“Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering
Clear of Highway Warfare”
By:
Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl
(Prometheus
Books 2000)
Psych 409a—Fall 2001—G15
Dr. Leon James,
Instructor
November 5, 2001
Road Rage and Aggressive driving are problematic issues that plague our society today; millions every year are injured as a result of these destructive behaviors. In recent decades road rage has drastically increased, more often are we seeing their prevalence in the news media. A few years ago, Hawaii was given its first major taste of violence on our highways and by-ways. An altercation occurred with a high-school student and an off-duty police officer, apparently some kind of aggressive gestures were exchanged while the two were driving that ultimately lead to a struggle on the upper level of the freeway where the off-duty officer fell to his death. The youth was sentenced to remain in the State of Hawaii’s detention home until the court’s appointed age.
It is vital to the health and well being of our community to understand why road rage occurs and to devise a way to counter act the automatic behaviors that much of America is used to. In “Road Rage and Aggressive Driving, Steering Clear of Highway Warfare” by Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl, the authors attempt to analyze why we reject fundamental human principles and allow ourselves to be consumed by our mechanical responses to endangerment and threat.
The common individual views the world through a self-centered perspective, forgetting the feelings and the well being of others. Many of us do not understand that our own emotions affect the world around us; we allow emotions to take hold of our inner consciousness and instead of deliberately acting we merely react. Thus adding to the stress and anxiety of those who come into contact with these people. Those who consider others and their needs are few; the majorities tend to worry only for themselves. The only way to broaden the consciousness of humanity to the vast population is to educate and reinforce emotional intelligence with in all aspects of human life. Thus allowing the people to better cope with conflict, danger, fear, and anger. Hopefully to work as a ripple effect across the world.
What’s
Important?
Dr. James and Dr. Nahl divide their book into three major sections, conflict of mentality, driving psychology, and future of driving. The conflict of mentality portion basically discusses the different emotional conflicts that are experienced that effect people to act out in the form of road rage. Traits and characteristics of various road rage behaviors and attitudes, including gender, cultural dynamic and impaired driving is included as well. In the driving of psychology division, change and modification are the focal points of each chapter in this section. Methods of improving emotional intelligence, educating the youth, being a supportive driver, and the idea of a lifelong driver education, fill this segment. The concluding section of the book, the future of driving, speaks of different organizations involved in lobbying for and against more regulation of driving, new law enforcement technologies, new transportation advances, as well as miscellaneous elements such as cell phones, music, etc. are examined in the concluding portions of “Road Rage and Aggressive Driving.”
James and Nahl focus on three major points, the road rage spectrum, emotional intelligence, and the three-step self-improvement program. The road rage spectrum identifies different kinds of road rage behaviors in detail, which allows the audience to search introspectively for what kind of driver they are themselves. At the end of the chapter covering the road rage spectrum recommendations are presented as an alternative on how to handle aggressive drivers and personal driving.
Emotional Intelligence is another key factor in the mental health of drivers. Much of our aggression stems from allowing others to upset us emotionally, which can permit the initial reaction of endangerment to develop into direct physical violence. The authors discuss the sequence of events that occurs, if an individual does not allow their hostile feelings dissipate. Dr. Nahl and Dr. James consider two techniques that facilitate the dissipation of endangerment responses as well as six characteristics that improve emotional intelligence.
The three-step self-improvement program allows individuals to acknowledge, witness, and finally modify their behaviors. The first step of the programs relies on people acknowledging that everyone needs continued education for their emotions. The second step, witness, looks within the individual, in order to evaluate the level of aggression in personal behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. The final step, modification, allows individuals change their behaviors from what was found from the witnessing stage. The goal of the three-step program is to identify any kind of problematic conflict that produces emotional rage within the person or in others around them.
Psychology plays a major role in aggressive driving and road rage. Dr. James and Dr. Nahl discuss how we allow our feelings of endangerment and hostility to increase thus shifting those feelings to aggression that ultimately has the possibility of altering itself to physical violence. How we handle and control our emotions and feelings predicts the way that we will react to them. If we as emotionally intelligent beings permit these aggressive impulses to dissipate then rage on the road would not be a problem. James and Nahl site this as the intervention prior to the occurrence of the predicament. They agree that evaluating the self introspectively will allow the individual to alter and broaden their emotional intelligence.
Role Of The
Media
The media is the source that the greater part of America acquires its information. Coverage of road rage accidents and fatalities are frequent events on the evening news. Although the media is draws public attention to the dangers of aggressive acts on our roads and streets, most of the media encourages us to accept rage as common everyday occurrence that shouldn’t bother us. The authors touch on the subject in Chapter 2, “players behaving badly with road rage video games.” In these video game players are rewarded for hitting as many pedestrians as possible, shooting them with weapons that are attached to their cars, etc.
The media uses cartoons as well to provide children with the misperception that road rage in funny and that no one is ever injured in these stunts. Many adults do not see any problems with the situations presented in cartoons. In most of these cartoon auto chases and elaborately displayed accidents the characters always walk away without any kind of injury, its as though no one ever gets hurt. This promoting bad driving to children because they believe that nothing bad with happen if they commit acts they’ve seem in the media. Thus painting an unrealistic portrait of the real consequences of road rage.
Children and
Education
Children and education automatically seem to go hand in hand no matter how it’s examined. Road rage and aggressive driving are issues that need to be addressed with children, James and Nahl express the importance of teaching children early that violence and aggression are unacceptable on roads or in life. The key is to educate the youth to handle their emotions and feelings positively then to express them in a negative; violent or aggressive nature. Children need to be equipped with the right coping skills to be able to conquer anger and aggression, implementing the three-step self-improvement program will help to decrease the likelihood of negative responses. But before we can get to the children we need to work on ourselves the adults and become aware of our own actions and the effects they have on our children. The first step is to work on ourselves as recommended by James and Nahl.
Strong or Weak:
Who Will Make A Difference?
“Road Rage and Aggressive Driving,” is an informative well-written book that stirs public attention to the importance of our actions on the road. The author’s utilize many statistics and news accounts as a firm foundation for their theories and solutions. The implementation of “checklists and exercises” in each chapter, were excellent activities that forced the audience to search within themselves to identify their feelings and behaviors. It allowed the readers to get involved with the material and to with others experiences and perspectives. On the other hand, much of the information was practical but yet a little close-minded. James and Nahl are not very open to a realistic approach. It’s as if it is their way or no way. There wasn’t much support for the present way of thinking of most Americans. The claims and suggestions presented were outstanding but didn’t seem to be reasonable in terms of public perspective, because most of society believe that they are great drivers. The public isn’t aware of their actions and emotions and they do not have the ability to observe their behaviors for what they really are. Thus there is a huge need for James and Nahl’s idealized method of learning and education.
James and Nahl made two major points that were key in understanding the beginnings of road rage and how we have no control over what happens. “People everywhere feel at risk from road rage because it can erupt at any time, beyond our control,” taken from Chapter 4, the Road Rage Spectrum. Another excerpt from Chapter 5, Emotional Intelligence for Drivers, “When we get emotionally upset and physically agitated we tend to lose some ability to see alternative explanations for a situation—unless we teach ourselves greater emotional intelligence.”
I think that it is important for teens preparing to get their drivers’ license to read, “Road Rage and Aggressive Driving.” It will train them to handle the stresses of driving and how to cope with those feelings. Drivers that are renewing their licenses should also be required to read the book, so that they will have the opportunity to be better equipped mentally on the road. Both parties need to understand their own as well as others aggressive behaviors, in order to stop the cycle of aggression before it has a chance to start. James and Nahl emphasize the point that driver’s education is a constant “lifelong process,” there are always things to learn and things to learn from.
My Perspective
I really enjoyed reading Dr. James and Dr. Nahl’s book, it helped me to search within myself to identify what kind of driver I am and ultimately how do I handle aggression and conflict. I didn’t realize the severity of road rage and its effects on the population. Although its major effects were obvious I was still blinded by the medias influence on road rage and aggression. I now understand that everyone has issues with rage on the road, despite their own ideas. We all think that we are good drivers, but do we know what a good driver is? It’s also important to point out that our actions do affect our children; they learn from us and gain many impressions from our actions. I also learned to modify my perspective from negative aggressive to positive supportive frame of mind. We as a society need to elevate our consciousness and broaden our emotional intelligence.
Other Reviews
Other reviews are available on Dr. James website, Dr. Driving, as well as on Amazon.com.