The New York Times this week released a report by major national insurer USAA, which specializes in providing insurance for veterans and their families, which seems to indicate that soldiers returning from active duty in the Middle East often have trouble adjusting to driving back home in the United States.

In fact, The New York Times reports that accidents in which a service member was at fault went up nearly 15 percent after their return from deployment. That’s enough to make the statistic an alarming account of both the effects of deployment on soldiers and their impact once they return.

With a population of more than 9 million people, New York has a fairly large population of returning service members, meaning drivers need to be aware of who they are sharing the road with, and more patient. Not everyone just finished attending traffic school. At least a few of the drivers sitting beside you in traffic likely have some inexperience to deal with.

Soldiers who might be readjusting to life behind the wheel in the United States might want to consider taking a defensive driving course New York. In New York they can receive a possible 10 percent discount on their annual insurance premiums if they do, and it might just help them get back into the swing of things. Because let’s face it, learning to drive in the U.S. is nothing like driving in a war zone, no matter how much we might think it is. Not even Los Angeles is a war zone! So it’s perfectly understandable if soldiers need a little time to get re-acclimated to life at home.

Erratic driving is the most common problem facing returning soldiers, many of whom learned to drive in the middle of the road while serving on active duty, to avoid roadside bombs. Once they get back home, that urge to stay safe in the middle is hard to overcome. In the meantime, everyone else just sees some guy driving down the center of the highway and wonders what his problem is.

For returning soldiers, life is difficult and there’s always going to be an adjustment period. A New York defensive driving course would definitely help, but so would the patience of everyone around them. Unless they’re driving right toward you on the highway–then it’s perfectly OK to blow your horn.