There’s a lot of harrumphing on my voice mail this morning from readers rarin' to re-fight the War of Northern Aggression.

Native drivers take umbrage at aspersions cast on local motoring habits by Yankee transplants (see today's Road Worrier column, with more reader comments).

We learned how to drive from all those transplants running us over. It's not the natives who drive this way. It's the transplants who taught us how to drive. We never used to have to tailgate, but now we do. -- Linda Burton, 52, NC native.

The people who are doing all this crazy driving are coming from up north. There have been some second-generation Yankees who have grown up here and have the right to call this their home. But they're trying to blame the local residents for this bad driving, and I don't believe that is quite fair. -- Ben Henderson, 79, Raleigh native. ... [MORE]

Some of 'em have lower boiling points than others -- or more caffeine coursing through their fuel lines.

But there is a lot of consistency in the messages from self-described aggressive drivers who are speaking up and explaining themselves (see today's Road Worrier column; don't be alarmed by the scary old mugshot).

They describe themselves not as self-appointed traffic cops, but as remedial driver's ed teachers. And some of us have lessons to learn.

Even if you're not a honker, and even if you lack the urge to speed, you can recognize the stupid, dangerous behaviors that get them hot under the hood.

"What the media and law enforcement miss is why people like me are aggressive," writes Denise Bricker:

When I am the only driver in sight on a road with a 55 mph and someone looks my way and then pulls out in front of me so that they can drive 10 or 15 mph under the limit, it tends to irk me and I tend to honk.
... [MORE]

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has a new spin on the dangers of aggressive driving:

Hypocrisy.

Aggressive driving is a mushy name, but we understand what it means: speeding, tailgating, side-swiping, driving erratically, cutting in and out of traffic, not bothering with turn signals, sometimes rising to the level of road rage.

What's at stake goes beyond mere bad manners. Aggressive driving behavior was involved in 56 percent of the nation's fatal crashes between 2003 and 2007, the AAA Foundation says.

A new AAA report finds that we recognize what's wrong about aggressive driving when others do it -- but many of us admit we do the same things.

For example: ... [MORE]