WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn. — If you've hit the road at all lately, it's easy to spot aggressive drivers. Some of them are now so upset, they're taking it out on Minnesota's newest drivers.
At A+ Driving School in White Bear Lake, instructors have been teaching people the rules of the road for nearly 20 years.
"It's gotten out of control," said A+ Driving School owner Pete Hosmer. "For the longest time, people would avoid us like the plague. You'd see a student driver car, you're like, 'I'm getting out of their way,' but now we have a lot more people tailgating us, cutting us off, speeding past us and giving us the one finger wave."
Hosmer says he's fielding more complaints than ever before, blaming, in part, speeding, which he says has particularly picked up in the peak of COVID-19.
"We're just trying to follow the rules of the road and it seems like most people don't want to do that," said Hosmer.
The Department of Public Safety reports that speeding is the most frequent behavior contributing to crashes. Data shows that fatal crashes were up some 27% from 2020 to 2021.
But there are also signs that may be starting to taper off.
The state's newest data shows there were 44 fatal crashes in August 2022 compared to 50 at the same time last year.
Hosmer hopes learning defensive driving training, no matter your age, can combat the disturbing behavior to keep everyone on the road safe.
"We enjoy working with teenagers and adults," said Hosmer. "We just don't like dealing with the people on the outside coming at us and telling us we're doing our job wrong."
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