You took my parking stall...now you have to pay!
Epidsode #3: Parking Lot Rage
By Caroline Agbayani
Self-Witnessing Observations
1. How did I decide what to report on? Parking lots can hold more than cars. It's basically a breeding ground for rage. Many times, the frustrations and anger of people on the road culminates into parking lot rage. Fortunately, most drivers are considerate in parking lots and navigate themselves easily with little aggravation, frustration and hostility toward others. However, there is always a chance that one can go head to head with someone over a parking stall. It sounds like a trivial situation but when it happens, one can go ballistic especially when the parking stall that we've been scoping out had just been taken by an interloper. I want to share my own incident of parking lot rage with you. |
2. What methods did I use? I will be using Dr. James' Three Step Method to analyze my report. It involves analyzing the three fold self: sensorimotor, cognitive and affective. |
3. What difficulties were there and how reliable are the observations? (What errors may there be?) This happened a while ago when I didn't hear of parking lot rage. I believe that my observations are fairly accurate because this incident has remained in my memory as being the most upsetting experience I've had in a parking lot. One possible error could be that since this happened a while ago, my observations might not be as complete as I want it to be. |
4. What were the observations: Where? When? What? Who? Step 1: Acknowledge During rush hour around 5:30pm, I entered the shopping center knowing that it was the one of the worst times to get parking. I needed to get some grocery shopping done so I really had no choice but to navigate my way around the full parking lot. I drove around for about five minutes on the ground floor then made my way up to the second floor. It was full all around so I decided to go back down to the ground floor. I began to get frustrated because I just came home from school and work and I was tired and hungry. I was not in a position to tolerate any levity and all I wanted to do was find parking, get the groceries and go home. After what seemed to be an eternity, I remember turning left and seeing someone back out of a stall right in front of me. I thought to myself "Yes! Thank God! I got parking! Now hurry up before someone else sees it!" I proceeded to the stall and turned my right blinker on to signal my intention of parking. When the people finally got out of the stall, I drove into it only to be met head on by an interloper. The stall that I wanted was located directly in front of the stall the other driver, the interloper, wanted. (Did I lose you yet?) Okay so basically, there were two empty stalls right in front of each other and I assumed the other driver was going to park in that stall and I in the one that i signaled for. Instead of parking in our own stalls, he bypasses his stall and drives straight into mine, leaving the stall he was originally going into empty. To make matters worse, someone else behind the jerk drove into the empty stall! (I hope that's not too confusing!) The other driver didn't even let me drive into my stall because he shoved himself into it! So there I am with no parking stall! Then, he and I made eye contact because both our cars were directly in front of each other. At that moment, I snapped! I put my car in park, left my engine running and stepped outside my car to have a word with this jerk that took my parking stall. I walked towards him as he was getting out of his car and I yelled out angrily "Excuse me! Excuse me! You took my parking!" The guy kept walking swiftly ahead of me without a care in the world. It was like I wasn't there or something. He totally ignored me! To get his attention, I said "HEELLLLOOOO! I'm talking to you!" I remember he had his back faced to me and he just kept on walking as if he didn't hear my rabid remarks! I was FURIOUS! I couldn't believe this guy had the audacity to do that to me. The people around me thought I was nuts because they didn't know exactly who I was yelling at since the guy totally ignored me. I knew he wasn't going to do anything so I walked back to my car, furious and rageful, and swore my head off! I didn't understand why someone would be so inconsiderate and stupid. He had his own stall so why did he take mine? I didn't get my shopping done because I was too upset. Needless to say, I went home angry. I decided that I would get my groceries later on that night. |
Step 2: Looking at the Three Fold Self: Sensorimotor, Cognitive, Affective
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Step 3: Modify: What recovery possibilities are there? How could you modify this reaction pattern?
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Discussion
Theoretical Components of Parking Rage
The Psychology of Parking Rage
DrDriving's Threestep Program For Prevention
by Leon James and Diane Nahl
Parking rage is very common. Most drivers experience anger and frustration in busy parking lots on busy days at busy times. This frustration and anger needs to be dealt with, or else it comes out into the open as a hostile or aggressive act. Once you express anger or hostility towards others, you have lost control of the situation because you never know how the other is going to react. If you don't express your anger you retain control over the situation.
Parking lot fights are territoriality disputes, turf wars, or power struggles, and are carried out as symbolic fights that aouses our pride, stubbornness, and negative stereotypes. There is a general lack of civility in public places along with a cultural "in-the-face" attitude that goes with a sense of entitlement to do as we please and to retaliate when we're displeased. People use various words to describe what happens to a car parked next to another car: the car was dinged, banged, bumped, gouged, nicked, scatched, keyed, and others.
We can all reduce our stress and aggressive reactions by following the threestep program we describe in our book: Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of Highway Warfare.
This is the hardest step. We need to come clean and confess that we are aggressive on parking lots and our emotions are out of control. Even our thinking needs to get more emotionally intelligent. People resist this first step out of pride, stubborness, and a sense of entitlement of doing what we please in public places.
Be a Witness to yourself. Self-witnessing of your emotions, thoughts, and behavior are essential so that you can get to know yourself objectively and not rely on the reputation you have of yourself--which thends to be superlative since we are excellent drivers ourselves but it's the other driver who is incompetent. By monitoring your thoughts and feelings while you are in a parking lot or some other venue where people park, like the street in front of someone's house.
After witnessing yourself you have an accurate idea of what ticks you off, when you get frustrated or angry, how you retaliate, what you think, how you reason, how you behave, what you do with your face and hands, what your mouth is saying.
One baby step at a time. For each parking episode decide in advance what you're going to modify on that occasion--whether some way you act or some thought or emotion you experience. Consciously switch from an angry response to a supportive response. Think of parking as a community activity in which all involved can participate together positively and with mutual support.
Try different things, especially, gving up the compulsion to park as near as possible in the most overcrowded areas. What's wrong with walking for 60 seconds? Disconnect your ego and pride from it. Be conscious of the "Law of Least Effort" that gets people to circle around for 15 minutes instead of park further and walk for 2 minutes.
This was taken from Dr. Driving's website.
Keep a Parking Diary in which you take notes about your progress and your lapses.
Baldacci and others tell PT that parking rage, like road rage and its predecessor, urban rage, is the result of too many people (cars) in too small a space. It’s no surprise that crime rates soar in cheek-by-jowl public housing where thousands of people are crammed into tiny apartments in giant buildings. The pressure builds and builds.
Parking rage has similar roots but also has an added dimension. People have a tendency to react differently when they feel there is a certain amount of anonymity. The car provides that cloak of secrecy. While you would probably never consider acting on your rage in a group of people you know, it’s somehow easier to let it out when you are secure in your car, with no recourse available to others.
Psychologists give us fancy words, but the gist of it is that when we get in our cars, our purpose is to get to our destination. We may become frustrated by traffic and weather, and be concerned about what will happen when we reach our destination. Upon arrival at the parking facility, all this frustration, so nicely kept in check, comes.
Rage out when we can’t find a space, or the space is too small, or the space we have been stalking for ten minutes is grabbed by an interloper.
It is a variant of "road rage," one of the newest "psychological disorders" in the USA. It refers to the phenomenon whereby people become enraged at the driving of others, and put themselves at risk by their behavior (yelling, cutting people off, giving the finger, etc.) and causing themselves much stress. The theory is that the impersonal, anonymous features of driving and the stresses of modern life in general and commuting in particular lead people to behave in ways that they never would in a face-to-face situation.
The following was taken from an article in the Chicago Tribune website regarding parking lot rage.
Parking lots can bring out the worst in people, some psychologists say.
Dr. Leon James, a University of Hawaii professor and the author of "Road Rage and Aggressive Driving," recalled a study showing that people who know someone is waiting for their spot will take several seconds longer to pull out, just to "reassert their freedom."
James, who has a Web site called DrDriving.org, says 90 percent of all drivers express hostility. And hostility is on the rise because parents pass down their reactions to their children, he said. To avoid problems, he recommends parents show remorse when they express hostility on the road.
Also people need to plan ahead to give themselves extra time to avoid getting frustrated, he said.
"If you are in a hurry and frantic, you are already in a situation where you are going to lose," James said.
To be sure, many people navigate most parking lots with no problems. Many are considerate and civil. Those who have gotten into conflicts, however, say it is a memory that stays with them. And some say they can't really square the way they handled the situation with how they view themselves.
The above excerpts were taken directly from the website drdriving.org. Please see references for a direct link to these articles.
Conclusion
What Does This All Mean?
It is obvious that I didn't have this class when I experienced my bout of parking lot rage. I remember being young, naive and immature as a beginning driver. I didn't know how to cope with my own frustrations on the road because no one ever taught me how. As far as driver's education is concerned, my parents hired a private instructor for me during the weekends so I could learn how to drive. The private instructor only taught me basic driving technicalities such as when to turn on my signals and doing the head check, observing the speed limits, parallel parking, braking, accelerating, parking properly and so forth. Other than the private instructor, my father taught me how to drive. I remember that he would display aggressive behavior to other drivers when they weren't allowing me to change lanes. I almost associated driving with negativity and fear because of the way my father reacted to certain drivers on the road. I never had emotional intelligence training in my driver education experience so I didn't handle my parking lot rage episode with finesse. I feel that people should be in tune with their own driving and coping abilities and be aware that their frustrations and interactions on the road may culminate into parking lot rage.
Therefore, courses on road rage and aggressive driving helps to quell potentially hostile emotions that can be brought out in parking lots. The problems on the road need to be dealt with so anger and aggression doesn't erupt in parking lots. Dr. James book on road rage and aggressive driving offers helpful strategies and hints in dealing with road rage and his website, Dr.Driving.org presents many articles on parking lot rage. The book also offers information on revamping driver education programs to include affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor training. I personally like the self-witnessing techniques and three-step method I used for this report because it allows me to become more introspective when dealing with my own rage. I have become more sensitive as a driver and matured in my thinking as well. The three-step method gives me an alternative and more constructive way of assessing and handling my own rage rather than letting my emotions escalate into anger, hostility and aggression. These strategies are practical and applicable and not limited to parking lots and the road.
References
Psychology of Parking Rage from Dr. Driving's website under the category of parking rage.
Chicage Tribune article "Parking lots can bring out the worst in people, some psychologists say" from their website, chicagotribune.com.
| Episode #1: Noisy Neighbor Rage | Episode #2: Computer Rage |
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