Ad hoc wireless networks are composed of mobile nodes communicating through wireless links, without any fixed backbone infrastructure. Frequent topology changes due to node mobility make routing in such dynamic networks a challenging problem. Moreover, successful message routing implies every mobile node is potentially capable of acting as a router, thus supporting store-and-forward mechanisms. However, resource limitations on these nodes also require a control on congestion due to message forwarding. In this paper, we consider our recently proposed randomized version of the well-known Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV) routing protocol, referred to as R-DSDV, and validate its performance through extensive simulation experiments. Our results demonstrate that a probabilistic control on message traffic based on local tuning of protocol parameters is feasible, and that R-DSDV outperforms the basic DSDV protocol by significantly reducing the average queue size associated with each mobile node and hence the average packet delay.