that Washington area motorists felt more threatened by aggressive drivers than by drunk drivers; 40 percent of the respondents said that aggressive drivers "most endanger highway safety," while 33 percent identified drunk drivers as the primary risk. After the AAA Potomac survey had been completed but before it was published, two aggressive drivers caused a disastrous fatal crash on the George Washington Parkway near McLean, Virginia, a tragedy that further focused public attention on the problem. The Foundation realized that although the topic of aggressive driving seemed of great concern to motorists, there was little real knowledge of the extent of the problem or of any trends in the phenomenon. Thus the Foundation set out to determine a true picture of the extent of aggressive driving behavior. Was it occasional or frequent? Was the trend holding steady, decreasing, or increasing? What were some of the factors at work in aggressive driving incidents? The Foundation approached Louis Mizell, owner of a corporation that maintains databases of crime reports in Bethesda, Maryland. Mr. Mizell was commissioned to research all incidents of violence that involved traffic altercations and use of vehicles as weapons. These incidents included only the most violent confrontations -- those so extreme that they resulted in a police crime report or a published newspaper article. They undoubtedly represent a small fraction of the total number of such incidents. The following document contains Mr. Mizell's study, along with the 1995 AA Road Safety Unit study and a subsequent paper published by