March 2006 - NEVER get into a race at traffic lights, always lock your doors when driving in town and leave enough room between you and the car in front to allow you to pull away quickly if you have to.

Do everything to avoid violence, but if you have to fight go in hard and aim for the throat, eyes and crotch. Slap, bite, pinch and scratch; even tickle if you think it will help.

The organisers of Britain’s first anti-road rage course admit that this may sound cowardly but as Simon Leila, an instructor in Krav Maga, the Israeli self-defence system, puts it: “The main thing is to get home and have a cup of tea. If your life is being threatened you should be biting, scratching, pulling hair, punching, kicking. Always assume they are armed with a knife; if not, it is a bonus.”

Combining defensive driving skills with basic self-defence, the two-day course is designed to give drivers the know-how to avoid and, if necessary, fight their way out of violent confrontations on the road.

If another motorist sticks a finger up at you, ignore it. If they are desperate to get past you, pull over. If they get out of their car to confront you, use your body language to placate them: stand back and to one side, hold both hands up with palms facing outwards, and slow down your speech and volume. If they are intent on fighting, cause a minor collision to attract attention and shout “terrorist!” or “fire!” If the worst comes to the worst, be prepared to use your car, from the door to the dashboard, as an “opportunist weapon”.

After the first course in Scotland this week, the scheme is expected to extend across Britain this year. Two days of instruction in the classroom and on the road, with props including plastic knives and baseball bats, will cost £499, including accommodation and meals.

Simon Johnston, the director of Accidon’t, an advanced school of motoring that is running the driving side of the course, said: “Everybody wants to be top dog on the road these days. We are all under a lot more pressure and people are taking that into their cars.”

Although some form of road rage has been around as long as there have been cars on the road, the deeply disturbing modern phenomenon was not properly recognised until 1996 when Stephen Cameron, a 21-year-old passenger in a car driven by his fiancée, was stabbed to death on an M25 slip-road by Kenneth Noye, an underworld fixer.

According to a survey by Synovate International, a market research company, Britain is now second only to South Africa for road rage incidents. According to the poll, carried out in ten developed countries, 95 per cent of motorists in Britain said that they had been involved in or had witnessed an incident of road rage in the previous year. Separate research has shown that a fifth of British drivers carry some form of weapon in their vehicle.

Taking a break on the course from defending herself against a man armed with a wheel brace, Ally Bennett, 26, said that she wanted to feel safer on the road. Miss Bennett, from Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute, said: “Eight months ago somebody tried to run me off the road and about a year ago I was followed for an hour and a half by a weirdo who kept trying to get me to pull over. I want to know how to defend myself and what to do in the worst-case scenario.”

HOW TO ARRIVE IN ONE PIECE

If someone is driving too close behind and trying to intimidate you, slow down or pull over and let them pass. Do a drive-through at a petrol station or go right round a roundabout

If you cannot get rid of them, drive to the nearest police station or anywhere with plenty of people and closed-circuit television, such as a petrol station or large supermarket

If driving in town under 20mph keep doors locked and don’t get out to argue with anybody. Never open the window more than a couple of inches

If somebody gets out to talk to you, stay calm. Don’t escalate the situation by responding aggressively

If a fight becomes unavoidable, act fast: rub your hands over the other person’s face to disorientate them. Slap them on both sides of the face (punching affects a smaller surface area)

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