PSY 409a, October 9, 2005

My Second Outline of Assigned Readings

By Karis Amano

Three Types of Road Rage

Dr. James, Leon, Dr. Diane Nahl. Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of Highway Warfare. New York: Prometheus Books, 2000. Pages 84-96.

Instructions for this activity are found at:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/409a-g23-oral.htm

Instructor: Dr. Leon James

Concept 1 – Passive-Aggressive Road Rage

a) Driving in a manner that prevents others from their destination goals. You feel thwarted or wronged so you protest by not moving out of the faster cars’ way or closing a gap so others cannot enter your lane.

When cars are waiting for your parking spot, you may unconsciously take longer than if no one was waiting, and even longer if the waiting driver starts to honk their horn at you.

b) Passive-aggressive driving can also be being in a bad mood to protest a passenger’s reactions. I know a girl who can get on my nerves at times just because she shines about so many little things that many others must deal with in their everyday lives. She does not think that I drive very well but because she hates to drive, she often asks me for a ride. While I am driving with her, I feel that I am driving the same way as I do with other friends but I notice that my rides with her are a little more bumpier with a few more harder-than-normal stops at yellow lights. After noticing this, I wondered if I was subconsciously driving badly, hoping that she would not choose to ride with me anymore, therefore not having to listen to her complaining about my driving.

c) When I read the passage about the driver ignoring the passenger’s attempts to feel more secure by hitting their hands on the dashboard, I wondered why we may deliberately ignore that person’s obvious signs to slow down or that they do not like our driving, even when we generally care about this person when not in a car. This upsetting passengers can cause stress and may have negative effects on health issues, say blood pressure for example, so why do we do it? Is it too hard to try to change those automatic processes while driving?

Concept 2 – Verbal Road Rage

a) Constantly complaining about drivers or anyone else on the road and name calling in reference to those people.

b) Drivers do constantly talk to themselves while driving. Sometimes when I am driving alone, I think aloud to myself about where I have to go and what route I must take to get there. This helps in a way that I can think about the right action to prevent doing the wrong one. Often as I drive, though other drivers and/or pedestrians may aggravate me and I use verbal road rage as a way of venting my anger to myself so as not to unintentionally hurt others around me. Doing this and maybe listening to some of my favorite music helps me to calm down and drive with a clear head.

c) Everyone is different but for me, I feel that verbal road rage, if kept to myself, is all right because it relieves me of some of my anger so that I do not explode later and actually put my life or the lives of others in danger. However if you express your negative feelings towards others directly to them, you will provoke them into physically hurting you.

Concept 3 – Epic Road Rage

a) Having cartoon fantasies of getting revenge of drivers or other people on the road who contribute to your bad emotions, and sometimes acting on those fantasies.

b) Many drivers can get really ticked off by the smallest of stimuli. When someone honks at another, it is not always to provoke them. A driver may hastily try to switch lanes without looking and the car in the next lane may see this and honk their horn to let the switching car know that they are there. However in the first driver’s mind, he may misconstrue this as an act of provocation like, “Stop trying to cut me off!” and may deliberately try to ram the second car off the road. The second car thought by a simple honk, it would prevent an accident but when taken the wrong way, it could lead to a dangerous confrontation. The media can have a heavy influence in our thoughts during driving as well as any other aspect of our lives. We all know that cartoons are not real and that we should not imitate them but as I read this chapter, I realize how much like cartoons and video games people really can be. They would do anything to get what they want or where they are going.

a) When I first started reading this book, the vengeful actions of some I thought were outrageous. As I read more of these incidents, I am just shocked. I used to think that the 6.5 million yearly injuries and 42,000 deaths were from accidents or more uncontrollable factors. Now I realize that those statistics also account for people’s choices of getting rid of drivers in their way. It is just very sad what is happening to humanity in this country.