Carolyn Agmata shares with us an experience she encountered with tailgating. She was being followed by a guy in a red Cherokee who was only about a couple inches away from her bumper. Because she had been in several accidents previously, she did not want
to get into another one and therefore had to keep increasing her speed (although she was already going 10 miles over the speed limit). She could not understand why the vehicle kept "harassing" her by tailing her instead of just switching lanes and overtaking her.
In order to get some revenge on the tailgater, she quickly slammed on her breaks so that he too had to break hard in order to avoid hitting her.
I can understand Carolyn's anger at the person in the red Cherokee. I too, dislike it when people purposefully follow me really close in order to get me to speed up. I agree with her that if you don't like the speed that the person is going in front of you, don't attempt to make them go faster, but rather go around them and then go at whatever speed you want to. The only thing that I didn't feel was right was for her to slam on her breaks on purpose to get even with the guy. Two wrongs never make a right. One of the reasons why there are so many fatalities due to driving is because people get so caught up in getting revenge for something that was done to them and it just escalates until it finally gets out of control>
Kristin Subia, of generation 6 expresses the same opinions as I have just stated earlier. She had been in a tailgating experience and was irritated and angry because some jerk was following her way too close and she slowed down in order to allow him to overtake and pass he if he wished. He just keeps hugging her bumper, until she finally waves to him to tell him to pass her. She believes that overtaking is not a bad thing because it would be better for the person in a rush to just go faster and overtake the other people on the road rather than to force all of them to speed up by tailing them.
I totally agree with Kristin's opinions about overtaking. The only time I can see overtaking as being a problem is if the laws in that area prohibit it, or if there is a significant amount of oncoming traffic in the lane that needs to be used to overtake the other person. The only thing I could suggest to Kristin is to be sure that she keeps her emotions in check too. Her anger at the person tailgating her could lead to other problems on the road if she lets it get to her and doesn't control her own road rage.
DeniseTanaka openly admits that she is a tailgater in her report. Her reasons for doing such a thing is to punish the other drivers for offenses that she "believes" they have committed against her. One example she gave was if someone overtook her and in an unsafe manner. She admits to also knowing that two wrongs don't make a right, however, she says that she can't help herself. Revenge is the best medicine for her and she feels pleasure in getting even with someone by making them uncomfortable!
Ms. Tanaka definitely needs to modify her behavior on the road. She has almost convinced herself in this report that tailgating is okay as a means of revenge. She says repeatedly throughout the report that she knows she should be more courteous and polite, and that tailgating is not good, but then she always finishes by saying, "I can't help it." This kind of phrase has the implication that her actions are completely out of her control. Nobody's actions are ever completely out of their control. It is good that she can admit that she has a problem, but the next step would be to take responsibility for her actions and do something to change them! She is not alone in her feelings of revenge . . . there is a little bit of that inside each and everyone of us. Together we must work to overcome this and be able to better control our road rage. In this way, we can make the roads safer for everyone.
AaronTakahashi, wrote a report on self assessment, in which he describes an incident in which he observed himself tailgating. His reasons for tailgating included the fact that he wanted to keep up with traffic and so that nobody else could cut in front of him/ He realized that he was aware of his own problem, but hadn't done much to improve it. He experimented using self-witnessing and role playing as tools to aid the intervention. The self-witnessing kept him conscious of his actions when he felt himself regressing. He found that by actively trying to change his bad driving habit of tailgating, he could significantly reduce the number of incidents in which the habit occurred.
1) At first, Aaron tried to justify his bad behavior of tailgating. However, in his report, you can see an attitude change and he realizes that is it a rather significant bad habit that he should try to work on. From Aaron's experiment, we can see the incredible results that occur in a short period of time. If people could just admit that they have a bad driving habit and then actively try to kick the habit, they can all succeed. In overcoming all of our bad driving habits, we make the roads safer for ourselves and our children.
Jenca Guerra wrote a report on "Driving Personality Makeovers." She admits to following people too close, but does not refer to herself as a tailgater. She first ran a trial to just observe herself and not modify her own behavior. What she found was that she upset everyone on the road. By everyone, I mean not only the other drivers, but pedestrians as well.
Ms. Guerra obviously has a road rage problem. She attempted to modify her own behavior in her report, but was unsuccessful in doing so. She needs to learn to take a breathe every so often while she is driving and realize that life is not a race to see who can get to their destination the fastest!. I believe that she could find the same success as Mr. Takahashi if she saw her problem for what it is . . . a hazard on the road, and then after changing her attitude, actively tried to change her driving behavior!.
Tailgating is definitely a big deal and it is totally unfair to the victim. It is never fair for someone else on the road to dictate how fast we must go when driving. Many people seem to have tailgated because they had other things done to them. As I stated earlier, revenge is never the best medicine. So many times people act because of their anger and vengefulness and this only can lead to disastrous results. If everyone acted out of anger, we would have a lot more fatalities due to car accidents than we already have! There is nothing that I can think of that would justify tailgating. If you have a problem with the speed at which the person in front of you is driving, then go around them (if it is legal)!
I can honestly say that I have never tailgated anyone on purpose. I just don't feel that it is right of my to control the speed at which other drivers drive at. Another reason why I don't tailgate people is because I am not a big girl and if that other driver were to get angry with me and decide to fight me, I would probably lose the battle!!
Another reason why I am so against tailgating is because it happens to my grandparents all the time. Sometimes when they are doing me a favor and dropping me off at school or work, there is always some person trying to make them go faster. My grandparents drive at the speed limit, but because they don't have as fast a reaction time as before, they don't go much faster than that. That is their way of being safe for themselves and me . . . they shouldn't be punished for that because it's out of their control!
In conclusion, I believe that there should be some kind of law or regulation to help deter people from tailgating. If tailgating were seen as a criminal "offense", more people would forced to re-evaluate themselves and be aware of when they tailgate. In doing so, they can become more aware of the results of such actions and maybe have some motivation to change their hazardous behavior. Tailgating should not be tolerated at all! By this, I don't mean to to take your own revenge on people who tailgate you because revenge is never the answer!!!
Suggestions for Future Generations
I hope that by reading this report, you have become more aware of your own bad driving habits. Take time to really self-witness your own driving and see what improvements you can make on yourself to make the roads safer for everyone. I believe that the driving experience would be much more pleasant for everyone if we all just tried to change. You cannot control what other people will do, but you can control yourself!
Just to warn all of you again . . . be sure to start your reports early! It takes a while to put together all of your thoughts and then organize them. I hope that if you get just one thing out of this report it is this: you can make a difference out there on the road. . . be patient and understanding of others when driving. The same compassion that you give to your own family and friends should be given to other drivers because they are somebody's family or friend too.
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