ROAD RAGE AND AGGRESSIVE DRIVING:
STEERING CLEAR OF HIGHWAY DRIVING
Table of content
Introduction
Main Idea
My Reaction
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Introduction
The book, Road Rage and aggressive driving awakes the publc to be self-concious of the rage that they experience behind the wheel. Every year $250 billion is used due to road incidents and these incidets are closely related to various forms of road rage. In addition, horrific crimes such as assualts and murders are instigated from road rages. The public knows the existance of road rage but it is not fully awared of influences of road rage. Most importantly, it is without any clear solutions. By addressing these issues, Dr. James' Road Rage and Aggressive Driving awakes the public and suggests effective ways to cope with road rage to make our driving environment safer.
In the end of every chapter, Dr. James offers Self-Check lists where reader can check themselves. This is particularly effective because many readers will be surprised with their results.
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Main Idea
Road Rage and Aggressive Driving is mainly divided into three parts. Part one is The Conflict Mentality. In this section, Dr. James explains about the causes of road rage, related health issues and the spectrum of the road rage. Part two is Driving Psychology. This is the core part of the book where readers can incorporate his methods into their lives to improve their aggressive driving styles. Dr. James suggest emotional intelligence, three-step (Acknowledge, Witness and Modify) technique, supportive driving and life long education as solutions for road rage. Part three is The Future of Driving. It covers traffic laws that were related to the road rage and upcoming factors that will alter driving environments such as dining equipment that will be installed in the car in near future.
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The Conflict Mentality
In this part, general background informtion of road rage is explained. First, Dr. James addresses conditions that reinforces road rage. They are things like violent movies or video games where aggressive driving styles are justified. People, especially children who watch violent movies or play those video games are more tend to experience road rage because these people are morelikey to vent their angers at other drivers. According to Dr. James, venting anger is not only threaten the safety on the road but also brings detrimental physiologica effects such as heart diseases. One interestion regarding anger is that Dr. James claims expressing anger is as detrimental. Opposed to the popular belief that expressing anger is healthy, he believes people should confess their anger.
He advocates that driving environment is unique but stressful environment that often lead a driver to act like a different person. This is one of the road rage called Jekyll and Hyde syndrome. In addition to Jekyll and Hyde syndrom, he explains six more types of road rage in Chapter 4.
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Driving Psychology
In my personal opinion, Second Part, Driving Psychology is the most useful part of the book because it suggests the ways to stop road rage. Emotional Intelligence is one of the ways to stop road rage. The book describes three levels of emotional intelligence for drivers-oppositional, defensive, and supportive. Oppositional drivers are selfish, reckless, impulsive and hostile. They take simple accidents as personal insult and challenges so they might try to punish other drivers who do not fit their personal standards. Defensive drivers are suspicious, wary and competitive but prudent. It teaches motorists to focus on the safety of the road but it still creats competitive environment which cause drivers to be somewhat hostile. Supportive drivers are at the highest level of emotional intelligence. They are helpful and friendly. They also express enjoyment and optimism. Their main difference from the other two categories is that they have prosocial thought patterns. Supportive driving philosophy involves a supportive attitudes toward other drivers, tolerance of pluralism, feeling integrated with the flow of traffic, and pratice lifelong driver self-improvement.
Dr. James claims another way to prevent road rage is three-step driver self-improvement program. The three steps are A-acknowledge, W-witness, and M-modify. Drivers first should acknowledge that they lose emotional control when they drive then they should self-obeserved to find out what they need to change specifically. Lastly, they modify their target behavior for improvement.
In Chapter 7, Dr. James explains how little children also can acquire road rage from their parents. Since children learn by observing, drivers should be more cautions of expressing negative feelings. However, most of time, children's presence does not make much differences.
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Last part, The Future of Driving deals with upcoming events involving traffic. This section of the book describes traffic laws and hearings regarding road rage such as aggressive driving bills. It also lists aggressive police initives such as marked and unmarked patrol cars, stealth aggressive driving initiative in Florida and the road watch program in Ontario. In korea, there is actually a strict road watch program in Ontario. The government pay the people who turn in the photographs of cars that break traffic laws. This program succeded in decreasing accidents but there are also many complaints. One of the complaints is that car owners should not be hold responsible, instead drivers should be the one hold accountable since they are the one who broke laws. Last chapter is about new equipment that will be installed into a car in the near future. Mobil PC, mini-microwave, and other instruments that will supposedly make our lives convenient but are possible hazardous to safe driving are examples of such equipment.
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My Reactions
Dr. James' Road Rage and Aggressive Driving is for any adults and teen-agers who are drivers or those about to get their licenses. Also, this book will be useful for educating drivers because it describes road rage and ways to deal with it step by step. The book provides simple and straightfoward solutions without difficult theoretical concepts. Especially, parents should read this book because , because, as the book suggests, children can learn aggressive driving styles by watching their parents.
I was able to finish reading this book without much difficulties because it was closely related to my daily lives. This is one of the strengths of the book. Examples and methods of dealing with road rage were not abstract, they were practical which kept my interests to finish reading the book. Another point that kept my interests of reading the book is about how driving environment affects people to be aggressive. It was intriguing, because it was related to what I study, psychology. It seems Dr. James also received favorable reviews from Amazon.com. Those reviews complemented on its usefulness and informativeness. As a psycho major, I was looking for more statistics and experiments, but this would have made materials difficult for the general reader.
In overall, Dr. James' Road Rage and Aggressive Driving is a book that will benefit every driver who read it. I personally learn to become a more self-awared and self-controlled driver. Reading especially about 15 stressors that make driving emotional challenging task helped me understand my feelings better.
Below is one of the 15 stressors that are provided in the book.
"Most of the body remains still and passive during driving, unlike walking, where the entire body exerts effort and remains continuously active. Tension tends to build up when the body is physically constricted."
One question that I had after reading the book is why people are influenced differently by driving environments. For example, I have these uncles. One is competitive and aggressive while other is quiet and more introverted. However, when they drive, they switch their personalities. The quiet and introverted uncle becomes a hyper macho operator of a heavy machine while the competitive and aggressive uncle becomes a careful law biding driver. Similar environments but have the opposite results. I personally think there are still many questions that needs to be answered about road rage or rage itself and will require continuous studies.
OTHER REVIEWS AND REFERENCES
"Understand the Psychology Behind Road Rage." Internet. 17 Dec. 2001. http:www.amazon.com/exec.obidos/tg/stores/detail/books/1573928461/custormer-reviews
"AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety" Internet. 15 Dec. 2001. http:www.aaafoundation.org/resources/index.cfm?button