Chris Concepcion
Reference 12:
Musings of a Traffic Psychologist
Source:
www.drdriving.org/articles/musings.htm
1. Road
Dilemma--To Switch Lanes or Not
As drivers we face many dilemmas when driving. There is always a choice to be made, but what
choice do you make when faced with a dilemma.
Example: Let’s say you are driving on the freeway in the
middle of a convoy and they begin driving faster, but you don’t want to drive
as fast as them. You feel like switching
over to the right lane but they are driving to slow for you. What would you do in this situation, slow the
convoy down or slow yourself down in the slow lane?
Culturally: We don’t want to hold others up but at the same time
most of us were raised to believe that we shouldn’t let others force out of our
territory, especially if we were there first.
Psychologically: Dilemmas cause a person to make quick decisions
and many times it’s hard to make the right decisions, which may cause stress
and anger in our lives.
Driver’s
Education: What would help with
making the right decisions is understand that the best decision helps everyone
and not just you. You must remember to
think objectively and squash subjectivity.
Understand what being a supportive driver is and become one yourself,
this will help free your mind from future dilemmas.
2. Balancing the Negative
& Positive Bias
For as much negative thought you express you must
also express the same amount of positive thought. This is necessary to stay a balanced driver.
Example: You’re on the freeway in the right lane and you want
to switch over to the left lane, but you see a car coming up quick in that
lane. You have your blinker on and you
begin entering his lane but he continues to speed up. You get into the lane the driver breaks late
and abruptly. You call him an idiot, is
this fair?
Culturally: We hate to feel controlled by others in our
society. Most of us have bosses,
parents, and other higher authorities that make our lives more miserable than
need be. When we have the opportunity to
control driving situations and put ourselves ahead of others, we sometimes act
with aggression.
Psychologically: Many times we feel we are not the ones at
fault even when we are not sure. Not
many people want to be seen as the one who caused the problem. So are instincts tell us to blame the other
guy and call him an idiot.
Driver’s
Education: Get the idea out of your head that you’re the
one who is not at fault; sometimes you are so notice that. Even if you weren’t the one at fault you must
learn to think that the aggressive driver had a valid reason for doing what
they did; perhaps he wasn’t paying attention or maybe he has to go to the
hospital to be there for his new baby being born.
3. Traffic Flow
Psychology
Understanding how traffic flows is important to
create a safer driving environment.
Therefore traffic flow psychology is thinking through the way traffic
flows.
Example:
In traffic you wonder why the left lane begins
to slow down and the right lane begins to move faster. This is caused by impatient drivers that want
to be in the fastest lane. As they all
merge into the left lane it gets full, while the right lane now opens up and
flows faster.
Culturally: Everybody in our culture fights to get ahead
in whatever it is. This is the way our
society is raised and expected to act.
Don’t let anyone pass you or get in front of you. This is a dog eat dog world and if you don’t
eat you will starve to death. These are
things we carry to every aspect of our lives, including driving. So when we see other s getting ahead of us in
traffic we want to join them and even try to beat them which causes us to cut
others off and drive dangerously just to get ahead.
Psychologically: Drivers have a mindset that only supports on thing,
themselves. When it comes to driving a
lot of people view it subjectively rather than objectively which creates aggressive
driving and individuals that don’t support the driving community around them.
Driver’s
Education: In order to become a
supportive driver one has to change there views to objective rather than
subjective. Also drivers need to
understand the way traffic flows. Knowing
that lane-hopping won’t get you to your destination any faster than not doing
it, could save a lot of people from stressing out and taking a few years off
their lives.
4. Psychodynamic
Forces on the Road
Do you ever listen to the way you talk to yourself
while driving? The way one talks to them
self could come from multiple influences.
Inner transcript analysis and self-witnessing are very important for understanding
one’s level of objectivity towards other drivers.
Example: You’re waiting for the light in order to turn left
but your fifth in line. When the light
turns green the third driver waits and lets a side street driver go ahead which
holds up the left turn line, because of this the light can turn yellow and stop
traffic. She he have done this?
Culturally:
There are so many different
people in this world, some are nice and others just don’t care. This is a moral issue and there are numerous levels
of morality in people, so depending on how one was raised and their cultural
influences, this will determine how they react to others.
Psychologically: How do you
want to be as a person? You and only you
control the way you want to lead your life and think of others. Do you like to think subjectively or
objectively?
Driver’s
Education: Be conscious of what you think and say to
yourself. What you express to yourself,
is truly who you are. Get acquainted
with the 3-step driver self-improvement program and learn to acknowledge,
witness, and modify your words, and thoughts.
Drivers anonymous is exactly like alcoholics
anonymous. It’s a group that allows for
drivers to discuss there problems and work on improving these problems. You could also refer to this as a Quality
Driving Circle (QDC).
Example:
I get cut off by another driver and to let him
know how I feel I honk and give him the finger.
Later I go to drivers anonymous and explain what happen and look for
solutions to my anger problem.
Culturally: We learn to drive in numerous ways. We observe other drivers, friends, family,
media, and so on. We are conditioned by
our culture to drive aggressively, after all look at our culture most of it’s
aggressive. Nevertheless there are
programs that help those with problems and drivers anonymous will do this.
Psychologically: When we belong to a support group such as
drivers anonymous we feel more inclined to act the way our group does. If our group is a bunch of supportive drivers
we will soon become like them. This is
similar to church groups, sports groups, and any other type of group that one
is surrounded by.
Driver’s
Education: Grab a few friends ask them to come together
and talk about their driving experiences, this will be most beneficial for the
improvement of supportive driving.