SAN ANTONIO — A woman was shot in the foot in what police are calling a road rage incident just north of downtown.
It started around 7:41 a.m. on Wednesday on Interstate 10 near Fresno Street. Police say they responded to a shooting in progress in the 8000 block of Vantage Drive off I-10 near Cherry Ridge Dr.
Police say the 27-year-old woman had two children with her in her car when she was shot. Neither child, an infant and a child who appeared to be around 10 or 12-years-old, were hurt in the incident.
The woman suffered a gunshot wound to her right foot and was taken to the hospital.
Police say the male suspect was driving a black Dodge pickup truck. That suspect has not yet been located.
Dean Desoto, Executive Director of the Committee Alliance for Traffic Safety, or C.A.T.S, says since the pandemic there has been an increase in Road Rage incidents.
In my opinion, it's a spillover from other societal tensions and anxieties, because anxieties always lead to frustrations and anger, and anger to leads to violence." Said Desoto.
Desoto along with other collogues have been researching behaviors of aggressive driving, with a focus on anger and the cause for anger when engaging in a road rage incident.
Desoto says there is no definition of Road Rage in Texas, or in the U.S.
In collaboration with Dr. Fong Jin, at the University of Texas San Antonio, they are using data from a prototype of an aggressive driving simulator, created by Dr. Fong.
“So we can analyze what kind of behaviors are they manifesting in the driving of a of that simulator. It's very interesting, because it's using artificial intelligence, and various types of means of psychometrics, such as eye sense like to see how the iris responding.” Said Desoto.
Desoto says the ultimate goal of the research is to get to the root cause of road rage.
“Driving by its nature is is a fight or flight response, because we have to console react to threat. Threatening data such as field velocity, other drivers, etc. obstructions near what have you, it creates a certain amount of stress. But how do we stay in the higher brain function, so we're more rational typically under stressful situations?” Said Desoto.
Desoto says if you run across a road rage driver, be passive, move over and don't escalate thing. Desoto will also be releasing more of his research on Tuesday.
The woman who was shot in this mornings, incident was taken to the hospital in unknown condition.
Police say the other driver was a black male in a black Dodge Ram truck, at last check he is still not been found.