Report 2:
My Understanding of
Driving Psychology
By Jenine Goto
Instructions for this report are at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/409a-g23-report2.htm
I am answering Questions 2, 3, 4, 5, & 7
The Question I am answering is
Question 2
Question 2:
(a) Give a brief review of our two
textbooks: Road Rage and Aggressive
Driving (James and Nahl), and Driving
Lessons: Exploring Systems That Make Traffic Safer (Peter Rothe,
Editor). The reviews should be between 3 and 6 paragraphs for each text.
(b) Select one Chapter from each text and
give a summary of it.
(c) Discuss in what way these ideas will
contribute to solving society's driving problems.
(d) Any other comments you wish to make.
Response:
(a)
Review of our two textbooks: Road
Rage and Aggressive Driving (James and Nahl), and Driving Lessons: Exploring Systems That Make
Traffic Safer (Peter Rothe, Editor).
The
first book, Road Rage and Aggressive Driving written by Dr. Leon James and Dr.
Diane Nahl, was a very detailed and revealing book for the informed
driver. The book covers the very many
different aspects of road rage, from its contributing factors to solutions for
curbing the habit. It also covers the
importance of the concepts of driving psychology and of becoming a supportive
driver.
The
first section of the book is called “The Conflict Mentality,” which covers
chapters 1-4. This section talks about
road rage and aggressive driving as a world wide phenomenon and the very many
different factors that can contribute to arousing a person’s anger and give
rise to aggression or road rage. This
section also includes a few exercises relevant to the material and descriptions
for some different types of road rage, verbal, passive-aggressive, and epic to
name a few.
The
second section of the book is titled “Driving Psychology,” which covers
chapters 5-9. This section talks about
the psychological perspective on driving and includes the Three-Step Driver
Self-Improvement Program, as a possible solution to road rage and
aggression. Also featured in this
section is a chapter discussing children and road rage and Dr. James’ concept
of supportive driving and its benefits.
This section also includes a number of exercises, one of which is
discussed in question 5 of this report.
The
third and final section of this book is called “The Future of Driving,” which
covers chapters 10-12. The main focus of
this section is to inform the reader of the actions being taken by the
government and different institutions in the war against aggressive
driving. It also covers a few issues
such as speed limits and traffic surveillance.
The concluding chapter of this section talks about the benefits of
luxury vehicles and some of their features such as mini-microwaves, mobile
computing, and intelligent transportation systems.
The
second text, Driving Lessons: Exploring
the Systems that Make Traffic Safer, was a compilation of 20 chapters by
various researchers and driving psychology experts and edited by J. Peter Rothe,
with one common interest: to improve and promote safety on the road for
drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and truck drivers. This book contained a number of different
innovations in traffic safety and research towards refining the many solutions
proposed.
This
book was also divided into three sections.
The first is “Personal Sub-Systems,” which focuses on the effects of
neurobehavioral variables, innovations in injury control, and the subject of
dealing with stress while driving, and ways you can help yourself to deal with
it in a positive way. It also covers
social influences on the way you drive, risky vehicles, road safety for young
children, and driver identities.
The
second section is called “Institutional Sub-Systems,” which focuses on the
economic, legal, media, and educational institutions that give rise to traffic
safety, driver behavior, and how it involves the community. Another important topic in this section is
driver skill and the political aspects of traffic and road safety.
The
last section, “Technical Sub-Systems,” mainly covers the different
technological innovations being implemented to try to increase traffic safety
for all road users. It discusses
red-light cameras and geographic information systems and their relevancies and
short comings. Another interesting topic
included in this section was the use of cell phones and whether or not it was
hazardous for people to use while driving.
(b) Select one Chapter from each text and
give a summary of it.
Chapter 4 of the Road
Rage and Aggressive Driving book is called “The Road Rage Spectrum.” This chapter focuses on three different
categories of road rage which are passive-aggressive, verbal, and epic road
rage. It also categorizes a few different
types of negative behaviors in drivers such as: the rushing maniac, the
automotive vigilante, the left lane bandit, the aggressive competitor, and the
scofflaw. The chapter also includes
seven different exercises to see what categories you might fall into and has a
helpful list of driving tips of things you should and shouldn’t do if you
encounter an aggressive driver.
Chapter 7 of the Driving Lessons
book is titled, “Driving Identities Over the Lifespan.” This chapter covers the important concepts of
driving skill, knowledge, and identity for young, middle aged, and elderly
drivers. It talks about the importance
of young drivers, to understand the consequences and danger associated with the
high risks they may take when behind the wheel to uphold their driver
identities. It also touches on the
subject of driver cessation among the elderly and some of the difficult
challenges they may face in terms of driver identity in society.
(c) Discuss in what way these ideas will
contribute to solving society's driving problems.
Chapter
4 from the Road Rage and Aggressive
Driving book really stood out to me because I have a very severe case of
verbal road rage. I think I always knew
it on some level, but was unable to really do anything about it, because I
didn’t know how else to approach my problem.
This was really important and even enlightening to me because now that I
have come to terms with and acknowledged and witnessed my verbal road rage
tendencies, I can now try to modify my behavior and attitude while
driving. I know that I’m only one person
in society, but the change will be gradual and it does need to begin somewhere.
Chapter
7 from the Driving Lessons book
discusses a very prominent issue with young drivers today, which is driver
identity. I never really realized that
the concept of driver identity always sticks with you and is subject to change
over time. Awareness at this level is
probably the first step in approaching this problem, as young people today are
only concerned with having an expensive, flashy, dropped car to show off
in. I think that this societal mentality
is a dangerous one, since younger, more inexperienced drivers who are already
at the highest level of risk jump into their brand new sports car. The change will always be gradual and will
always face some type of resistance or another, but I think that it’ll have to
start with creating more awareness.
(d) Any other comments you wish to make.
I
thought that both of these texts were an excellent resource for this class. I did prefer reading Dr. James’ Road Rage and Aggressive Driving book
over the Driving Lessons Book, which
was a little dry and difficult to get through at times. This was why I chose to do my most of my
outlines from the Driving Lessons book
to force me to focus on the material and think about the concepts in the
chapters. One of the things I liked the
best about Dr. James’ book was the numerous exercises for its readers to fill
out. These were an excellent tool in
helping someone to begin to acknowledge some of their driving behaviors.
The Question I am answering is Question 3
Question 3:
(a) Discuss these two Web sites: drivers.com vs. drdriving.org
by first describing their overall appearance and purpose.
(b) What are their main differences? Be
sure to consider at least these areas:
(i) content of articles
(ii) content and tone of newsletters, when present
(iii) style of the site
(iv) probable audience
(v) public relations or policy, etc.
(vi) advertising (if any)
(vii) size (number of files or links)
(vii) ranking (see Google or Alexa)
(viii) Other sites that link to each
(c) Any other comments you wish to make.
Response:
(a)
Discuss
these two Web sites: drivers.com
vs. drdriving.org
by first describing their overall appearance and purpose.
The
drivers.com website has a very simplistic and easy to read format. The information is well structured and presented
in a very organized fashion and claims to be the “World’s Leading Site on
Drivers and Driving.” The purpose of
this site is to provide a valuable resource to the general public and to
professionals on traffic safety, driving, and driver behavior.
The
Dr. Driving website presents a lot of information and links to articles and
does seem a little busy and overwhelming at a glance. The stylistic caricature at the top of the
page makes the site seem a little more user friendly and welcoming. The purpose of this site is to inform the
general public and to provide a valuable resource from aggressive driving to the
principles of driving psychology. This
website is probably a little more diverse in the range of topics it offers to a
reader and also serves to answer any questions anyone may have about anything
on driving. A better way to describe it
would be: Driving Psychology from A-Z.
(b) What are their main differences? Be
sure to consider at least these areas:
(i) content of articles
The overall content
of the articles seems to differ slightly.
The articles on the drivers.com website offer a listing of current
articles on topics of interest in the media at the time. The Dr. Driving website on the other hand,
seems to offer more articles written by researchers and driving psychology
experts.
(ii) content and tone of newsletters, when present
The drivers.com
website offers a newsletter, sent out several times per year via email that you
can subscribe to free of charge. The
content of these newsletters is just to keep the subscriber updated on the new
developments on the site and promises that you will not receive any junk email
or other messages.
Dr. Driving’s
website didn’t appear to offer a newsletter, but it does post letters sent in
from readers, along with Dr. James’ advice and his scholarly analysis of the
situation.
(iii) style of the site
I really like how
the Dr. Driving website appeals to me with the caricature of someone driving a
sporty looking car with the ring of plumeria around it. The plumeria is just a subtle suggestion of
(iv) probable audience
I would have to say
that they both probably have a similar target audience, although it seems to me
that the Dr. Driving website is more of a website for the people. For instance, if I had a burning question
related to driving that I desperately needed advice or information for, I would
be more likely contact Dr. Driving about it than the large corporation that
monitors the drivers.com site. The Dr.
Driving site just seems a little more hospitable and user friendly.
(v) public relations or policy, etc.
The drivers.com
website strongly featured advertisements in two industries: driving, traffic safety and trucking; and
technology and computing. They also have
a short listing of their sponsored links to TeachSafeDriving.com, Truck Driving
Schools, and to books on trucking. You
can also post your comments in a discussions forum, create your own user
profile, and contact the site moderators with any questions, inquiries, or if
you would like to post your articles on their website.
Dr. Driving website
allows contact through direct email of Dr. James himself, who will reply to you
personally. Many of these
correspondences are also posted on the website for viewing by the readers.
(vi) advertising (if any)
On drivers.com there was an
advertisement on the left hand side for “Drivers Headquarters” which was site
for computer drivers. The site also
contained information on how to repair modems, scanners, video cards, and
printers among other information. I
thought that maybe the two websites were related or put up by the same group of
people because both had a very similar color scheme and format, but was unable
to find any evidence of this. The right
hand column on this website was a listing of advertisements for mostly truck
driving jobs and the one at the top of the list was for computer hardware. Also at the top of the homepage was couple of
Google ads.
Drivers.com also
had a link to their own bookstore, where you could purchase books related to
the topics of driving, which included the Driving
Lessons book we studied in this class.
It also had a link to drivers.com’s book selections on Amazon.com that
Dr. James’ Road Rage and Aggressive
Driving book that we’ve also studied.
The Dr. Driving
website on the other hand didn’t really seem to have very many advertisements
except for a link to purchase the RoadRageous
video course online and a link Amazon.com where you could buy Dr. James’ book
to compliment the video course.
(vii) size (number of files or links)
The homepage of the
drivers.com website had a listing of ten links to articles on the subject of
driving in the center of the page and had a link to view their featured book Target Risk 2 on the right hand side of
the page. The left hand side of the page
contained listings for quite a few links but only thirteen were on the subject
of driving. Also on this side of the
page were two links to their sponsors, a link for computer drivers, and a link
for drivers’ job search.
The homepage for
the Dr. Driving site offers a vast number of links to pretty much everything
you could possible want to look up about the subject of driving. At the top of the page, there is a Main
Directory with a listing of twelve topics of interest. If you scroll further down the page, you will
come across a listing of four links to some helpful statistics on car crashes
and injuries and five links to the RoadRageous
video course, Dr. James’ Road Rage and
Aggressive Driving book, Amazon.com where you could purchase the book, and
a link with some good excerpts from the book.
The next listing of links is for 29 different articles on aggressive
driving and another 17 links to topics related to the subject of driving.
Including the
numerous amount of links that were for advertisement purposes on the
drivers.com site, I think that the two websites could be about comparable in
relation to size and the number of links.
But overall, it really seems that the Dr. Driving site surpasses the
competition with the amount of relevant links to the topic of driving and also
with the topics related to driving such as parking rage or bicycling.
(viii) ranking (see Google or Alexa)
I honestly wasn’t
too sure how to get a page ranking for both the Google and the Alexa search
engines, so I ended up downloading Google’s toolbar that had the option of
displaying a page rank. After I
installed it, I found that it didn’t give me a numerical ranking. So, based on Google’s page rank, drivers.com
is ranked at 6/10 and Dr. Driving is at a 5/10.
(ix) Other sites that link to each
A few of the sites that are linked to the
drivers.com page are:
Consumer Law Page: http://consumerlawpage.com/article/4by4-rollovers.shtml
Department of Motor Vehicles Guide: http://www.dmv.org/
Perils for Pedestrians: http://www.pedestrians.org
North Carolina Coalition for Bicycle
Driving: http://www.humantransport.org/bicycledriving/
A few of the sites that are linked to the
Dr. Driving page are:
Fatality Analysis Reporting System: http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov
CNET- News.com: http://news.com.com/2100-1033-982325.html?tag=fd_top
Car Accident Statistics: http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/stats.html
International Injury & Fatality
Statistics: http://www.safecarguide.com/exp/statistics/statistics.htm
The
drivers.com website seemed to have a lot more links to other pages than the Dr.
Driving website, which had many more articles written by Dr. James and Dr.
Nahl.
(b)
Any
other comments you wish to make.
Overall, I would
personally prefer to navigate the Dr. Driving website over the drivers.com
website because it seems to have much more valuable information to me as a
driver and seems more geared to
increasing awareness and on the improvement of driving skills.
The Question I am answering is
Question 4
Question 4:
(a) Select three of the following student
reports from Generation 15:
1. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409af2001/ahsing/report2.htm
2. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409af2001/chun/report2.htm
3. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409af2001/lukey/report2.htm
4. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2001/morreira/Report2.htm
5. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2001/shellgirl/report2.htm
6. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2001/reaves/report2.html
7. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409af2001/sophie/report2.htm
(b) Summarize each of the three reports.
Be sure you put a link to the report you are referring to.
(c) Add a General Conclusion Section in
which you discuss your reactions to what they did –
(i) their ideas,
(ii) their method,
(iii) their explanations.
(d) What did they gain from doing their
reports?
(e) How do their ideas influence what you
yourself think about these issues?
(e) Any other comments you wish to make.
Response:
(a)
Select
three of the following student reports from Generation 15:
1) http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2001/shellgirl/report2.htm
2) http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2001/reaves/report2.html
3) http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409af2001/sophie/report2.htm
Dr.
James’ Diagram Representing the Emotional Spin Cycle
(b) Summarize each of the three reports.
Be sure you put a link to the report you are referring to.
The first report was titled “Customizing My Emotional
Spin Cycle: Data Analysis by Shell87. She starts her report by giving an
introduction and description of the daily emotional spin cycle and what she
will be doing for the data collection section of her report. The data for this report was listed in a very
concise and organized fashion that was easy to read.
The
second report I chose was titled “Customizing My Emotional Spin Cycle: Data
Analysis by Nicole
Reaves. This report differed
slightly in regards to format, but was very interesting and easy to read. One thing I really liked about this one was
that she included the above diagram in her description of the different zones
of the emotional spin cycle, which made for easy reference. I really liked how the author’s personality
came through the tone and style of the report.
It made it easier to read and to relate to her situations and feelings
in the data collection portion.
The
third report I chose was given the same title as the previous two reports and
was written by Sophie. She also started off by giving the general
descriptions of the four different zones of the emotional spin cycle and
emphasizes the importance of the three step method to acknowledge, witness, and
modify your behavior. This report was
not as clearly marked as the first two but still included two very interesting
and even unusual examples of her negative experiences.
(c) Add a General Conclusion Section in
which you discuss your reactions to what they did –
(i) their ideas
Each of these three
reports expressed similar ideas in their use of the three step method to
behavior modification in regard to the emotional spin cycle. The use and application of these concepts are
well rounded, in that anyone who is interested could read any one of these
three reports and try it out for themselves.
(ii) their method
All
three students used similar methods in data collection and analysis. The first week of data consisted only of
their thoughts and feelings which helped them to acknowledge and witness their
behaviors. It was interesting to compare
two weeks of documentation on their emotions and behaviors and how they were
able to implement the concepts of the emotional spin cycle in their everyday
lives for improvement in their lives.
Their use of the global ratings were also a great way for the reader to
get a feel for how they were feeling at the time and a good way to be able to
compare their findings in week one and week two.
(iii) their explanations.
All
three of these reports were very informative in their descriptions of the
emotional spin cycle and how it works.
Each student was very successful in incorporating the use of the three
step method to behavior modification, which I think was beneficial to the
reader in understanding how the process works and how it can be applied. I especially enjoyed reading Nicole’s
revelations as she implemented the changes to her thinking and therefore her
behavior and attitude towards her son.
(d) What did they gain from doing their
reports?
Overall, I think that all three of these students
gained only positive things from this self experiment. All three of them were able to acknowledge
their negative emotions and try to modify them using these principles to help
them have more positive behaviors and attitudes towards the people and events
around them.
(e) How do their ideas influence what you
yourself think about these issues?
I
think that these ideas and the fact that they were able to implement these
changes to their behaviors and attitudes through the self-witnessing process
has definitely had a positive impact on my thoughts on the subject. I think that by keeping a running log of my
negative and positive feelings over a span of two weeks, I might be able to
implement these changes in myself to modify my own negative thoughts.
The Question I am answering is Question 5
Question 5:
(a) Consider Table 5 in the Lecture
Notes, in the Section on Driving Psychology Theory and Charts at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/409a-g23-lecture-notes.htm#Charts
(b) Consult the article from which the
Table was taken.
(c) Copy and paste the table into your
file. Now delete the examples in each cell and replace them with your own
examples that you make up.
(d) Discuss why driving is such a big
problem in all societies and why no effective solutions have yet been found for
them.
(e) Discuss the solutions offered by Dr.
Leon James (www.DrDriving.org).
What likelihood is there that his approach will be adopted? Explain. (f) Any
other comments you wish to make.
Response:
(a) Table 5 from the Lecture Notes, in the
Section on Driving Psychology Theory and Charts at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/409a-g23-lecture-notes.htm#Charts
The Original
Table
5
Emotionally Intelligent Driver Personality Skills
|
Driver Competence Skills |
Aggressive |
Supportive |
|
Not |
Emotionally |
|
|
1. Focusing on self vs. blaming others or the situation |
"This traffic
is impossibly slow. What’s wrong with these jerks. They’re driving like
idiots." |
"I’m feeling very impatient today. Everything seems to tick me off." |
|
2. Understanding how feelings and thoughts act together |
|
"I feel
angry, scared, outraged when I think about what could have happened." |
|
3. Realizing that
anger is something we choose vs. thinking it is provoked |
"They make me so mad when they do that." |
"I make myself so mad when they do that." |
|
4. Being concerned about consequences vs. giving in to impulse |
"I just want to give this driver a piece of my mind. I just want him to know how I feel." |
"If I respond
to this provocation I lose control over the situation. It’s not worth
it." |
|
5. Showing respect for others and their rights vs. thinking only of oneself |
|
|
|
6. Accepting traffic as collective team work vs. seeing it as individual competition |
"Driving is
about getting ahead. I get a jolt out of beating a red light or finding the
fastest lane. It’s me vs. everybody else." |
"I try to
keep pace with the traffic realizing that my movements can slow others
down—like switching lanes to try to get ahead." |
|
7. Recognizing the
diversity of drivers and their needs and styles vs. blaming them for what
they choose to do |
"How can they
be so stupid? They’re talking on the phone instead of paying attention to the
road." |
"I need to be
extra careful around drivers using a hand held cellular phone since they may
be distracted." |
|
8. Practicing positive role models vs. negative |
"Come on,
buddy, speed up or I’ll be on your tail. Go, go. What’s wrong with you.
There’s no one ahead." |
"This driver
is going slower than my desires. Now I can practice the art of patience and
respect for the next few minutes." |
|
9. Learning to inhibit the impulse to criticize by developing a sense of driving humor |
"I can’t
stand all these idiots on the road. They slow down when they should speed up.
They gawk, they crawl, anything but drive." |
"I’m angry,
I’m mad |
|
10. Taking driving seriously by becoming aware of one’s mistakes and correcting them |
"I’m an excellent driver, assertive and competent, with a clean accident record—just a few tickets here and there." |
"I monitor myself as a driver and keep a driving log of my mistakes. I think it’s important to include thoughts and feelings, not just the overt acts." |
(c) Copy and paste the table into your
file. Now delete the examples in each cell and replace them with your own
examples that you make up.
My Version
Table
5
Emotionally Intelligent Driver Personality Skills
|
Driver Competence Skills |
Aggressive |
Supportive |
|
Not |
Emotionally |
|
|
1. Focusing on self vs. blaming others or the situation |
"Why is this
guy going so slow? Now I’m really
going to be late for class." |
"I’m already so irritated. It’s not going to be a good day. " |
|
2. Understanding how feelings and thoughts act together |
|
"It scares me
to think about what almost happened." |
|
3. Realizing that
anger is something we choose vs. thinking it is provoked |
"It pisses me off when people just cut me off without signaling." |
"I make myself so mad when people cut me off.” |
|
4. Being concerned about consequences vs. giving in to impulse |
"I just want to get revenge on this guy for almost hitting me! Now I’m going to tailgate him!” |
"If I
tailgate him, I could cause a collision.
It’s not worth it." |
|
5. Showing respect for others and their rights vs. thinking only of oneself |
|
|
|
6. Accepting traffic as collective team work vs. seeing it as individual competition |
"I like to get to and from each of my destinations in the fastest time possible, regardless of traffic. I should be able to determine my own speed.” |
"I’ll stay in
this lane, even if it’s the slowest one, since I need to be in this lane
anyways. I don’t want to slow everyone
else down." |
|
7. Recognizing the
diversity of drivers and their needs and styles vs. blaming them for what
they choose to do |
"I can’t
believe she’s text messaging and driving at the same time! What an idiot!” |
"I’ll make
sure that I stay a safe distance away from her, since she’s preoccupied with
her cell phone." |
|
8. Practicing positive role models vs. negative |
"Can’t you go
any faster? There’s no one in front of
you! What’s the hold up? I have places to be! Don’t you know that this is the FAST lane?" |
"Since this driver is going the speed limit, I’ll just stay behind him at this pace to be safe.” |
|
9. Learning to inhibit the impulse to criticize by developing a sense of driving humor |
"Damn, stupid
female drivers! Why don’t you learn
how to drive? Your car’s got signals
for a reason!” |
"Obviously
she still doesn’t know how to drive.
Maybe she hasn’t heard about our excellent bus system. We’ve even got electric buses now." |
|
10. Taking driving seriously by becoming aware of one’s mistakes and correcting them |
"I am a great driver. Except for the one speeding ticket and the one accident on my record.” |
"I realize that I have many negative thoughts, feelings, and actions while I am driving. I need to work on modifying my driving behaviors to become a better driver." |
(d) Discuss why driving is such a big
problem in all societies and why no effective solutions have yet been found for
them.
There
are so many various environmental and internal factors that contribute to the
complexity of driving that makes me realize that this is a problem society will
have for a very long time more to come.
The biggest problem that I see now, is how selfish other drivers can be,
and I’m not excluding myself from the masses.
It may sound surprising, but I don’t know if the larger driving
population realizes that when they put themselves at risk while behind the
wheel, that they are also putting other motorists at risk. If more people were to come to terms with
this, I think it could possibly help them to not push themselves to the maximum
risk while driving.
Society’s
acceptance of road rage and aggressive driving has become a sick cycle that
passes from generation to generation and an issue, I believe that is only
getting worse. Today’s current
aggressive drivers are out there right now, probably passing on their negative
driving behaviors and attitudes to their offspring without even realizing or
caring about it. Their children in turn,
may get behind the wheel (when they are ready) and exhibit the same
behaviors. It’s not a given that they
will do so, but it becomes a greater possibility if today’s youth are not
exposed or made aware of the consequences and domino effect of road rage and
aggressive driving.
I
think that the reason no effective solutions have been found is because everyone
is so set in their ways and resistant to change. The general public would probably also claim
that they’re too busy, they’ve got more important things to do, or that they
don’t have a problem at all. Road rage
and aggressive driving has become such an accepted form of expression that I
think most people don’t even give their negative actions, feelings, or thoughts
a second thought.
(e) Discuss the solutions offered by Dr.
Leon James (www.DrDriving.org).
What likelihood is there that his approach will be adopted? Explain.
One of Dr. James’
solutions is to introduce the concepts of driving psychology and being a
supportive driver to young people earlier in their educations. His idea is to instill these notions in
people from an early age so that society can help to nurture better
drivers. Another one of his objectives
is to help to raise awareness that there is a very real problem in road rage
and aggressive driving that seems to getting more and more prevalent over the
years. The purpose of his work is to
help inform people of the concept of a supportive driver to help people to
realize that their driving behaviors may need modification. For this, there is also his three step
program: acknowledge, witness, and modify to enforce better road behaviors.
I think that his
ideas will be adopted eventually but, the change will be very gradual and the
implementation difficult because much of the general population is set in their
ways and reluctant to admit that they may have a problem. Exposure of these negative driving habits
also have a great impact on the young impressionable children riding in the
backseats and unfortunately gets passed on to them. But we do need to begin somewhere by
informing people of the importance of driving psychology and of being a
supportive driver. For me, my first
stepping stone was taking this class.
The Question I am answering is Question 7
Question 7:
(a) Our textbook Road Rage and Aggressive Driving has checklist exercises in
several chapters. Do the following four exercises:
(i) Exercise on How Passenger-Friendly
Are You on p.184-5
(ii) Exercise on Witnessing Your Aggressive Driving on p. 140-3
(iii) Exercise on Your Road Rage Tendency on p. 40-42
(iv) Exercise on Your
(b) What were your reactions to each
exercise?
(c) Discuss how these exercises help you
to become more aware of yourself as a driver.
(d) Do some of the exercises with another
driver you know. How do they help you understand some principles of driving
psychology mentioned in the book? Discuss and illustrate.
(e) Any other comments you wish to make.
Response:
(a) Our textbook Road Rage and Aggressive Driving has checklist exercises in
several chapters. Do the following four exercises:
(i) Exercise on “How Passenger-Friendly
Are You?” on p.184-185
1) __T__ I always consider my passenger’s
feelings.
2) __T__ I adjust my driving to accommodate to my
passengers’ comfort.
3) __T__ I let my passengers influence my driving
for the better.
4) __T__ I want my passengers to think of me as a
good and safe driver.
5) __T__ I try to avoid making driving mistakes
even more when I have passengers.
6) _____ I think that passengers should just sit back,
relax, and leave the driving to me. But
if they feel more comfortable participating, I let them if it’s safe.
7) _____ My passengers can control the air conditioning
and windows.
8) __T__ Passengers have the right to criticize
the driver’s behavior.
9) _____ I want my passengers to be grateful and show
appreciation, but if they don’t I won’t resent it or hold it against them.
10) _____ My passengers can select the music.
(ii) Exercise on “Witnessing Your
Aggressive Driving” on p. 140-143
Witnessing Your Emotions:
1) __T__ Getting angry when forced to brake by
another motorist
2) _____ Feeling insulted and furious when a driver revs
the engine in passing
3) __T__ Feeling hostile when your progress is
impeded by congestion
4) _____ Being suspicious when a driver doesn’t let you
change lanes
5) __T__ Feeling justified in retaliating when another
driver insults you
6) _____ Enjoying thoughts of revenge and torture
7) _____ Enjoying the role of being mean behind the
wheel
8) __T__ Feeling satisfaction when expressing
hostility against other drivers
9) _____ Fantasizing racing other road warriors
10) __T__ Enjoying stereotyping and ridiculing
certain drivers
11) __T__ Constantly feeling like rushing, even
when you’re not late
12) _____ Striving to get ahead of every car
13) _____ Being pleased when getting away with breaking
traffic laws
14) _____ Enjoying the feeling of risk or danger when
moving fast
15) __T__ Other:
Feeling hostile when you are cut off by another driver who is trying to
get ahead in traffic
Witnessing Your Thoughts:
1) _____ Justifying rejection of the law that every lane
change must be signaled
2) _____ Thinking that it’s up to you to choose which
stop signs should be obeyed
3) _____ Thinking that there is no need for speed limits
4) _____ Being ignorant of safety rules and principles (e.g.,
who has the right of way)