It might be hard to believe the next time you're stuck behind miles of single-lane traffic in a construction zone, get cut off by an oblivious cell-phone yakker or receive the one-finger salute from an irate tailgater, but Pittsburgh-area motorists seem to keep their cool better than drivers in other cities.

That's the conclusion of a nationwide survey by AutoVantage, a Connecticut company that rated the 25 largest metropolitan areas for road rage and rude driving.

Pittsburgh drivers, it seems, are pretty nice -- at least compared with their counterparts in Miami, New York and Boston.

"Pittsburgh fared very well in the survey -- that's something to pat yourselves on the back about," said Todd Smith of AutoVantage.

Pittsburgh wasn't on last year's list because the survey, prepared by Prince Market Research, rated only the top 20 largest cities.

This year, the survey added five more metro areas and two of the newcomers came out on top.

Portland, Ore., was No. 1 for courtesy, followed by Pittsburgh.

Miami featured the nastiest drivers for the second year in a row.

The survey, based on some 2,500 interviews, focused on drivers' own habits and on behavior they'd seen among their fellow motorists.

In general, the survey showed people here are less likely to tailgate, yap on cell phones behind the wheel, swear at someone, rear-end another car or engage in otherwise hostile highway action.

The immediate reaction by several police officers here was predictable -- "that's amazing," "you're kidding" or "they obviously didn't visit" such-and-such street.

But one 19-year city officer who worked traffic for much of her career said the survey results sound about right.

"I'm very gung-ho about it," she said, although she didn't want to be identified. "I'm not surprised. We do not take a lot of road rage incident reports. At an intersection people take turns. It's good here. We have our bad apples, but I really find everyone here to be more courteous than [elsewhere]."

Many drivers who've been around would back that up.

Chuck Hammel, president of Pitt-Ohio Express in the Strip District, one of the largest trucking firms in the region, said truckers arrive at his facility from all over the country -- and they're often amazed at the courtesy extended to them here.

"I've had drivers come in from out of town and they'll say, 'Can you believe he slowed down to let me in? That would never happen in New Jersey,' " he said. "I've heard anecdotal stories like that for years and years."

The survey defined road rage as angry, out-of-control drivers who exhibit such behavior as aggressive driving, rudeness, cutting into lanes, cutting people off, tailgating, speeding and honking.

Besides Miami, the worst metro areas included the usual suspects for gridlock -- New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Mr. Smith said traffic congestion, obviously, is one of the main factors contributing to road rage because it creates longer commutes and frustration.

The most courteous drivers were in Portland, Pittsburgh, Seattle-Tacoma, St. Louis and Dallas/Fort Worth.

Pittsburgh showed up as the nicest city in two specific areas -- cell phone use and slamming on the brakes at the last minute.

In San Francisco, 81 percent of drivers admitted they talked on cell phones behind the wheel. In Pittsburgh and Tampa, that number was just 44 percent.

In Chicago, half of drivers reported slamming on the brakes. In Pittsburgh, just 17 percent did.

Obscene gestures are much rarer in Pittsburgh, too. The most likely place to encounter those is Los Angeles, where 22 percent of drivers surveyed said they've used them. Pittsburgh drivers came in at 8 percent, but drivers in San Diego and Portland were even mellower at 2 percent.

Just 1 percent of Pittsburgh drivers surveyed admitted to slamming into the back end of a bad driver's vehicle in the previous month as a reaction to rude or aggressive driving.

One particularly irritating aspect of driving in Western Pennsylvania, however, seems to be orange barrel season.

"I think people here get frustrated with the construction zones," said Mike Welsh, business representative for Local 2274 of the Pennsylvania Regional Council of Carpenters, which does highway and bridge construction. "I see a little bit of rage."

Usually it's along the lines of "Why is this road closed?" or "Didn't you just fix this road last year?" He said local conditions might get worse, too, with Port Authority cuts that could add 15,000 cars to the region's arteries.

But he said regardless of anyone's anger, his union is working to keep the roads safe in 60 counties.

"We're all over the place, making improvements for road rage people," he joked.

Mr. Smith said rage is a problem across America as the nation's highways become more congested. Some cities are worse than others, especially fast-growing metro areas such as No. 6 Phoenix, but all have had their share of incidents.

In Atlanta, police this month charged a plumber with murder after they said he stabbed a man to death in a road rage case.

Anthony Newberry's family said a white van was following too closely on Interstate 85. Mr. Newberry tapped his brakes, apparently angering the man in the van. The drivers stopped. When Mr. Newberry got out of his vehicle, police said, the other driver stabbed him in front of his wife and 4-year-old daughter.

Western Pennsylvania has had some nasty cases, too.

The most recent newsworthy incident happened in January. Police said Julius McKinzie and Jeremiah Nichols got into some kind of dispute while driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and then onto Interstate 70.

They finally pulled off the highway at the Smithton exit and confronted each other. Mr. McKinzie produced a pistol and fired a shot into the ground. Mr. Nichols was slightly injured by flying shrapnel and asphalt.

Mr. McKinzie went to jail.

But Western Pennsylvanians might take some solace in the fact that both men were from out of state -- Mr. McKinzie is from outside Atlanta and Mr. Nichols is from Houston.

Both cities did much worse than Pittsburgh on the road rage survey, with Houston coming in at No. 11 and Atlanta at No. 12.

Here are 10 tips that AutoVantage recommends to avoid violence:

1. Try to stay calm and in a positive frame of mind. Don't retaliate.

2. Don't make eye contact with an angry driver.

3. Before you react to anything someone does, ask yourself if getting back at them is worth your life.

4. Be courteous even when others are not.

5. Ask yourself: "Could the other driver have possibly made a mistake?"

6. If you're harassed by another driver and being followed, don't go home. Drive to the nearest police station.

7. Slow down and relax.

8. Never underestimate other drivers' capacity for mayhem.

9. Reduce your driving stress by allowing enough time to get where you are going and knowing which roads are under construction.

10. Remember that you can't control the drivers around you, but you can control the way they affect you.