REPORT #2

DEFINITIONS OF TRAFFIC PSYCHOLOGY

HOW I STACK UP

by Angelica Gilmer

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What is Traffic Psychology ? A very basic description would be the study of a person while driving. Recently this has become a popular topic because of the problems of road rage and an increasing desire to prevent unnecessary problems while on the road.  My definitions for Traffic Psychology will be coming from my interpretations of the generational curriculum. My main references are students reports from other generations and Dr. James Leon's home page.  I also spent some time reading the many interviews Dr. Driving has done on this topic.

Five Definitions of Traffic Psychology

Learning What the Problems are and How to Correct Them

My first definition of Traffic Psychology is that it is a way to learn facts about the problems with driving. Once the problems are identified a person can work on correcting them.  It seems the biggest problem is that people refuse to accept the responsibility of their actions. It is just so much easier to blame someone else. It is a blow to your pride to say you did something wrong. It is not easy for most people to admit that they have a problem, no matter what it may be.  Once a person learns that their driving behavior could be dangerous and why, then we can take the next steps in trying to help that person to change.

A Different Way of Looking at Traffic

Traffic Psychology also teaches you to look at traffic differently. One of the major realizations is that when you are out on the road you are not sheltered.  You need to remember and be aware of the many other drivers and pedestrians out on the streets.  People tend to drive with blinders on and just concentrate on
getting to themselves and getting to their final destinations as soon as possible.  It is extremely important to realize what a social act driving is.  Stop and think about how many people you indirectly or directly interact with during a ten minute drive. A hundred? It all depends on the time and the area. It is more people than you would interact with that are in the same room with you.

The single act of getting into your car could also contribute to the idea that we drive alone.  It is like a "magic box", your own world where you have all the power. A place where you can be someone else or so it seems. My best friend mentioned to me the other day that she was like this. I know her to be a very nice, considerate person, but she said that when she gets on the road she's crazy. She likes yelling at people, honking the horn, tailgating,  she says," It is a chance to let off some steam."  This is what Dr. Driving calls "Jekyll and Hyde" in his Driving Psychology book. 

A Way to be Aware of What is Going on While Driving

Traffic Psychology is also a way to heighten your awareness. It teaches you to be aware of yourself on three levels: Affective(A), Cognitive(C), Sensorimotor(S). It is what Dr. Driving likes to call The Three Domains of Driving Behavior. 

It is a technique in self-witnessing. A way to monitor the level of your "road rage". For example, What would you do if someone was driving slow in front of you? 1) Drive really close(S), 2) Curse them out in your head(C), or 3) Get angry(A), and honk the horn(S). 

If you picked any of the above you suffer from aggressive driving syndrome. It is O.K. though, many people suffer from this, and you've just taken your first step in recovering. You have acknowledged your problem.  The next step is to self-witness yourself while driving. The easiest way to do this is tape all your feelings(A), thoughts(C), and actions(S). That is the easy part a small tape recorder will take care of this. The hard part is getting comfortable with talking to the recorder and of course, remembering to bring it with you in the car and to actually use it.. My suggestion is to turn it on as soon as you get in the car and leave it on the dashboard and sooner or later you'll forget it's even there.  When you take it home and listen to it pick one thing to work on. This is called self-modification, Dr. Driving has suggested driving buddies or Quality Driving Circles(QDC).

If you really want to make a self -modification try reading Gary Uno's Driving Personality Makeover. If you're interested in what a driving buddy is like try reading Chris Murikami's report.  Finally if you would like to find out what QDC is, you could read any one of Generation 5's second reports because they all cover this topic. 

A Way to Improve Driving: Acknowledge, Witness, Modify

A true traffic psychologist must work on their driving until they have reached the optimum level. This means using Dr. Driving's Three Step Program. It is very similar to quitting smoking, alcohol or any bad habit. In fact, it is easier there is no chemical addiction.

Overall I thought this was a good program, but it leaves out an important step. There needs to be a desire to change. I know from experience that many times I would need either social encouragement or personal tragedy to want to change. Once there is a desire, there has to be a whole shift on values, or at least re-evaluation and commitment not to go against these values.

For example, Do I value my life? yes. Do I value my passengers life? yes. If this is true, I must drive safely never sacrificing this for speed. I know that I answered "yes", to both of the above and I still speed at times. This is normal, don't give up, just realize you are speeding and slow down. If something is holding you back ask yourself what it is. It takes a re-evaluation of every action. Why am I doing this? Am I being considerate? What are the repercussions of my actions? Am I risking harm to myself or anyone else? Evaluate your feelings, and talk to yourself, and realize that racing the clock is not worth risking your life and others. If time is the real constraint here, leave earlier! 

A Way to Better Your Life

A mastery of The Three Step Program of driving is guaranteed to also improve your life. A reconstruction of all these values overflows into the other decisions you make in your life. If you are considerate while driving, you are more likely to be sensitive to others in other situations. It also suggests a likelihood of being cooperative. Cooperation is a key to happiness. Things are a lot easier when people work together. 

My Experiences as a Road User

Driver
As a driver, I see reasons everyday for traffic psychology. Every time I'm on the road I see someone weaving in and out of traffic. If they only realized how much danger they are putting themselves and everyone around them in, they wouldn't do it anymore.  Just this weekend as I was having breakfast at a restaurant that faces the highway in Haleiwa I saw a terrible accident.  The driver of a white pick up truck overtook a car on a double solid line and didn't see the other car coming around the bend they collided right into each other.  If this driver hadn't been in such a rush and recklessly broke the driving laws this accident never would have happened.  I have learned from my mistakes as well.  About a year ago I was following the car in front of me too closely and the driver hit his brakes for a dog that ran into the road and I slammed right into the back of his car.  Now what I've realized is even when I am speeding or doing other things illegally on the road, it never saves a significant amount of time.  The only thing that seems to save time is leaving home earlier.  I've also noticed that when I do leave home earlier without the stress of racing the clock, I rarely will experience road rage.

Pedestrian
I think the results of people practicing Traffic Psychology would be greatly appreciated by pedestrians. I know I would appreciate it, I am always scared of somebody going around the corner too fast and banging me.  I think the worse thing is when you're crossing in the cross walk and a car is waiting for you so they can turn and they come right up to the cross walk making you feel like you need to run if you value having those legs.  Sometimes it seems like drivers are just so impatient they don't want to wait the 30 seconds it's going to take for you to cross the street.  When I was in Paris, France the drivers there were horrible when pedestrians would be crossing the street.  Cars would come about a foot from you and just honk the horn until you were out of there way.  It was so scary.

Passenger 
Passengers would also benefit from traffic Psychology. It would make it easier for them express their feelings on how their driver was behaving with less fear of revolt. I know I've wanted to tell a couple people to slow down when driving, but I was afraid they would hold a grudge or make fun of me.  I have a friend who I absolutely hate to ride in the car with because of how terrible his driving is.  He passes cars on the right, runs red lights, tailgates, etc...  When I'm in the car with him I hold my breath and say prayers the whole time.  Recently I've started talking to him about it and at first he reacted with anger but it is slowly getting better.

Cyclist
As a cyclist, I used to ride my mountain bike to school everyday. I like riding my bike because I get to exercise and I do not have to worry about parking.  However, the things that I do worry about are a lot more dangerous.  I worry about someone driving to close to me or not seeing me when making a turn or coming out of a driveway. Traffic psychology could help to raise awareness to drivers and cyclists on how to co-exist on the streets.   If people are more aware of themselves and the people around them, they
will be more cautious and I won't have to worry as much.  Most of this fear comes because when I was in the sixth grade I was hit by a car while crossing an intersection in the crosswalk on my bicycle.  The woman who hit me didn't even stop to make sure I was okay.

Suggestions For Future Generations

Doing self-witnessing can be very helpful to your research as well as for yourself.  It helped me to be aware of some of the problems I have while driving and to work on ways to improve.  In doing that it gave me a greater understanding of the topic and made putting together this report come along much easier.

Epilogue                                                                                                                                        

Adults should get into this Program of Traffic psychology, so they can be role models. This is probably the greatest influence on children. Another thing in the future is teaching Driver's Education in Kindergarten. This will help prepare children to watch and act as a passenger and pedestrian. They could also create a group called Children Against Road Rage, which would be similar to something like Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD). Then later in High School they could join SADD and as a requirement of driver's education, they could be signed up with a Quality Driving Circle.  It all boils down to raising awareness and enforcing that road rage is a very serious and dangerous issue.

                                                                                                                                  aloha!

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