Psych 409a: October 15, 2006

Age, Gender, and Type of Car Effects

By:  Justin Koito

 

Instructions for this activity are found at:

 http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/g25-oral1.htm

Instructor: Dr. Leon James

 

The Effect of Age, Gender, and Car Type Effects on Driving Across the States: Article 08

 

Age, Gender, and Car Type

 

I.                    Overview of What to Look For

A.     Discover motives of drivers that decided to act aggressively

 

II.                 Gender

A.     Men: more aggressive when they drive sports cars and lights trucks

B.     Women: more aggressive when driving SUV’s and luxury cars

C.     Taken from a survey, men describe themselves a lot more aggressive than women

III.               Age

A.     Youth drivers are more aggressive in all driving behaviors compared to older drivers

B.     Senior citizens are least aggressive

C.     Youth’s are the most likely to illegally lane hop without signaling

D.     Parents need to learn to teach their kids the proper way of driving because their kids will start to develop habits their parents have

E.      Youth drivers tend to block the left lane more than others (i.e. left-lane bandit going slow)

 

IV.              Types of Cars

A.     Men find themselves less aggressive than women when behind family vehicles (i.e. vans)

B.     Men and women find themselves aggressive when behind a light truck (i.e. Ford Ranger, Ford F-150)

C.     Sports Cars: people who own have an aggressive self-image

D.     Vans: people who own have the least aggressive self-image

E.      Large Vehicles: believed that people are ill equipped to handle these vehicles

-         classes and licensing of large vehicles should be required in order to operate these vehicles legally

F.      Men who drive sports cars and light trucks tend to have the highest rate of speeding with women of sports cars and light trucks coming in second

G.     “Driving an SUV by an aggressive driver is equivalent to carrying an AK-47 assault rifle or a bazooka on the street”

H.     People who drive SUV’s and trucks feel as though they are impowered since they are higher in relation to the ground than other cars (looking down on other cars)

 

V.                 United States

A.     Men from California say that they are better drivers than those of other states

B.     Women in Florida see themselves just as good drivers as male drivers in Florida

C.     Women in Illinois and New York see themselves as less skilled than the males in those states

 

VI.              Aggressive Driving Syndrome: if a person does any one of the 16 behaviors, chances are they will do the other 15 as well

1.      feeling more stress

2.      swearing more often

3.      acting more frequently in a hostile manner

4.      speeding on regular basis

5.      yelling more at other drivers

6.      honking more at drivers

7.      making insulting gestures

8.      tailgating more often

9.      cutting off people more often

10.  expressing road rage behavior more often

11.  feeling enraged more often

12.  more often indulging in violent fantasies

13.  feeling more competitive with other drivers

14.  rushing more of the time

15.  more often feeling the desire to drive dangerously

16.  feeling less calm/level headed while driving

VII.            Self-Training Effort (Aggressive Driving)

A.     Aggressive driving is a behavioral addiction: we want to continue doing the behavior unless there is  a threatening authority present (i.e. police)

B.     First step is to admit that you have a problem and there is a need for improvement

C.     Second step is to self-witness the aggressive action

D.     Third step is to take action to prevent an aggressive action the following time

 

VIII.         Swearing

A.     In general, women swear and cuss more than men (65% to 58%) despite the type of car that they drive

B.     Youth drivers swear the most, but as they got older, swearing slows down

C.     Swearing is cultural driving norm when you compare it to all age groups

D.     Sports car and light truck drivers tend to swear the most while the economy vehicles and van drivers swear the least

IX.              Speeding

A.     Extent of speed should be determined by the demographics of the area

B.     Overall, women speed less than men

X.                 Driving Through Red Lights

A.     Gender, age, and type of car effects whether or not a person will run a red light

- Sports car and truck drivers are the most likely to run a red

XI.              Tailgating

A.     SUV drivers tend to tailgate more and if they are parents, they are more likely to transmit their tailgating onto their kids

B.     Sports car drivers actually do not transmit their tailgating practices to their children

XII.            Fantasies of Violence

A.     Once you notice you are having these violent feelings, the first thing to do is stop it immediately

B.     Although people may get older and more mature, embedded in us forever is the fantasy of violence

C.     Author tape recorded thoughts and analyzing himself in order to find more information on his driving habits (Three Step Program)

D.     Other programs that can help with the violence are driver’s ed and quality driving circles (QDC); also parents can help to curb violence in their kids

XIII.         Road Rage

A.     Age and the type of car plays an enormous factor in the amount of road rage a person has

B.     Other factors that might stir up road rage are the person’s personality and lifestyle

XIV.         Driving Zones

A.     Zone 1: Impatience (i.e. being impatient, rushing)

B.     Zone 2: Hostility (i.e. making insulting gestures)

C.     Zone 3: Road Rage (i.e. brake checking, cutting off)

 

XV.           Ways to Combat Aggressive Driving  

A.     Driver’s education program

B.     Electronic surveillance

C.     Harsher penalties for those who break the laws

D.     Positive incentives for those who are good drivers

E.      Turn drivers into Supportive Drivers

F.      Taxonomy of Driving Behavior Habits (Affective, Cognitive, and Sensorimotor)

Related Links

 

  1. Aggressive Driving: http://www.aaafoundation.org/resources/index.cfm?button=agdrtext - I chose this article because it went into further details about aggressive driving and what impact it could have.  It also gives information on those who violate the law and what they would have to do if they were caught by the police.

 

  1. National Survey of Speeding and Unsafe Driving Actions:  http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/aggressive/unsafe/att-beh/Chapt1-2.html#6 - This article seem interesting because it gave information on the age, gender, and type of car driven information.  It listed what age ranges carry radar detectors so that you can see a correlation between risk taking and the age of the risk takers

 

  1. 21 Smart Driving Tips for New Drivers:  http://www.smartmotorist.com/tip/tip.htm - This little segment gives information on the self help process.  It gives twenty-one different tips on how to prevent becoming an aggressive driver and to prevent any accidents from happening.  Even those who are not beginning drivers can benefit from this segment because it gives a model of what a person should be like when driving a vehicle.

 

My Home page:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409af2006/koito/koito-home.htm

Class Home Page:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/classhome-g25.htm