Tailgating Behavior:

                                  Fair or Unfair

     Tailgating behavior is when one car follows another car at a distance which is considered unsafe.   This behavior is usually exibited when the tailgater feels the car in front is moving at too slow a speed and believes that following closely will pressure the driver to move out of the way.  The question that needs to be answered is, is this behavior fair or unfair.  Personally, when I'm the victim of somebody tailgating me I don't really think it's that big a deal.  In California where I spent the first 25 years of my life, tailgating is pretty much an accepted behavior.  If your in the fast lane and somebody wants to go faster and tailgates you, you change lanes.  This is similiar to the Autobahn in Germany.  In doing this report I've found that people in Hawaii don't have the same attitude as me.  For people in Hawaii, tailgating makes people either very angry or frightened.  This may have something to do with the "aloha spirit" that people are supposed have here.  I have to admit drivers in Hawaii are far more courteous than in California.                     
      In this report, I have gathered the opinions of students from past generations on how they feel about tailgating.  The results range from intense anger to fear and paranoia. 

Ryan Mitsui   I was driving home on the freeway when all of a sudden I see these two bright lights coming up really fast and then at the last second he cuts into the next lane, barely avoiding me. I say to myself, "Ohh you fucken ass hole!!" and I immediately begin in HOT pursuit. I notice that it is a brand
new truck because he still has the factory plates. So I know that he will be worried if anything happens to his car and mine is basically a beach car so I don't really care what happens. I begin to follow REALLY close, and he speeds up to about 75 MPH to try and avoid me, but at this point, I'm so mad! I can feel the adrenaline rushing through me, like when you make a hard turn on a roller coaster. It's actually kinda fun in the sense of the rush and the thrill. So anyway I still don't let up and am tight on is rear like white on bread at 75 MPH. He switches lanes, and I do too, still close as ever, he was not going to go unpunished!! He tries to lightly step on his brake pedal to scare me off and comes even closer to me, but I know that he won't run the risk of braking hard and hitting his brand new truck, so I don't back off, he tries to switch lanes two or three more times, but I'm still there! So finally he gets off at an off ramp and I am tempted to follow, but then I finally come to my senses and realize that all this is stupid and I could really be hurt or even die!!

My Reaction: My reaction to this, to put it bluntly, this guy is an idiot.  The problem with this kind of behavior is that you don't know who your messin' with.  The other guy's got a brand new truck, so what, maybe he's also got a brand new gun inside his truck.  I'm from California where there have been numerous freeway shootings and even deaths over this kind of behavior.  My point is don't start acting crazy unless you know for certain who your dealing with.  From a psychological point of view, perhaps Ryan feels insecure about himself and feels he has to prove to himself and others that he is truly a macho guy. 
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Rudy Dolfo: The tailgater is the person that can bring out my wildest aggression. Of all the behaviors I need to resolve, the tailgater would be priority on my list. I was driving through Kaneohe one day and I noticed a truck on my bumper for approximately a mile. I tried to shake it off by saying that this guy needs to turn off somewhere because I was definitely within the speed limit. Well, I was wrong, it was something else because this guy also toot his horn at me. That was the last straw because from then on it was personal. I pulled into the next lane to wait until this guy came up along side of me and I was going to get 'um! He saw how furious I was and speed off. He had no idea that now it was my turn, and I chased this guy all over Kaneohe. Fortunately for him his truck had a lot of get up and go because my van couldn't catch up with him except for when there was a red light. Well, he eventually lost me. 

My Reaction:   It seems that Rudy has the same problem as Ryan had in the first example.  It's like I always say, it doesn't matter how tough you think you are there will always be someone badder and crazier than you.   Let's just suppose for a second that at the stop light the other driver had finally had enough.  He gets out, fires off a couple rounds into Rudy's cranium, case closed, Rudy is the loser.  Psychologically speaking, Rudy like Ryan in the previous paragraph could be dealing with some issues of insecurity and feels a need to prove himself a man.  I think rather than exibiting this kind of aggressive behavior Rudy should take some deep breaths and tell himself that it's not worth getting angry about something like this.
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Joleen Lai   One day as I was heading up to my friends house towards the Pali
Highway, I changed from the middle lane to the right lane so that I wouldn't agrivate anyone that day. As I was about to go off the Pali exit, I looked in my rear-view-mirror and notice a car that I didn't see a few minutes ago, tailgating me, not just close, real close. Guess what gender? It was a female in a white Acura Legend. Instantly, I just slammed on my brakes to let her know that she was too close to my car. Little do I know she followed me even more closely. When I changed lanes, I looked behind to see where I could fit in and there was enough distance between me and the next car, the white Acura wasn't even in the picture. She followed me up into Pacific Heights and it seemed that she was going to follow me to my friends house, so my next instinct was to call my friend to get ready for a fightbecause she coming that way. As soon as I hanged up, she went off onto Booth Road and I debated whether to turn around and follow her. As I got there, we all waited for a few minutes outside to see if she and her friends would drive up.

My Reactions:  It seems that Joleen is rather paranoid of other female drivers who happen to be going in the same direction.  It's hard to decipher what really went on from this description.  First, Joleen states "that the white car wasn't even in the picture then in the next sentence she states that "she followed her up into Pacific Heights".  Joleen's next action was to call her friends and get ready for a fight which makes me think that Joleen has made a lot of enemies in her life.  Another explanation of Joleen's behavior is that she may be feeling guilty about something she did in the past and now she is going to pay for it.   For example, maybe Joleen really pissed another driver off recently and she thinks maybe the person following her is that same driver coming back for revenge. 
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Kathy Teruya:  On January 10, 1996 I was driving home from work and I was getting onto the freeway from Liholiho. Now this is one of those retarded on ramp then off ramp deals that proves our government often lacks intelligence. Anyway, traffic was moving slowly with half of the people trying to get on while the other half is trying to get off. As we were merging we didn't leave much space between cars, so when traffic came to a halt there wasn't a whole lot of room to react. Well, I stopped in time (barely), the van in back of me stopped in time (again barely), however the car in back of him wasn't so lucky. BAM, BAM, BAM, a four car accident. $4574.92 in damages, not that I'm bitter. Until this day if I have to make a sudden stop I always check my rear view mirror. I feel invaded and uncomfortable when drivers get too close.

My Reactions:  I think Kathy's fear of tailgaters is warranted in light of the past experience she described.  Also I'm not sure if the cars behind Kathy were guilty of tailgating behavior as Kathy states " As we were merging we didn't leave much space between cars, so when traffic came to a halt there wasn't a whole lot of room to react".  In a merging situation following closely can hardly be avoided, it doesn't matter what you do personally, someone will always be following too closely.  Another explanation of Kathy's fear could be the onset of post traumatic stress disorder.  This pathology occurs after the subject experiences something traumatic, which in turn starts interfering with normal everyday life. 
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Holly Ishikawa: I was driving home from school on H1, and was driving in the far left lane, and was following a car that was travelling about 55mph. Being in the passing lane, I thought he was driving a bit too slow. At first, I was upset at his slow driving, and then I slowly began to feel he was being inconsiderate, and was driving slow on purpose to spite me(that thought made me more upset). I also felt very impatient and found myself to be sighing alot because I felt disgusted. I also found myself pressing and releasing my gas pedal more because I would speed up to his car and release the gas to back away. I tailgated him for a while, but was able to finally change lanes. The reason why I had to follow him was
because I could not change lanes since he was driving slower than the cars in the right lane, and therefore, I could not accelerate enough to change lanes(and that made me feel more anger towards the driver).

My Reactions:  Holly admits to travelling 55mph which is 5 miles an hour faster than the legal limit on H1.  My point is the car in front of her may have been using passive-aggressive behavior towards Holly but the driver was already exceeding the legal limit so I'm not sure.  Possibly the driver was scared of getting a ticket and was just waiting for the proper time to switch lanes.  According to Dr. Driving  what Holly could have done was to make a situational attribution of the driver.  This means that Holly can attribute the cause of the car's slowness to something in the situation -- there is a malfunction, an illness, special cargo, and so on.  By using this method Holly can experience more positive emotions like compassion and tolerance for the slow driver.
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     My own behavior is fairly accepting of tailgaters, my reasoning if I'm in the fast lane and someone feels that I'm going too slow and they want to pass I'll change lanes providing it's safe to do so.  Before I moved to Hawaii I would expect other drivers to have the same attitude I had, if I was the tailgater I wanted the car in front to move out of my way.  Upon driving in Hawaii, I've found that drivers don't feel the same as I do.  The drivers here are more courteous to one another therefore tailgating is frowned on here in Hawaii.  I think in time this attitude will change, there will be a lot less aloha spirit and alot more road rage and aggressive driving.  As Hawaii's roads become more and more congested, the stress level will rise and people will get meaner. 

Epilogue:  In writing this report I've learned that I seem to be the exception when it comes to tailgaters.  Every example that I gathered from past generations felt some sort of negative feeling towards being tailgated.  After completing the report, I still have the same feelings towards tailgaters as I used to which is if they want to speed who am I to impede them.  As I stated earlier, I'm clearly the minority on this topic.
      My advice to future generations would be to somehow get some opinions from Mainland drivers as I feel they may be more used to aggressive driving and have far different opinions then drivers here. 

               Email: pederson@hawaii.edu