California has the worst bad/crazy/aggressive drivers per mile driven of any state I've visited. I drove across most of the I-40 corridor plus I-5 plus various parts of the Southeast three times last year, twice in big moving trucks.
But I will say there seem to be more big rig drivers either undertrained, inattentive, or pharmaceutically enhanced than there used to be. Saw a few really scary maneuvers by some truckers during my trips.
I've noticed the same thing, during several long interstate trips over the past few years to visit my wife's family. Just two days ago, my wife and I almost got wiped out on I-40 here in Arkansas by a truck that suddenly changed lanes without warning, just as we were starting to pass it. The same thing happened to a friend of mine in Texas back in April, except for the "almost" part. A big truck basically "PIT maneuvered" his pickup, causing it to flip several times. Miraculously, he survived but was badly injured. His spinal injuries have left him permanently disabled; some days he's pretty much unable to walk.
I knew about ten truck drivers back in the late '80s and early '90s, and all but three were on meth and were absolutely crazy. Two of the three who weren't were older relatives of mine, who'd been driving big trucks for decades. The other worked for a local trucking company that
that provided free meth for its drivers, which he refused to use. His wife told me his boss once
made him take a baggie of meth home with him, which she immediately flushed down the toilet.
I've fortunately only witnessed obvious road rage a couple of times, and thankfully never was a victim. Once was when a car pulled over in front of another in traffic, and got dangerously close to clipping the other car's front bumper. The car that was behind immediately whipped into the other lane, stomped the gas pedal to the floor, and did the same thing to them. But, that was the end of it. Another time was two obviously very angry people racing down I-40 at very high speed, who quickly went out of sight.
My wife lived in Indianapolis for several years, where she said road rage was an absolute epidemic. Upon my first visit to Indy, I was shocked to see anti-road rage billboards EVERYWHERE, which were posted by the State of Indiana.
Oklahoma has it's bunch of fools as well. I wish I could find the news article and dashcam footage, but earlier this year one moron decided to side-slam and push another vehicle into the center concrete barrier on a freeway down there in OKC because the madman/idiot driver got pissed off. IIRC, both (pretty new) vehicles were totaled....but no death.
Back when we used go to Fort Smith (situated on the Arkansas - Oklahoma border) often and the speed limit on I-40 in Arkansas was 65, we'd always see plenty of cars with Oklahoma plates driving about 95 mph, insanely weaving around cars as they passed them. It always made us nervous. I suspect it was perhaps because they were accustomed to driving on the many high-speed toll roads in Oklahoma, which Arkansas doesn't have. I also saw many such Okies pulled over by Arkansas State Troopers, who no doubt gave them a friendly, gentle reminder to slow it down a bit.
. I mean all the really weird stuff seems to be Florida. Like calling emergency services because they ran out of chicken nuggets at McDonald’s
