BOOK REVIEW

Table of Contents:

Major topics in this book

Road rage in Today’s society

Road rage and mental health

Book reviews from others and my comments

Reference

Major topics of this Book:

As shown in contents of the book, there are three main themes in this book. 

The first part is the conflict mentality.  In this part, general background information of road rage is described.  First discussion is today’s road rage condition.  There are increasing number of aggressive driving on the road throughout the US, and the prices we are paying for this is tremendous.  Authors discussed that increasing rage and stress in general, throughout the society as a whole, is causing sportsmanship (in Hawaii, we might call this "aloha spirit") to dcline as a cultural factor.  Not only road rage, but also many other types of rage such as “parking lot rage”, “sidewalk rage”, “neighbor rage”, “shopping mall rage”, “cafeteria rage”, and “desk rage” are significantly increasing in recent years.  Authors call these phenomena “the age of rage”, and analyze this in terms of mental health.  There are discussions of 15 reasons of why driving causes anger in Chapter 2.  Also, self-awareness checklists are offered because it is absolutely essential to become objective and realize how dangerously we are driving.  Interesting view point of road rage introduced in this part was “passive aggressive road rage”.  This type of road rage is basically a driving behavior that ignores other drivers or driving condition such as insisting on driving at the speed limit in the passing lane, ignoring yield sign, not giving signals, not letting drivers enter into own lane by closing gap to a car in the front, holding up a long line of drivers on a one lane road, and making gestures and facial expressions to oneself.  I never thought of those behaviors as road rage, and this definitely expanded my understanding of road rage.

The second part is driving psychology.  Levels of emotional intelligence are discussed in this part in order to improve one’s emotional control.  The first level is “oppositional driving” when driver’s thoughts are irrational, and drivers engage in selfish, reckless, impulsive, and hostile driving.  In this level, drivers see other drivers as enemy and drive competitively.  The second level is “defensive driving”.  In this level, drivers think logically.  Although they have suspicious, wary, and competitive thoughts, but they are more prudent and restrained, and less likely to express worries and complains.  The last level, which all drivers should try to achieve, is “supportive driving”.  Drivers in this level have prosocial thoughts and they are friendly and helpful.  Their driving habit is full of hospitality to other drivers around them.  Most suggestions in this book guide readers to achieve the third level of driving habit.

The last part of the book focuses on the future of driving.  This part talks about governmental responses, reactions of police, and social activities against increasing number of road rage.   Also, this part contains  ideas of dream cars or new features that will make driving condition more pleasant, comfortable, and enjoyable and as a consequence, reduce road rage.

Road Rage in Today’s Society:

Road rage has been catching public attention since around 1996.  Almost every major newspapers, magazines, and news programs and documentaries on TV covered Road Rage, seeking better public awareness and safety on the road in the US.  The followings are some of headlines from major media sources:

Chicago Tribune: “Road Worriors: aggressive drivers turn freeways into Free-For-Alls”“Armed with everything from firearms to Perrier Bottles to pepper spray and eggs, America’s drivers are taking frustrations out on each other in startling numbers” 2000

            News Week: “Road Rage: We’re Driven to Destruction”

Time: “It’s high noon on the country’s streets and highways.  This road recklessness, auto anarchy, an epidemic of wanton carmanship.” Jan. 2001

USA Today: An “Epidemic” of Aggressive Driving.

Washington Times: “Highway violence said to be spreading like an epidemic”

TV has contributed tremendously to spread the word “road rage” and what it is to public.  It also served as public educator about self-awareness of dangerous driving and safer driving.  Many TV programs treat road rage as some type of disease, so there are many uses of words such as “epidemic”and “social diseases”.  They show what is going on on the roads, showing dangerous driving behavior of teens, elderly people, and public in general.  One of the most famous and talked about incidents of road rage was the death of Princess Diana.  This incident was treated by media as “Road Rage in Paris”, and contributed to accelerate media attention of road rage.  As well as TV, internet is a major source for public to know and learn about road rage.  When I type the word “road rage” into major search engines such as google.com and yahoo, I find hundreds of web pages and web articles about it. 

Road rage is not just a media attention.  This is something actually exists as social problem.  Thousands of people are being killed or injured every year because of aggressive driving.  One statistics from AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety shows that since January 1990 through September 1996, there were at least 10,037 incidents of aggressive driving.  Of the 10,037 incidents, 218 people were killed and 12,610 people were injured.  Other survey reports that around 1,800 people are being killed every year.  It is not only people’s lives that are taken away by road rage.  It is costing a lot.  Some $250 billion every year is the cost that society is wasting due to road rage. 

Road rage is not something that is restricted to small number of particularly aggressive people.  When people are asked, more than 90% of drivers answer that they experience rage behind wheels.  In fact, sometimes we are surprised to hear news such as a housewife shot other driver as a consequence of road rage.  Road rage is everywhere.  Anyone can be a victim or even an assailant of road rage.  So, road rage is certainly one of the biggest public concern today, and messages to promote better public awareness and understanding of road rage, ways of prevention, and safer driving and emotional skills, which are main topics of this book, are very much needed in our society today. 

Solutions and education:

This book offers numbers of solutions and suggestions to readers:

In order not to provoke other drivers’ aggression, a traffic safety organization offers several suggestions.  They basically advice us not to engage in driving habits that we feel annoying when other drivers do the same things to us such as blocking passing lane, fail to use signals, tailgate, unnecessary use of cell phone, and stopping in the road to talk to other drivers or pedestrians.  Also, it is suggested not to take other drivers’ aggression personally, plan ahead and allow enough time for the trip so that drivers do not have to be in hurry, and wear seatbelts!

Lack of control over negative emotions  is the major cause of the road rage.  To have better control over our rage, three techniques are offered.  First, we need to postpone our desire to retaliate or revenge on someone who caused our anger.  Second, we should avoid savoring victory and pleasure of punishing others.  Third, we need to reevaluate our wrong justifications to our hostile driving.

Gaining control over our emotions helps develop emotional intelligence.  Individual’s control over emotional state is a key to emotional control of motorists.  The book states, “[motorists] begin to understand that the driver’s emotional state has the power to influence others-motorists, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians”.  Several strategies are produced to support life-long driver education and training.  These strategies offer different education and training for different age groups and social groups:

Kindergarten and elementary school:  The book suggests to practice affective driving skills during time in kindergarten and elementary school.  By establishing good affective domain of our emotion during young age, we can develop basic habit of positive feelings, and it can lead to positive thinking and consequently, positive acting.  It is important for young children to become aware of anger we all possess and how anger is created behind the wheel and its consequences.  Also, it is emphasized that practices of self-witnessing activities with teachers and parents promote creation of natural compassion to others on the road.

Middle school:  After children established positive affective domain, cognitive driving skills should be practiced in middle school.  Becoming aware of our thinking habits while walking or riding bikes by self-witnessing, developing emotional intelligence, and improve knowledge of the rights of various aspects on the road are the main focuses during this age.

High school:  When children finally start driving, sensorimotor driving skills should be practiced.  By using driving simulator, self-witnessing and supervised driving experience, students develop automotive discipline skills.  These skills include ability to control own risk-taking tendency, emergency handling skills, effective communication skills, and appreciation and cooperation to road rules. 

Post licensing:  After drivers got their licenses, they still need to continue training through Quality Driving Circles (QDCs).  Through QDCs, drivers are continuously asked to perform self-witnessing procedures by keeping driving log, journal, and diary.  Also, keeping up with driving laws, studies, and vehicle features are important.  They should train for safe multitasking driving such as taking phone calls, looking at GPS screens, and eating while driving.  Finally, they need to be aware that their driving habits can be passed on to next generations.

This book is written for everyone, even if readers are not actually driving yet.  I think every driver should definitely read this book and practice driving improvement strategies discussed in the book.  Also, any educators in driving field such as instructors in driving schools, teachers who are in charge of driver's education classes in high schools, and instructors in drivers education in public offices should be trained according to this book.

Road rage and mental health: 

There are several interesting causal factors of anger in this book.  One of them is influences of TV and video games.  There are so many TV programs and video games that show bad driving behavior and aggression.  Children who grew up watching those TV program and playing violent video games will develop impaired affective domain, therefore, developing impaired thinking and sensorimotor domain.   When they grow up,  they are more likely to think it is acceptable to act aggressively on the road.  The other thing that causes impaired driving is physical factors such as alcohol and illegal drug intake, medications, extreme fatigue or sleep deprivation, and some type of physical disability and illness.  One’s decision to drive under the influence of those physical factors that would certainly lower his driving ability should be considered to be a form of rage because it is an irresponsible act.  The other type of factor that impairs one’s driving ability is emotional factor.  This factor is more difficult to manage because onset of this is unpredictable, sudden, and strong.  Emotional impairment factors stated in this book are the follows: anger, rage, anxiety, fear, panic, speed and risk addiction, habitual self-appointed vigilante or road warrior, emotionally challenged behind the wheel, habitual disrespect for the law, and habitual denial of own driving mistakes. 

Several mental health professionals have acknowledged that stress associated with driving is no different from other types of stress.  Drivers with longer commutes experience more stress, and stress from driving can negatively affect their job performance, overall mood and health, and life satisfaction. 

Therefore, it is essential to reduce stress from driving experience.  In order to do that, people need to train themselves not to feel stress behind the wheel.  Becoming emotionally intelligent will help drivers reduce their stress. 

Book review from others and my comments:

I went to amazon.com and looked for book reviews.  This book has gotten five stars on average customer review.  Here are some customer reviews posted on the web:  Angel man put four stars.  He liked the overall coverage on the topic, pointing that authors successfully mention many aspects to improve safer driving of the public.  He points out that there are more aspects other than psychological factors that should be considered such as religious and spiritual factors.  Marylin, who is a licensed psychologist from Ohio really liked this book and gave five stars.  Her husband is an aggressive driver, and after they read this book, he started adapting supportive driving technique, and his driving behavior is improving.  She is now recommending this book to people, mainly wives who concern their husbands’ aggressive driving behaviors.

I liked this book very much.  I would give five stars.  This book is covering so many aspects of aggressive driving, including some aspects that I have never thought as aggressive driving.  This book points out problems we have to make readers aware of what is going wrong, then offers effective solutions.

The strength of this book is that almost everyone, from children who do not even know how to drive to adults who have been driving for decades.   Any drivers who read this can get benefits in some ways.  As indicated in the book, many drivers have very biased evaluation toward themselves.  We are more aware of mistakes and bad behaviors that other drivers engage while we are blind about our own faults and bad behaviors, and we think  we are the best drivers in the world.   This book will make us aware, and tell us what we need to do to improve our ability to control our  negative emotions and aggressive driving.   Most of us want to be a good driver, but we don’t know what to do.    Often we think we are very good drivers, but without certain help such as reading a book like this, we might never find out what kind of bad drivers we are.  For example, some people feel that they are a kind of law-enforcer and insist on going at speed limit in passing lanes while holding up  long line of cars behind them, causing others to irritate.  Those passive-aggressive driving behaviors were something I did not consider as road rage before I read this book.  Like this, I found so many examples of bad driving behaviors that I was not aware before.  Also, this book contains so many checklists.  By doing those checklists, I was able to actually see how bad I am.  Sometimes just reading about bad behavior is not enough.  This checklists made it much easier for me to acknowledge my behavior, which is the first and essential step to makeover my driving habits.  I think that if each checklists has little analysis to it, such as "if you answered yes to more than ten questions, you are....".  This might sound sort of cheesy, but it is what we are accustomed and familiar to, and I think it will improve people's awareness about their behaviors.  Also, I think this will motivate people to do checklists.

The weakness of this book is that there are not enough inter-cultural comparisons about road rage.  It is mentioned that road rage is a world-wide phenomena, but there is not much discussions of how road rage is expressed, perceived, treated, and regulated in other countries.  If there are enough studies on road rage in other countries, we might be able to find different types of solutions and new ideas to face road rage.

Reference:

“AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety” Internet. 03 Nov. 2001. Available: http://www.aaafoundation.org/resources/index.cfm?button=agdrtext

“Amazon.com customer reviews” Internet. 04 Nov. 2001. Available: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/1573928461/customer-reviews/ref=pm_dp_ln_b_7/107-9724452-5670934

“’Road Rage’ Versus Reality” Internet. 03 Nov. 2001. Available: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98aug/roadrage.htm

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