Horror as pickup driver, 26, is shot and killed in road rage incident just before midnight as Ohio cops hunt suspect motorist in a gray car

An unarmed pickup driver, 26, was shot dead in what police in Ohio believe was an horrific road rage incident that occurred just before midnight on Tuesday 

When first responders got to the scene in the Cincinnati suburb of Middletown, they found a Chevy pickup resting against a pole. The driver had been shot in the neck. He was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Acting Middletown Police Chief Eric Crank told the media that thanks to surveillance footage and fragments of the other car being found at the scene, he expects and arrest to made on Thursday. 

'This is just one of those things that we see across the nation. People are frustrated, people are angry but this is a perfect example of how something like this, so simple probably, I think once we find out it’s going to be some simple thing that escalated into someone’s death,' Crank told the media. 

A 911 caller described the incident as involving 'road rage' and said that both drivers were involved. 

There was at least one witness to the horror.  

The incident occurred here at the cross section between Manchester Avenue and Verity Parkway in Middletown just before midnight on Tuesday 

'This is just one of those things that we see across the nation. People are frustrated,' Acting Middletown Police Chief Eric Crank

According to a 2024 Consumer Affairs study, nearly eight in ten American drivers exhibit aggressive behavior behind the wheel

'First thing that I saw was the flashing lights coming through my window. I looked and there was a guy laying almost, he wasn't completely out of his truck his feet was under the truck, but he was laying there,' nearby resident Otis Turner told WCPO. 

'With the description that we have, officers are out now looking for any type of video evidence and following up with any type of witnesses who saw the incident, and they are working those leads as they are talking right now,' Crank later said. 

'We have downloaded several videos from the bus transit building and we have several others businesses that we got and obtained video from so the detectives are going through those right now,' he added. 

The exact circumstances of what occurred in the lead-up to the shooting are not clear.  

According to a 2024 Consumer Affairs study, nearly eight in ten American drivers exhibit aggressive behavior behind the wheel. 

Males are more likely to both dish out and receive road rage.  

Between 2023 and 2016, 70 deaths were attributed to road rage as well as hundreds of injuries. 

By generations, millennials are by far-and-away the most likely to be involved in a road rage, followed by Generation X and finally Baby Boomers. 

In Hawaii if a driver is cited for road rage, their insurance premium can increase by up to 96 percent. 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, road rage figures soared as an American was shot once every 17 hours in 2021.  

In all, 131 people were killed and 391 wounded by gunfire for a total of 522 road rage casualties in 2021, the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety said in a report released in 2022.

That represents a significant jump from 73 dead and 166 wounded in 2016, a spike that the report's authors suspect was linked to stresses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.