane changes, disputes over parking spots or rude gestures. A report found that 6.8% of selected road rage incidents result in death.

According to one study, people who customize their cars with stickers and other adornments are more prone to road rage. In the study, the number of territory markers predicted road rage better than did vehicle value or condition. Only the number of bumper stickers, not their content, predicted road rage.