MOTORISTS in South-West England are the most likely to boil over while driving, according to a survey.

And it pinpopints the 25 to 34 year old age group as the most likely to erupt into road rage.

Research by Confused.com has revealed more about the level of road rage that Britons experience behind the wheel.

It concludes that 97 per cent of UK motorists confessed to being prone to bouts of road rage, with anger on the roads most frequently prominent among those living in the South-West and the West Midlands.

Urban streets and A roads were revealed as bigger hotspots for road rage than motorways.

The release of the survey results follows the launch of online tool from Confused.com, which allows users to determine their likelihood of experiencing road rage by analysing their online behaviour.

The survey revealed how people are most likely to display their road rage in the UK, and highlighted particular roads where this was most likely to occur.

When the 1,024 UK motorists were asked if they ever experienced road rage, the vast majority (97%) said ‘yes’.

When they were then asked how often this tended to occur, more than a quarter (27%) said it was ‘on a weekly basis’, while a further 18% said it was as often as ‘three or more times a week’.

Of respondents who said that they experienced road the most often (‘three or more times a week’), those aged 25-34 were the most likely – making up 61% of all those who gave that answer.

This was closely followed by those aged 35-44 (14%) and 45-54 (also 14%). Only 9% of those who experienced road rage multiple times per week were aged 18-24.

The study also aimed to uncover the roads on which road rage was most prevalent.

This highlighted urban streets (62%), A roads (59%) and motorways (42%).

Specific roads frequently named by respondents as being particularly road-rage inducing were the A417, A38, the M5 and the M6. Roundabouts also appeared often.

The motorists who confessed to experiencing road rage three or more times a week hailed mostly from the South-West (51%), Scotland (10%) and the West Midlands (also 10%).

When asked how they were most likely to act when experiencing road rage, respondents revealed the following top five responses:

  • 1. Internalising anger/talking to myself - 74%;
  • 2. Shouting at others from behind the wheel – 65%;
  • 3. Beeping horn – 43%;
  • 4. Displaying inappropriate hand signals towards others – 36%;
  • 5. Getting out of the car to confront others – 4%.