Police and state Transportation Department officials say it’s not clear if road-rage incidents are more common now or if they are just easier to report because more people have cell phones in their cars.

Sgt. Fred Dyroff, of the state police at Selinsgrove, said, “Road rage is very broad, and there’s no way to verify it, but we’re not seeing a trend.”

What’s taking place is that most motorists now have cell phones and often pick them up when they witness a violation, Dyroff said.

“We do get a lot of calls about drivers playing cat-and-mouse on the ‘Strip,’ ” he said, referring to the three-mile stretch of Routes 11-15 between Shamokin Dam and Selinsgrove.

Several recent confrontations on local roads have been attributed to road rage by police.

On Sunday, Dane C. Bamford, 23, of Coal Township, was charged with simple assault and recklessly endangering another person for allegedly pointing a loaded revolver at another motorist on the Veterans Memorial Bridge in Sunbury.

In July, Jay Ravert, 56, of Mifflinburg, escaped serious injury after being shot in the face by a disgruntled motorist who was trying to pass the vehicle Ravert was riding in on Route 104 in Liverpool Township near Snyder County.

The alleged shooter, Christopher M. Rapp, 36, of Shermans Dale, is facing charges of criminal attempt homicide, aggravated assault, simple assault and reckless endangerment.

Trucker jailed

In Columbia County Court a few weeks ago, Gregory B. Moore, 30, an independent hauler from Sunbury, was sentenced to eight months to 23 months in county jail for using his rig to run a vehicle off Interstate 80 in August 2007 and injuring three men.

Judge Thomas A. James called Moore’s crime “appalling” and said it “smacks of road rage.”

In one of the worst cases of road rage, 62-year-old Peter Venditto, of Milford, N.J., crashed his car and died last June while traveling on Interstate 78 near Allentown after apparently playing “chicken” with another motorist.

Police said the deadly crash occurred after he chased a Lehigh County woman who admitted she had earlier made an obscene gesture at Venditto when he suddenly hit his brakes and forced her to swerve.

Since most road-rage cases involve crimes ranging from harassment, assault, and even homicide, state police don’t sort them as a single category and don’t keep statistics, said Capt. Mike Patrick of the state police Bureau of Patrol.