Lisa conducted three Quality driving meetings. At the first meeting she asked the group's members questions like:
At meeting 2 the group identified the problems that they found during their self-witnessing activity. Some of these problems were speeding, and being too emotional on the road. At the end of the meeting Lisa told the members to work on these specific problems.
At Meeting 3, all of the group members stated that once they concentrated on working on the specific problems they had some success in solving them. They did admit however to some "momentary lapses of forgetfulness."
Evaluation:
Overall, I feel that Lisa ran a successful QDC. She was able to bring attention to individual problems with driving that the members had. By bringing attention to these problems her members were able to assess them. Although they did slip every once in a while, the group members did say that their driving was improving.
Raeder's first Quality Driving Circle was a discussion group to discover the group's driving "inadequacies". Raeder states that finding the problem is the first step to finding a solution. One of the major ones the group discovered was that they all took their emotions on the road. The group also evaluated their driving on things like driving courtesy and patience. Raeder assigned each of the member's to do a self-witnessing activity in the car with a tape recorder.
At the second meeting the group listened to the tapes. Raeder was somewhat disappointed, being that all that was heard on the tapes was singing and background noise. He decided to contact the group member's mothers to get some unbiased accounts.
At meeting 3 Raeder gave the accounts that mother's had supplied. After this, all the group members decided that they needed to improve their driving. They all also commented that recognizing the problem was somewhat easy, but correcting them not as.
Evaluation
Raeder held some good meetings, however it took three meeting for the members to admit to their bad driving behaviors. Raeder was successful in showing his members they all needed to improve their driving skills, but I feel he did not leave his members with any solutions or ways to correct their problems.
In another meeting the group focused on speeding and tailgaiting. One girl stated that she speeds when noone is on the car with her. Fred seemed to quite interested in this fact and concentrated on this for the rest of the meeting.
Evaluation
Overall, I was not very impressed with Fred's QDCs. He did state that he had trouble getting the group to meet.. With this in mind I will ease up on my critism a little, but Fred neglected to do two major things. He did not look at any of the other member's driving problems, and secondly, he didn't offer solutions for the one he did.
I proceeded to give them two driving personality questionaires, which, in trying to set a good example, took myself. The questions were found in Dr. James' website under:
The following is the first set of questions we answered. Feel free to answer them yourself to see how how aggressive on the road you are!
1.no 2.no 3.n/a 4.no 5.no 6.no 7.no 8.no 9.no |
1.yes 2.yes 3.n/a 4.yes 5.yes 6.yes 7.yes 8.no 9.yes |
1.yes 2.yes 3.n/a 4.yes 5.yes 6.yes 7.yes 8.yes 9.yes |
It is quite obvious that Sonya and I are at one end of the spectrum ,while Sarina is at the other. One might say that Sonya and I are "aggressive" drivers, where as Sarina is "passive". Even though this was the case , all three of us were "longing for more peaceful and enjoyable driving!"
The second "task" I had my members do is take a "driving inventory". Below is the inventory copied from Dr. James' site , with instructions. Following the inventory are the zones that Dr.James divides the inventory into. Once again, please feel free to take it, you may be very suprised at the results you get! I know I was!
1. Mentally condemning other drivers.
2. Verbally denigrating other drivers to a passenger in your vehicle.
3. Closing ranks to deny someone entering your lane because you're frustrated or upset.
4. Giving another driver the "stink eye" to show your disapproval.
5. Speeding past another car or revving the engine as a sign of protest.
6. Preventing another driver from passing because you're mad.
7. Tailgating to pressure a driver to go faster or get out of the way.
8. Fantasizing physical violence against another driver.
9. Honking or yelling at someone through the window to indicate displeasure.
10. Making a visible obscene gesture at another driver.
11. Using your car to retaliate by making sudden, threatening maneuvers.
12. Pursuing another car in chase because of a provocation or insult.
13. Getting out of the car and engaging in a verbal dispute, on a street or parking lot.
14. Carrying a weapon in the car in case you decide to use it in a driving incident.
15. Deliberately bumping or ramming another car in anger.
16. Trying to run another car off the road to punish the driver.
17. Getting out of the car and beating or battering someone as a result of a road exchange.
18. Trying to run someone down whose actions angered you.
19. Shooting at another car.
20. Killing someone.
I [Dr. James] divide the range into five zones of aggressiveness:
The Unfriendly Zone: Items 1 to 3--mental and verbal acts of unkindness towards other drivers.
The Hostile Zone: Items 4 to 7--visibly communicating one's displeasure or resentment, with the desire to punish.
The Violent Zone: Items 8 to 11--carrying out an act of hostility, either in fantasy or deed.
The Lesser Mayhem Zone: Items 12 to 16--epic road rage contained within one's personal limits.
The Major Mayhem Zone: Items 17 to 20--uncontained epic road rage, the stuff of newspaper stories.
That was meeting 1, at the end of the meeting, I told every one to self witness themselves while they drive, and report back their findings.
Interesting...."so all of you never do any of those things?"...."No!" I don't know about that, but I took their word, for now! We talked awhile about controlling anger when one confronts these "inconsiderate drivers". I had looked through Dr. James' congressional testimony and found some characteristics of a "smart driver" that my members might try aiming toward. My favorite ones were:
We had already tried the self witnessing activity, so the other two would become the center of meeting #3.
Next it was my turn. I tried to be a "smart" role model, but my calm collect attitude only lasted so long. Soon I was tailgating, and giving people dirty looks. Sonya reminded me of my advice. I laughed and told her that it was easier to preach then it was to practice it. At that point we all realized that becomes a good driver takes a lot of work and that it helps to have someone there to remind you not to take things so personally. As you may guess, Sarina was pleasant on the road, and although I tried catching her committing some aggressive act, I couldn't!
QDCs allow people to share opinions about instances on the road, and the opportunity to hear other's opinions. QDCs also allow for self-evaluation. As they always say, "you've got to admit there is a problem before you try to solve it!"
Dr. James states in his Congressional Testimony that "the dynamic power of groups to influence individual behavior is well known to social scientists." It would be foolish of us not to take advantage of this power in our fight to combat aggressive driving. The mere fact that Dr. James was called to give testimony for congress proves that there is a real concern about what is going on our city and highway roads. I therefore see QDCs playing a prominent role, in the future, as part of the solution to this "road rage" problem.
Maybe through groups like MADD and PTAs future students from Dr. James' class could educate people on how to run QDCs. Once people understand the "ground rules" I think they would be more than willing to try the QDCs in their communities. Another means of promotion other than just basic concern, would be insurance discounts. Congress could make it possible that people can't receive a license until becoming a QDC member, and after they have been a "successful" member for an indicated period of time, they would be qualified for insurance rebates. You never know, it may work, money has driven people to do a lot worse things! ( at least this one would be beneficial!)
Now what would it take for me to develop a positive feeling toward QDCs? An understanding of it. Through knowledge I gain confidence. So I went through Dr. James congressional testimony and schooled myself on QDCs. Now that I felt confident about the subject, I began to think more positively about it. I began to realize the potential importance of QDCs and thought about ways I was going to carry out my QDC meetings.
With confidence and educated thoughts behind me, I held my three QDC meetings. After weeks of procrastinating, I came to realize that the actual act of holding the meetings was not the torturous experience I had earlier imagined. Rather it turned out to be an interesting and educating experience.
As you can see it is very important that you work through initial negative feelings. Whether your realize it or not negative thoughts inevitably have control over your thoughts and therefore your actions. I've come to realize this, and have since decided that positive feelings lead me to more positive thoughts and more positive actions.
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The Future of QDCs
Promotion of QDCs
Epilogue
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