A Review of Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl’s

Prometheus Books, 2000

December 2002

1. The Book’s Overall Content

1. Shrinking Your Emotional Territory (Chapter 5, page 122)

There are situations in our life which get more emotional importance than other situations possibly for different reasons. Just as the topic title says, shrink you emotional territory by not allowing yourself to get so emotionally caught up in driving. Negative emotions such as anger, blame, and over critical can brew road rage and aggressive driving. Of the whole book this is the most important point which affected me. I use this concept almost everyday when driving on the road. If another motorist’s driving behavior does something to anger me I just brush it off and not let it get to me.

I have also allowed myself to apply this concept to other aspects of my life, not only toward driving. In other situations that can cause negative emotions to form within myself I try my hardest to let the problem go, there are times where it is harder than other times but I think to myself "the problem is not worth it". I would rather direct my emotions in a positive manner rather than a negative just because it makes me feel better inside and out.

2. Road Rage Nursery (Chapter 7, page 151)

Children act accordingly to their environment which they mature, whether adults like it or not. Children who are around adults who suffer from road rage and aggressive driving will most likely grow-up doing exactly what their role models did, although there are those exceptional cases where the children turn out to be better than the environment from which they came.

As adults we should be sensitive to situations where children are present, where we need to monitor our words and actions and teach children right from wrong. The term ‘right from wrong’ varies across parents and guardians, which is based on how they were raised. Adults need to be more sensitive to situations where violence might prevail, and if violence does happen teach children how to deal with violence and allowing anger to pass in a constructive manner primarily through verbal communication.

3. Children’s Road Rage (Chapter 7, page 153)

This sounds a little funny, children with road rage? How can this be, children can’t even drive? Yes children too have road rage, but cause this rage from other places than the drivers seat of a vehicle.

For example I was along Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki one weekend night, so there was a lot of people viewing the sights. I wanted to cross the street so waited in a sea of people at the cross walk to signal the okay to walk across the street. Near the road where the sidewalk ended and the roadway began there were these two girls who appeared to be in their mid-teens with arms interlocking, they were laughing and appeared to be having a good time.

Then they started to step into the road when a car approached the crosswalk, when the car slowed down or screeched on the brakes out of fear of hitting the girls they laughed hysterically like their joke was the funniest thing in the world.

As I watched them do this I thought "if they only knew how stupid they look" they might not be doing what they were doing, most importantly if they knew how unsafe their behavior was is might prevent them even more to not do what they were doing. They might want to view the situation from the drivers point of view. There are only so many things to pay attention to when driving, especially in Waikiki there are so many distractions making it harder to drive, the drivers of the cars could have hit those girls unknowlingly.

In other words these girls were victims of delusional reality, they were unable to distinguish the reality in the situation. In order to prevent any injuries to these girls, as well as all pedestrians:

-know and obey pedestrian traffic laws

-view situations from other points of views

-respect others on the road, knowing the road is a shared environment for all vehicles and pedestrians

-sharing shows caring about the safety of others

4. Drivers Behaving Badly on TV (Chapter 2, page 48)

There should be no question as to why there is an increase in road rage, this type of anger on the road is clearly displayed within the media with no censorship or message to note the dangers. This can lead society to think driver aggression is socially acceptable, therefore repeating what they see (not only does this work for children but adults as well).

There is no better way to enforce road aggression than to publicize it with no criticism.

I remember watching cartoons when I was younger where violence was every where and I didn’t even notice. Cartoon characters were being run over by large trucks, blown up by dynamite or bitten by large vicious animals, actions which in true life would kill a person. Yet in the cartoons the characters were invincible, after being run over their flat figure would puff right up again and everything was back to normal. These kinds of cartoons without proper values instilled within children can trick children between the reality of violence and the fiction of violence.

5. Players Behaving Badly With Road Rage Video Games

(Chapter 2, page 50)

In this time of change the world is moving in to the stage of technology, where every thing is computerized, programmed and digital and so forth. Video corporations are producing games where road rage and violence is the main attraction. These games are intended for mature audiences only, where the target age is mid-teens to mid-20’s, but children can easily get their hands on violent games.

Grand Auto Theft is a popular registered video game on the market where the object of the game is to steal vehicles (either with a driver already in the car or not) then flee from the police. There are various forms for road rage and violence in this game and there are various weapons available for armed robbery. The player of the game can weave in and out of traffic, run traffic signals and also run pedestrians over.

I personally think these kinds of games are not appropriate in this present world of free anger and aggression. In some cases there are children who are unable to distinguish between fiction and non-fiction and they act out what they see in the video games. Some cases have luck endings, while others are not so fortunate and end in tragedy.

6. Motorist to Motorist Communication (Chapter 8, page 171)

1. The Book’s Importance

Overall the book covers many problems, the problem exist only in the eye of the beholder. In my eyes the problems prevail in the up bringing of the child to adult, then when at the mature state of adults the problem exist in each individuals emotion and how the individuals understands, communicates and deals those emotions. Drs. James and Nahl give various charts with different levels of emotions the individual can relate to.

For example in chapter 5 of the text titled Emotional Intelligence for Drivers there is a chart explaining the three levels of Emotional Intelligence, page 117:

Level One: Oppositional Driving

Level Two: Defensive Driving

Level Three: Supportive Driving

In this chart Drs. James and Nahl rate level three as the ideal state of emotional intelligence, level two as the median stage of emotional intelligence and level one as the level which needs to most improvement of emotional intelligence (the state at which most drivers remain). The text gave emotional information for each stage and emotional examples to help the reader identify which state they remain in.

Table 5.3: Positive and Negative Driver Competence Skills on page 124 had 4 columns, the first column gave the driver competence skills, the second column gave the negative comment that might follow and in the third column the positive comment that might follow, then in the last column the reader is responsible to write their own comment.

Examples like this are important to public concern today and the field of psychology because it allows individuals to rate their emotional status toward the world of driving. According to the text people can read information about their emotional status and then work toward their ideal state of emotional intelligence.

It is important for people to understand their emotions, how to communicate their emotions and how to express those emotions in an appropriate manner. The ability to understand, communicate and express emotions takes time for an individual to study themselves, as I learned in other psychology courses we know ourselves less than what we really think.

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2. The Book’s Structure

Through out the text there are various examples, tables and self test that allow the reader to rate themselves. I mentioned one example and described one table earlier in this report.

I chose to relate to the exercise ‘Identifying Wrong Assumptions’ from chapter 5 of the text on page 131. The directions are to read the letter once, then read the letter a second time and identify the wrong assumptions.

Hello, I was arrested for DUI because I was sitting in a parked car in a parking lot when a public safety officer came up behind me and started blowing the horn at me. I was not blocking traffic. People had been passing me for hald an hour when this guy pulled directly behind me and started blowing the horn.

I was not driving nor was I planning on it but was sitting in the driver’s seat listening to a game with a friend. After I blew the horn back, he blew again. I then got out and asked him why the fuck he was blowing the horn at me. He told me to move my car into a parked space. I got irate that he blew the horn at me, when he could have pulled beside me to ask me.

After he told me to move the car, I did. He then realized I was drunk and I had him really mad by now asking him why he was blowing the horn instead of going around if I was not blocking traffic. He then called in five other public safety officers, who weren’t even there when it happened. All they knew was that I was drunk. They tested me, handcuffed me, and took me to jail. I did lose my temper but I feel I was provoked. It has cost me $2000 and a company vehicle. I go to court next month. What do you think?

I read the letter and identified a few problems of my own and compared them to the problems provided in the text.

First I understand if the young man was parked in an area where he was not causing any problems to him self or others the public safety officer should not have bothered him.

Second I do believe the public safety officer was wrong for honking the horn behind the young man. The honk of the horn could have many indirect messages, rather than the direct message of ‘move your car into a designated parking stall’. The safety officer should have pulled beside the young man to speak to him. If the public safety officer did this I’m sure the young man would not have honked his horn back at him.

Third I commend the young man for pulling to the side of the road because of his intoxication, that takes great responsibility. On the other hand I reprimand the young man for being drunk in a company car, he should not put the company in that kind of situation

The examples in the text provide the reader with the opportunity to critically think the situation out from other points of view. In the example above it gave me the chance to formulate my own problems from the letter as well as read the problems given from Drs. James and Nahl in the text. I was able to broaden my view of the situation through problem solving.

There are many tables through out the text with useful information, I chose to include Table 5.5 of chapter 5 on page 130 titled ‘Driving with Emotional Intelligence: Transforming Oppositional Symptoms into Intelligent Remedies’. The table has a total of 3 columns-

in the first column-Oppositional Symptoms-the problem

second column-Statements used in traffic-the negative remark

third-Emotionally intelligent remedies-the cure to that negative remark

The text includes end notes at the end of each chapter which is easy to follow due to the chronological organization.

At the end of the text there is a lengthy, detailed index with topic headings and sub headings (to those that apply) making it easy for the reader to find any type of specific information

The 12 Chapter titles are appropriate and are separated into one of three main sections of the text. There were some chapters that could have gone under multiple sections, for example Part One: The Conflict Mentality and Part Two: Driving Psychology could have shared some chapter7: Children and Road Rage under both sections.

The information and organization of the text blends well. The text print is easy to read and understand. Bold titles notified me that I was entering a new section of information.

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3. Critique of the Book