Just last month, the Utah Department of Public Safety reported an 11 percent increase in aggressive, road rage related crashes statewide from 2022 to 2023. Now, state lawmakers are attempting to crack down on the incidents.
Chris Mortensen was driving on Interstate 15 in Oct. 2022 when police he was cut off by another driver. Both men got off the highway and began arguing in a gas station parking lot where the suspect, Rodrigo Monroy, pulled a gun and shot Mortensen in the chest, killing him .
Mortensen’s cousin, Brandon Merrill, said with four children, the shooting destroyed his family.
“This type of action, where we start to physically either intimidate or try to hurt somebody, that’s something that is incomprehensible to me,” said Merrill.
The Utah Highway Patrol says they’ve identified 32 incidents of road rage just in the past year.
“We were able to identify circumstances that would meet the definition of what we’re talking about right now. It’s almost for sure, not all inclusive of everything that we’ve been involved with, but it’s a representation of that defining road rage statutorily will help us better scope exactly,” explained UHP Col. Michael Rapich.