Report 2:
My Understanding of Driving Psychology
By Kristina Peltz
Instructions for this report are at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/409a-g23-report2.htm
I am answering Questions 2, 4, 7, 5 and 10.
My Report on the Previous
Generation
Kyle
Santos wrote about his understanding of driving psychology. He explained and
gave his own examples of the three domains of a driver (affective, cognitive, sensorimotor), and the three levels or zones of a driver
(responsibility, safety, and proficiency). He then included a driving
personality makeover for himself, which had useful ideas such as setting an
alarm earlier so as not to rush in traffic.
In addition,
Robert
Lee wrote about a driving personality makeover for himself and answered the
same questions as Kyle Santos. Through the class, Lee realized his “attitude
does stink on the road” and that he should be a supportive driver because he
admits he has problems with his threefold self, which I found to be honest and
insightful.
With the other generation’s
reports, Lee picked three; one that focused on identifying driving style,
driving philosophy, and modifying them, one that had an experiment to record
the driver’s actions, and one that focused on implementing a solution for
lifelong driver education. From these reports, Lee said the ideas were very
creative and interesting, but the experiments should be tested and observed for
a longer period of time.
Constance
DeCaires wrote a very thorough and complete
report. She listed many personal examples for the three domains and levels of a
driver and for the exercises from the Road Rage book, which were all very
informative. From the six student reports, DeCaires
learned new driving terms and found that reading two different reports from
each section was useful because it gave her a broader idea and better
understanding of the concepts involved.
Also in the students’
reports were sections about their current generation which mentioned a few of
the presentations students did during that generation, and included summaries
and their feelings about the presentations. I thought that it was a good idea
to include them in the report, but I felt that reporting on six students from
previous generations and three from their current generation did not make for
an exciting report. With all the summaries of previous reports/presentations,
the students did not have much opportunity to show their own understandings and
feelings about driving psychology.
The Question I am
answering is 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 will these ideas contribute to solving society's driving problems. (d) Any other comments you wish to make.
a)
Road
Rage and Aggressive Driving, by
James and Nahl, is a book that examines and analyzes
the phenomenon of road rage and aggressive driving and provides instructions on
how to combat this social epidemic. The book is divided into three sections:
the conflict mentality, driving psychology, and the future of driving, each
focusing on a different aspect of aggressive driving and offering checklists or
exercises related to each section to identify your own aggression/road rage.
The first section, called The Conflict
Mentality, provides an overview of aggressive driving by defining the concept
and explaining it as a world wide phenomenon by citing news articles/headlines
related to road rage and aggressive driving, and by showing its presence in
popular forms of entertainment. The book then examines the causes of hostility
and the different types of behaviors and classifications of the road rage
spectrum.
Section two, Driving Psychology, focuses on
emotional intelligence (self-awareness and self-management of our emotions) and
the three-fold self as a driver, which includes affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor components, which is perhaps the most
important concept in the book. Also offered in this chapter are details of the
three-step driver self-improvement program and the answer to aggressive
driving, which is supportive driving.
The last section of the book, The Future of
Driving, mentions different actions in the fight against aggressive driving,
speed limits and motorist rebellion. Included at the end is a section on dream
cars, regarding the new technology in cars and its potential driver
distractibility with novelties such as cellular phones and intelligent
transportation systems.
The road rage book is very informative and applicable to every day driving situations. If everyone were to read the text and practice the three-step driver self-improvement program, I think much of the road rage epidemic could be reduced. Driver education programs are not enough, as can be seen by the number of driving injuries reported every year (about 42,000) and the driving psychology mentioned in this book could help to reduce this problem because it includes all aspects of the driver: affective, cognitive, and sensorimoto. I think understanding the interaction and importance of these aspects is essential in explaining driving and road rage.
Driving
Lessons, Exploring Systems That Make Traffic Safer, by Rothe is another book
about the road rage phenomenon, also divided into three sections which are
Personal Sub-systems, Institutional Sub-Systems, and Technical Sub-Systems.
This book draws not only on psychology and sociology, but also medicine,
engineering, and the law.
The first section, Personal Sub-Systems, includes different
personal aspects such as driving identity, lifestyle, intimate social life, and
the three-fold self.
The second section, Institutional Sub-Systems, focuses on institutions related to driving, which are large, complex organizations designed to direct people toward goals and direct individuals' activities. This section examines the following sub-systems: economic, legal, media, and education. Interesting concepts from this section include the political basis of traffic safety, court monitoring, and the effect of driving on the workplace, which offers the statistic that motor-vehicle crashes and injuries cost US employers $55 billion annually.
The last section on Technical Sub-Systems
involves technological innovations such as cell phones and techno-policing,
which uses innovations such as red-light cameras, for law enforcement.
Other interesting technologies are geographic
information systems and an integrated systems approach to traffic safety in
which vehicle and design accommodate the imperfect driver. This section
emphasizes the need for innovative driving programs to help drivers master
vehicles in the face of new technologies.
Like the road rage book, this book calls for
change in making traffic safer. Intervention is encouraged to increase traffic
safety and reduce the increasing number of traffic injuries and fatalities. In
contrast to the other book, Driving
Lessons examines diverse points of view besides those that are
psychological and social, and has a lot of focus and examples from traffic in
b) Chapter 7 from Driving Lessons: Driving Identities Over the Lifespan
This chapter incorporates the identity
concept of social psychologist Erikson in terms of
the driver to help design traffic safety initiatives. Identity is personal and
involves one’s psychological preferences as well as social support and
validation. The concept of identity is present throughout the lifespan, and
conflicts arise from tension between the psychological identity wants and
social identity allowances. These identity conflicts are different in each of
the life stages of the driver (adolescence, middle-age, and elderly). Understanding
the conflicts at each stage could help to design better traffic safety
initiatives.
c)
For each of the different stages in life,
the book lists examples of ideas to help the identity conflict present. For
example:
The Canadian Tire Kidestrian
program showed that children who went through the program with their parents
demonstrated higher levels of pedestrian safety. This safety knowledge could
carry on into later life as drivers.
In adolescence, driving behavior could be
influenced by challenging norms of peer groups. For example, by showing young
males that risk-taking does not need to be a central part of driving.
In middle-age, maintaining identity and code
expectations can be done as shown by MADD who shifted the level of
acceptability of drunk driving in the larger social community. Also the TAC in
For the elderly, driving cessation is
important and means a change in an identity aspect. In order to help the
elderly through this conflict, the book offers the idea of enlisting their help
in developing a seniors’ transportation plan to better suit their needs and
still ensure mobility.
These ideas could contribute to solving
society’s problems because they are all feasible and seem tailored to ease
identity conflict at each stage in life. If identity conflict is eased in a
positive manner that promotes safety, traffic safety initiatives for drivers at
all ages could become an integral part of lifelong driving education, thus
resulting in better driving overall and fewer injuries and fatalities.
d)
The most interesting part of the Driving
Lessons book was that it incorporated so many different aspects into driving
such as the media, the workplace, new technologies, and different sub-systems of
bigger institutions. I
especially liked chapter 7 because it used the idea of identity over the
lifespan and how it could play into developing traffic safety initiatives.
(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.
a) 3 reports chosen:
Report 1: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409af2001/ahsing/report2.htm
Report 2: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2001/morreira/Report2.htm
Report 3: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2001/reaves/report2.html
b)
Report 1 summary:
This report was about the emotional spin
cycle, a setting of twelve settings that determines our thoughts, feelings, and
actions dependent on our emotions and circumstances. The author uses the
three-step method of acknowledge, witness, modify to collect data on her
personal emotional spin cycle.
During the first week, she recorded a baseline
measure of general thoughts, feelings, and actions at three times of the day
through self-witnessing reports and global ratings, which averaged six other
smaller ratings: her strongest stress point of the day, her strongest level of
satisfaction with herself, her best level of effectiveness or productivity, her
best level of coping successfully with her feelings, her current level of hope
for the future, and the worst level of negativity or selfishness of some other
people around her.
During the second week the samples from week
one were analyzed and a bridge used to cross over from negative to positive was
identified, along with changes in thinking, feeling, and physical sensations.
After the observations, she noticed a spin cycle present and determined that
the stimuli that led up to the occurrence of the spin cycles were rage, fear,
frustration, anxiety, and discontentment. Then, the author tried to modify her
negative feelings and emotions and recover through the use of self-regulatory
sentences.
Report 2 summary:
This report about customizing one’s
emotional spin cycle also used self-monitoring techniques and the three-step
method as described above to observe her personal emotional spin cycle. The
author’s sampling technique consisted of recording her negative behavior during
the first week, writing down the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor
aspects of each behavior, and using the same global rating scale as above.
During week two, she tried to modify her negative behavior from week one by
doing it on the same days as week one.
At the
end of the study, she concluded that her data could cause an error because
there weren’t enough negative episodes to include, but that this
self-witnessing project is a good idea for people who are willing to change to
better themselves.
Report 3 summary:
In this report, the author uses the
emotional spin cycle experiment to help her change from spending most of the
day on the red, negative side of the cycle to the blue, positive side. Once
again, the three-step acknowledge, witness, modify program was used and daily
ratings of behavior and global ratings were obtained.
In order to change to the positive side of
emotions, this author used bridges and self-regulatory sentences to increase
the strength of the bridge. For example, a red bridge self-regulatory prompt
could be trying to convince yourself that it is better
to forgive and forget insults. A blue bridge prompt could be rejecting the idea
that the worst it going to happen to you. In the end, she concluded that she
was fairly successful in using the red bridge and found the process to be
helpful in her relationship with her son.
c) General Conclusions
i) I thought their ideas were very interesting,
especially their understandings of the emotional spin cycle and how it fit into
their lives. All three authors seemed to agree that in the three-step program,
the hardest part is to modify your behavior in the long run by making it a
habit to have positive behavior. They also seemed to be in agreement that
understanding the emotional spin cycle and modifying negative behavior could
better ourselves and other people, as well as lead to a more understanding
environment.
ii) The methods of all three reports were
basically the same with their use of the “acknowledge, witness, modify” program
that took place over two weeks. They all used global ratings on the same scale
and took ratings several times a day. However, in the second report the author
tried to modify her behavior of week one by doing it on the same day, but it
did not work out that well as every day brings different behaviors to
encounter, according to her. I found that the methods in reports one and three
made more sense than those in the third report. All in all, the three-step
program seemed to be carried out well by each of the authors.
iii) In the first report, it was hard to
understand what the emotional spin cycle really is and its components. The
second and third reports made it much more comprehendible because they featured
graphics of what the emotional spin cycle looks like when it is drawn out. In
the first two reports the concept of the red and blue bridges was also a bit
hard to understand, but I found that the graphics helped, and the explanation
in the third report was much better.
At the end of their studies, the authors
concluded that the study had helped them to become more aware of their true
feelings and emotions gain greater awareness of how to cope with different
situations, people, and emotions. In general, they obtained a better
understanding of the process involved in changing habits from the negative side
of the spin cycle to the positive side. The author of report 3 included a more
personal example of how it helped her as a parent with trying not to get angry
at her son.
e)
These reports were very interesting and made
me wonder about the existence of the emotional spin cycle. I thought about
trying the experiment for myself to see if I would obtain the same results and
to better understand the twelve different settings of the spin cycle. I would
also like to understand the self-regulating sentences and the red and blue
bridges better.
(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 Verbal Road Rage
Tendency on p. 91 (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.
b) Reactions to the exercises
i) After doing the passenger-friendly checklist, I
realized I could do much to be more passenger-friendly as I only scored 6 out
of 10. I feel that I care about my passengers’ feelings, but it only goes so
far. I don’t feel that I need to make them more comfortable than I am when I am
the driver. For instance, I usually control the radio and temperature when I am
driving because it is harder to stay focused on driving when I am
uncomfortable. If I am cold and turn on the heat but my passengers get too hot,
I let them roll down their windows. I usually don’t let passengers control my
radio because listening to music I don’t like puts me in a bad mood and then I
am more prone to aggressive driving. I do not think that controlling your own
radio is not passenger-friendly unless you are blasting music that makes your
passenger uncomfortable.
ii) On the test for witnessing your emotions,
I did better than I expected. Usually I consider myself a pretty angry driver,
but I scored 5 out of 14 so that is not too bad. However, I know I am guilty of
feeling hostile and wanting to retaliate against other drivers who I think are
bad drivers or not paying attention. Often, I get angry when I have to brake
for someone that I feel should be paying more attention to driving and I
retaliate against people by honking my horn.
On the test for witnessing your thoughts, I
did much better because I only shared 2 of the thoughts listed out of 14. I
shared the belief that pedestrians should not have the right of way when they
are jaywalking because I feel it is irresponsible and can be very dangerous.
Crosswalks are designed to help pedestrians be safe, so ignoring them is
dangerous and self-defeating. I also think that certain drivers are idiots and
other derogatory terms. I should work on being more understanding of driver
diversity, but it is hard to change those habits.
My score on the witnessing your actions
portion was 7 out of 20, so that is a good number of actions I do that I
shouldn’t such as gap closing, following too closely for the speed, speeding
through yellow lights, playing the radio loudly enough to be heard by other
drivers, and verbally assaulting or ignoring the comfort of passengers when
they complain about my driving.
iii)
My score of 9 indicated that I have moderate road rage habits, which was
comforting and better than having an out of control road rage tendency.
However, it would be ideal to get a score of less than 5, meaning that I am not
an aggressive driver, but James says that few drivers score less than 5 because
“road rage emotions are habitual and cultural.”
iv) On the verbal road rage tendency test I scored very
high (9 out of 12) and I was surprised that I have so much verbal road rage. I
know verbal road rage is not a desirable habit, but I think it is better than
epic road rage. It is easy to get mad at other drivers and attribute it to
their personal identity such as “What is wrong with this driver?” or “Old
people are horrible drivers.” Even though verbal road rage seldom works to
achieve goals and increases strife,” I think it will be very hard to stop these
actions because I often talk out loud while driving and bad mouth other
drivers.
c)
Though these exercises I have become more
aware that I do in fact have quite a few road rage tendencies, the most of
which are verbal. A friend of mine once told me that I am a bad driver, but I
did not listen to him and instead verbally assaulted him. Now I think what he
meant was that I am an aggressive driver, which is probably true. I believe
most of my aggressive driving includes verbal abuse against other drivers, but
I know I also tend to honk the horn when drivers irritate me and tailgate when
people drive slowly in the left lane. Now I plan on working more on being a
supportive driver since I have the evidence of the tests to prove that I do
have too many aggressive driving tendencies.
I also plan to work on my concern for
passengers. Currently, I adjust the temperature for my boyfriend when he is my
passenger. I am always cold and he is always hot, but I turn on the air
conditioning for him because he gets sick if he’s in the car and gets too hot.
I care about his health but it bothers me sometimes to always be cold when we
ride somewhere together. Perhaps if I can adjust for my boyfriend, I can also
do it for other passengers and be more considerate of their feelings when they
ride with me.
d)
I did the same exercises with my boyfriend
because lately he has seemed like a very aggressive driver. Generally I don’t
consider him to be very aggressive so I expected him to get average scores. For
the test on road rage tendency he scored only 4 out of 20, which says he is not
an aggressive driver.
However, for supporting passenger rights, he
was guilty of 7 out of 12 actions that are unsupportive of passenger rights.
Also, for the checklist to tell how passenger friendly you are, he scored 5 out
of 10. I thought his score for that test would be lower to mirror the results
of the first. Since it wasn’t I did not feel that he was being honest in
answering the questions. I felt that there were actions he was guilty of that
he either did not realize or just did not want to admit.
I think this lack of honesty reflects a lot
of drivers in the broader society. According to James, acknowledging is the
hardest step for changing undesirable habits. Few drivers want to admit their
tendencies and habits that produce rage, but changing unhealthy behavior is
impossible without acknowledging first that it is unhealthy.
I know I have seen my boyfriend do some of
the things that he did not admit to or answer items as true when I have seen
evidence otherwise. For example, on the list, he checked off that he felt
passengers have the right to criticize the driver’s behavior, but on our last
driving trip together he verbally attacked me for criticizing his driving. This
is probably very common because I think as humans we always want to attribute negative
aspects to other people and not to ourselves. It always seems like we blame
someone else for our own problems or shortcomings.
Dr. James says that drivers initially resist
changing their driving style, which I saw for myself after doing these exercises
with my boyfriend. When confronted with the evidence that he was pretty
unsupportive of passenger rights, he admitted he perhaps could be more
supportive, but was unresponsive to actually trying to modify his driving
behavior. I offered to do the partnership driving exercises with him and
observe his behavior and then switch and let him observe my driving behavior,
but he still did not want to do the exercises, claiming they were “a waste of
time.” He is just another example of how drivers in society resist changing
their driving style because it is so ingrained in us and is comprised of many
automatic habits that we don’t see.
The Question I am answering is 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.
c)
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Table 5 |
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d)
I think driving is such a
big problem in society because of the cultural norms transmitted through parents,
TV, magazines, and video games. Negative norms, such as competitiveness and
aggression are constantly portrayed in our society, but not many ideas on how
to change these norms are provided. For example, you can see aggressive driving
in video games such as Simpson’s Road Rage, but you never see drivers being
rewarded in the media for good driving behavior. Dr. Leon James states that by
the time we reach adolescence we have already been exposed to years of
aggressive driving behavior in three domains:
a) hostile feelings (driver's affective self)
(b) biased thoughts (driver's cognitive self)
(c) aggressive actions (driver's sensorimotor self).
In
our society, there is not enough focus on supportive driving as can be seen by
the previous methods created to reduce aggressive driving, which have so far
been pretty ineffective.
There is also trouble with defining
aggressive behavior in the law. Laws to reduce aggressive driving cannot be
effective if there is confusion about which actions are considered to be
aggressive driving and which are not.
I think another problem is that there is not
enough research on the causes of aggressive driving, aside from the driving
psychology we have seen in class this semester. The whole driver needs to be
taken into account in order to understand and change the phenomenon of
aggressive driving.
e)
Dr. James offers many solutions to the
aggressive driving and road rage problem. A driving psychology curriculum could
help end aggressive driving because it encompasses the whole driver; the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor aspects of the individual, which all act
together to determine driving behavior. With this type of curriculum for driver
education, we can understand aggressive driving at its roots and become aware
of the negative emotions that lead to aggressive driving. Also in this
curriculum, training in risk taking, error recovery, and emotional control
under emergency/ provocation situations is essential.
According to James, defensive driving
education is not enough. Defensive driving involves retaining stereotypes and
discriminatory beliefs about the diversity of drivers, as well as maintaining a
competitive attitude. Instead, the answer is teaching supportive driving, which
is a driving style that includes cooperation between drivers and maintaining
support for other drivers by recognizing and accepting a diversity of drivers.
With this type of driving, James says you are protected from the road rage of
others because “you’re committed to putting up the least sail in their angry
wind.”
The three-step driver self-improvement
program proposed by James is a very important concept in reducing aggressive
driving. In this program, drivers acknowledge
their negative driving habits, witness themselves
performing the negative habit, and modify
that habit. When this process is repeated, the old negative habits are replaced
by new positive habits. This program is part of continued driver behavior in
the form of guided lifelong self-improvement activities.
Driving education does not end when one gets their license; it continues throughout life as a driver
because we constantly need to acquire new skills (such as driving safely with
new technologies like cell phones and onboard navigation systems) and we should
be improving old habits that have become automatic. James suggests that the
wise is to acknowledge that with each of these new gadgets drivers require
training.
The likelihood that these solutions as
offered by James will be adopted is hard to say. The road rage epidemic
continues to go on, and the number of injuries and fatalities does not decline
despite the current efforts to reduce road rage. For this reason, I think
eventually the solutions offered by James may be adopted because other methods
have failed, and his is the only one that incorporates all aspects of the
driver. Something has to be done to reduce this problem, but society seems not
to offer any help with changing negative driving norms.
The Question I am answering is Question
10
Question 10:
(a) Explain the "supportive driving" orientation in relation to the driver's threefold self. Refer to our book on Road Rage and Aggressive Driving where this concept is discussed.(b) Describe any resistance you experience regarding this orientation, including (i) the idea that how you drive is a moral issue of human rights (ii) the idea of lifelong driver education and the idea of mandatory participation in QDC support groups (c) Describe the reactions of friends when you tell them about driving personality makeovers (d) Anything else you have to say.
a)
Supportive driving is “an accommodating style that
emphasizes adjusting to the great diversity of highway users and steering clear
of the emotional entrapments of road rage thinking.” With this type of driving style
James states that it helps contain road rage, reduces stress, boosts the immune
system, protects from emotional/physical injury, fosters community spirit, and
protects from financial liability.
Supportive
driving relates to each component of the threefold self, the cognitive,
affective, and sensorimotor aspects. With regard to
the cognitive aspect, adaptive thinking is characteristic of supportive
driving. Adaptive thinking involves accommodating all drivers because not all
of them can be treated alike and adapting a supportive attitude. For example,
instead of thinking “Old people are just too slow and stupid to drive,” one
with a supportive driving attitude may think “Everybody makes mistakes and
everybody has the right to use the road.”
The affective, or the emotional side, of driving
includes ones feelings. With supportive driving, you can direct your focus to
sympathize with other drivers, which brings empathy and understanding. Positive
feelings can liberate one from negative or angry emotions. For example, feeling
happy to slow down to let someone enter your lane is an example of supportive
driving. Instead of feeling competitive, angry, or hostile with other drivers,
a supportive driver is prosocial.
The sensorimotor side of
driving involves the actions taken by the driver. The driver’s thoughts and
feelings combine to affect his/her behavior. One example of supportive driving
behavior is random acts of kindness. These can be small or large, and include
things like giving a courtesy wave to someone who lets you enter their lane or
even just putting on a pleasant face. Random acts of kindness are acts you can
do that promote a healthy and supportive driving environment. Another example
of supportive driving behavior could include joining a
b)
When thinking about supportive driving, I believe it sounds like the optimal driving style compared to aggressive driving and defensive driving, but it is a difficult change to make in one’s driving personality. When I first read about supportive driving I thought it was corny and impossible to think things such as “Whenever I feel a negative emotion against someone in traffic, I immediately reject that attitude and substitute positive feelings and thoughts.” I find that especially difficult to do and often feel that I am provoked by people even though James says we make ourselves angry, not the other drivers.
Upon repeatedly trying the supportive driving style
techniques, I think it would get easier and more effective, but I have not yet
tried it even though I should. I do think that if everyone were to think, act,
and feel like a supportive driver, traffic would be a pleasant environment
instead of hell on wheels.
I think life-long driver education is a good idea but would be very difficult to enforce and it would make a lot of people unhappy if they had to take mandatory driver education courses throughout their entire life. I know I wouldn’t want to retake my driver’s test every year in order to keep my license, but I think every 10 years might be a good idea. I think that idea would especially help elderly drivers and people who find them to be a problem on the road or even a driving hazard. If life-long driver education were mandatory, I think the number of injuries and fatalities would decrease dramatically.
Right now, lots of drivers feel they have certain rights on the road, but don’t realize their shortcomings. We as drivers have so many automatic habits that are probably negative and they do not change without realizing them and making the effort to modify them so life-long driver education could help us to recognize and alter these negative habits.
With regard to Quality Driving Circles, I don’t feel
they should be mandatory. I feel it would infringe on people’s rights like
forced counseling. Despite this fact, I do think they are probably useful for
changing bad driving habits because they use social support, which has shown an
increased likelihood that change will be successful. Another benefit to them is
that QDC’s are inexpensive and useful for all aspects
of driving psychology, according to Dr. James. Also, I think that in this day
and age, virtual QDC’s may be more appealing to
drivers especially if QDCs become part of the normal
lifelong career of every driver as James predicts.
c)
When I mentioned the idea of driving
psychology to one of my roommates, she was very confused. “What does psychology
have to do with driving?” she asked. After I explained to her what this course
was about and the concepts of driving psychology, such as the threefold self,
she thought it was interesting and admitted she hadn’t thought about the
integration of affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor
aspects of the driver.
When I mentioned the concept of a driving
personality makeover, she laughed at first and asked if they exist. Then she
considered it, thought about times we’ve been in a car with drivers who have
road rage, and replied that she thought it was a good idea. She did not feel
that everyone needs a driving personality makeover, but that it could
definitely benefit some people. However, she also agreed that such a makeover
would be very difficult to carry out because it deals with parts of people’s
personalities that needs to change and people are usually opposed to realizing
their own faults and correcting them.
Regarding lifelong driver self-improvement
programs and training, my roommate thought it would be a good idea to require
these programs for drivers who get three tickets or more in a certain number of
years. She also thought that elderly drivers should have to go through these
programs or retake their driving test, because she feels they often become dangerous
with old age, but could not think of a specific age at which to require
testing.
I found her responses very interesting since
she does not have a drivers’ license and has not driven here in Hawaii because
she feels that drivers here are too reckless and are bad drivers. From just
being in the car with others driving or by being a pedestrian, she recognizes
the need for better driver education and training, which also says a lot about
the need for improvement in these areas.
Advice to Future Generations
Just like everyone all the other reports
I’ve seen, I think the best advice to include is to avoid procrastinating. This
report is a lot of work, and it would be a horrible idea to leave it until the
last minute. The same goes for the outlines. They are only one point a piece,
but they require some work.
Also, some of the ideas in the class seem to be a bit out
there, but keep an open mind. The course is pretty interesting and you can
learn a lot from it.
Class Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/classhome-g23.htm
My Home Page:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/40af2005/peltz/409a-g23-home.htm