SAN ANTONIO – Four years feel like a lifetime to Colten Bonk, but his life couldn’t be more different.
“I wasn’t thinking rationally at that point. All I could think about was getting the next one in me,” Bonk said. “I got sober when I was 23.”
But before that, Bonk got into a serious crash.
“I went on a high-speed chase,” he said. “I crashed my truck doing like 77 or 78 (mph). I wasn’t wearing my seat belt and I put my face to my windshield. I cracked my head open, broke three bones in my neck, all my ribs, my sternum and my scapula.”
He suffered a stage three brain injury and was in a coma for 11 days. It happened after he drove drunk and got aggressive behind the wheel.
Now, Bonk’s nearly four years sober. He owns Bridge Solutions Sober Living.
Bonk’s story is just one of thousands in San Antonio. He’s sharing it to change the statistics for aggressive driving ahead of one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
“Road rage is really a severe community issue,” Dr. Yufang Jin, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said.
Jin works with a nonprofit organization called “Community Alliance of Traffic Safety” to find solutions to aggressive driving.
The organization said road rage in San Antonio is seeing an upward trend. Dean DeSoto is the organization’s executive director.
“It’s very dangerous on our roads now,” DeSoto said. “This is the deadliest time of year for drunk driving and traffic crashes.”
UTSA and the organization conducted a survey to measure Bexar County’s road rage. Preliminary results from clients at Community Alliance of Traffic Safety found 68% of people had issues with frustration or anxiety, and 21% had prior problems with alcohol or drugs.
The survey shows that only 47% of the people surveyed identified themselves as aggressive drivers.
“We have a massive accountability problem,” Bonk said.
The organization said the most road rage happens in construction zones and near highway mergers. However, DeSoto said aggressive driving is spreading to small towns.
His warning to drivers this weekend is widespread.
“I would avoid confrontation at all costs on this Memorial Day weekend,” DeSoto said.
To read about the solutions the organization and UTSA are working on to address road rage, click here.
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