Chapter 6

3-Step Driver Self-Improvement Program

Reference:  Road Rage and Aggressive Driving By:  Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl

I.  Acknowledge

A.  Acknowledging is the first step toward driver self-imrpovement  Acknowledging means to accept who you are as a driver.

Example:  I acknowledge that I am an aggressive driver, especially while in traffic.

B.  Psychologically:  People naturally hate to accept the negative things about themselves.  People need to learn to take an objective look at themselves in order to change

C.  Culturally:  In our society, many people think that they are an "above average" driver.  Many people think that they are good drivers when in reality, they are not.

D.  Education:  In driver education courses, instructors need to teach students, especially teens, to acknowledge themselves as drivers.  They need to teach that acknowledging is a good thing and that by denying who you are as a driver, is bad.

II.  Witness

A.  Witnessing yourself as a driver is the second step toward driver self-improvement.  Witnessing yourself while driving can be done by tape-recording yourself while driver or keeping a journal of your three fold self.

B.  Psychologically:  self-witnessing yourself will help you to come to terms with who you are when you drive.  This will help you to acknowledge and change your aggressive driving behavior.

C.  Culturally:  Society teaches us how to be aggressive through TV, movies, video games, commercials, and magazines.  Everywhere we look, we can find some sort of aggressive behavior.

D.  Education:  In driver education courses, instructors should teach people various techniques that help them to witness themselves.  Driver education can teach people how to record themselves and analyze it, keep a driving journal, or counting beads for every aggressive thought, emotion, or act.

III.  Modify

A.  Modifying your behavior is the third step toward driver self-improvement.  Modifying means to actually pursue your goal of improving your driving personality.  It requires one to implement an intervention and go through with it.  After assessing what needs to be changed, it is now time to modify.

B.  Psychologically:  modifying means becoming a supportive driver.  Being a supportive driver means increasing your emotional intelligence and becoming a more positive driver.

C.  Culturally:  Lets face it.  Modifying driving behavior is not culturally promoted.  We never see TV shows on improving aggressiveness.

D.  Education:  Driver education can teach people how to modify their behaviors through exercises.  Students can design their own experiments of modifying their or someone else's driving behavior.

IV.  Driver's diary

A.  A driver's diary is a journal that a driver keeps of his/her emotions, thoughts, and actions while driving.  This can be done at the end of each day or after each drive - whichever is most convenient.

B.  Psychologically:  This can help the driver let out frustrations or witness and acknowledge their driving behvaior.

C.  Culturally:  This might not work because people in our society are busy as is. 

D.  Education:  teach people how to make time to keep a journal and teach them the benefits of keeping a journal.