In a society where life is ruled by the concept of timeliness and efficiency, drivers communication has become an integral part of helping yourself and/or others navigate through the hustle of our highways.

Summary of Kristin Subiea's report

When reading Kristen's 'Making turns' description, I felt like I was reading a drivers education manual. Very cut and to the point until she described the negative affects when this maneuver is used to the disadvantage of another driver. She mentions how a driver might silently/loudly curse or make gestures, yet there are other ways drivers express their disgust for bad driving, including honking, and trailing(turning the car and following - this happens rarely).

In 'Changing lanes' this report is right in saying that though eye contact is desired, it's just not possible nor wise while moving swiftly along with traffic. This type of maneuver takes decisiveness and is one of the more difficult to learn as a new driver. The process is simple enough, but her description could have included something similar to the following assessment:

First, assessing what's in front of you to see how long you can glance in the mirrors without putting yourself in immediate danger of hitting the vehicle directly ahead if it had to make a sudden stop. Next, while taking a quick glance at the mirrors you must assess in the fraction of a second: the distance of the vehicles behind and next to you, whether they are at the same/slower/faster speed that your vehicle is traveling at. Finally, with these factors considered and your looking forward again, You must decide if you can safely make the lane change.

All of this happens within a few seconds and as most reports mention, when not given the attention needed causes many of the accidents we see today. The driver communication part of this is active awareness of the other drivers. Unless you have somebody wave you into the desired lane or just slow down to allow you a space, this maneuver should require no communication at all. Just awareness of the other drivers.

'Yielding' is a relatively simple maneuver, yet people struggle with the concept. It should be considered a stop sign that doesn't require one to stop if there is no traffic to merge into. Nothing really more, or less, but often people do not correctly assess the speed of the traffic they merge into until they are part way into the merging lane. This is where they realize they should have stopped and either have to punch the gas peddle and cause the vehicle with the 'right of way' to slow, or the merging car will freeze in it's tracks and cause the other vehicle to swerve. I was surprised there wasn't more on this subject in this report. Stand next to the west bound University St. off ramp some time at morning or evening rush hour and see.

When reading the description Kristen had of 'making room in one's lane for someone' it became apparent to me that she had one real life incident and based her whole description of merging on it. She should keep her personal problems from making such a subjective statement about a topic that could have used more illustration. Being a moped driver and putting 8000 miles a year on my speedometer for just 'in town' use, I have come to learn that making room for other drivers(see also: changing lanes) is very important. A simple pointing gesture to the 'fore' of one's vehicle and a inquisitory look has been what I've experienced when people want to merge in front of my or others vehicles. Let's face it, if someone goes through the effort of getting your attention and motions they would like to merge then why not give them some "Aloha" and let them in, or has that term become just a tourist attraction? It's attitudes and anger that I read in this section of the report that can drive people to become the bad drivers they're trying to describe. "Say no to the dark side, Luke".

In 'tailgating and overtaking' this shows me a perfect example of how drivers can take their driving habits so defensively that it causes them anger and frustration(e.g. being tail-gated, screeching-tires). Kristen describes an incident where she was being tail-gated in a multiple lane situation, but the person chose to stay on her tail in the same lane and show their disgust for her speed. Tire screeching and tail-gating her while refusing to switch lanes and over take her vehicle seemed to be their intention as if they were attempting to 'improve' her driving. This upset Kristen and became the only subject she discussed on this topic.

Though what she described wasn't good driving by the other driver by any means, nor is tail-gating in general. It was her reaction of frustration that show's the 'domino effect'. Not one person was in a bad mood, but now two people were. The question in my mind is, if tail-gating bothered her, 'why didn't she just move to another lane and let this seemingly stubborn/rude person pass and not let it get to the point of frustration?'

Under 'Racing', Kristen admits to having little experience, yet describes one incident where two drivers kept revving their engines at stop lights. Once entering the freeway they took off, weaving in and out in traffic and as she states 'there were spectator drivers honking their horns in protest, and other drivers honking to cheer one or the other on.' We all must admit that racing has it's attraction to our adventurous sides, otherwise why would the Indy-500 be so popular? The city roads and highways are no place for these activities though. After spending four years in the fire department, I've seen the results way to often. Dare I post some of the pictures of the accidents I've seen from the results of racing on this page?

Ms. Subia describes three methods for communication and evaluates them here. She lists the simplest of forms(turn signals, brake lights, head lights) to the more complicated and sometimes hard to interpret(the horn, and facial expressions). She has categorized them into three forms: Vehicular communication, verbal, and gesture/facial.

Under vehicular communication she mentions turn signals and swerving the vehicle to show the intention of changing lanes, use of the horn, and tail-gating. For verbal communication she doesn't list anything except cursing people. Since it is difficult for another driver to hear you from your car, unless yelled(usually in anger), the only verbal communication I personally have experienced is at a stop, or lip reading. Finally, gestures and facial expression. She discussed the general smile/angry/indifferent expressions, the shaka sign vs. the flicking of the middle finger, but didn't go into too much specifics. Quite often facial expressions and gestures can be mis-interpreted. Since we as drivers are in the habit of trying to look at other drivers expressions there are a great many mis-interpretations we can find: a look of confusion for a frown, a smile for a condescending smirk, or in the rare cases(e.g. the look of constipation for anger/frustration).

The one inconstant drivers will experience for many years if not for ever is gestures and facial expressions. Remember, the human race has only begun to have close contact in the past 100 years since the invention of the motorized engine. We have only been linked to cyber-space for about 10 years, and that only includes 47 million out of the 200+ mil. of Americans. So, while there have been huge advances in connecting the world with one another and bringing us even closer together, it's still a very large place with many individual differences. What I'm getting at is that there are huge sub-continental differences in our cultures, attitudes, and beliefs. All in all, humanity is still very localized, and generalized rules whether they concern moral, religious, or even driving behavior may apply to one group, but not necessarily to another, without the full cooperation of each sub-community. (Note: I used the 'moral, religious' reference Only to illustrate the importance potential people can place on their personal driving behaviors.)

Driving behavior differs from one country from another, as well as from one topographical area of the same country to the other. For instance in New England and certain urban East coastal cities, the horn on a car is used for all kinds of driver's communication, it's a surprise that there aren't multiple tones there to carry on conversations, per say. Whereas on the west coast it's a bit different. In Washington for example, drivers listen carefully for the quickness of beeps or between beeps to discern the message(e.g. + vs. - ). In Hawaii however, it seems the horn is one of those things used only in extreme situations, usually used either in disgust, or in sequence of a scream when a driver collides into another. Without a formal national(maybe international) education program, drivers communication will have a difficult time finding a formal set of rules and guidelines that are consistent between different topographies. For future reference in this report, I will refer to this as 'Cultural Localization'.

I just thought this should be mentioned in a report regarding the topics of communication.

Effectiveness

She warns that using the peace sign can be negative, but couldn't remember which country. In Australia/New Zealand if you face your hand around palm inwards and do the peace sign, it's the equivalent to 'flipping the bird'. Just ask George Bush how that went over on one of his visits there.

A Review of Andrew Shapiro's Report on The Effectiveness of Gestural Communication

He did however discover evidence of aggressive driving(e.g. rolling stops where the vehicle would give the impression of running the intersection and forcing drivers to slow down and allow them entry). He found it most prevalent in 'supped-up, monster trucks' as he put it. His finding's on this subject correlated with those of an AA study that show's aggressive behaviors being prevalent and linked with socio-economic standing, low education, and alcohol/substance abuse.

It turns out, that out of the 28 times he noticed a form of gesturing, that 10 of them were negative gestures. Six of them being sent by males, and four by females. In Mr. Shapiro's words, "The gestures observed were various, ranging from honking the horn, shaking a fist, a disgusted rotational head shake, to "flipping the bird." He goes on to state that "Even though I didn't keep track, considering nearly 4500 vehicles passed through the intersection, the frequency of rude and uncivil conduct was shocking." That last statement leads me to wonder, just how many vehicles he actually 'could' have paid attention to, and how many forms of gestural communication did he miss?

Mr. Shapiro also discovered that not all of the verbal communication between drivers was universally understood at this intersection. He mentions a case where two drivers failed to understand each other's gestures when each in fact(according to Shapiro) was motioning each other onward. Could he have witnessed a form of 'cultural localization' in this incident?

In his conclusion, he states he was shocked by the amount of aggressive driving he witnessed, and quoted references to previous studies of vehicular/population dynamics. I'm left wondering though, if there was only 10 people reported out of the 4600 he observed, where is all of the aggressive driving? Were the 'non-gesturing plowing through traffic' types not formally included in the survey?

Mr. Shapiro's report was a good on site observation for the limited abilities of one person to monitor such a large amount of vehicles. He had obviously researched the back ground on this subject well and included so many references I felt overwhelmed in an accumulation of published knowledge in a few parts. I would like to see this experiment continued though to more thoroughly test a larger sample group. There were a number of questions left in my mind after reading it for future generations to consider, such as:

Did he sit on the corner of the intersection? -was he visible(e.g. distraction)? Which days of the week exactly did he visit this area? was it the same people getting off work on the week days or weekend people, possibly visiting from out of town? How many of this sample group could he have actually fully monitored? How many of these drivers were put in a situation where they actually had a chance to display their gesturing communication skills(e.g. were there any cars they had to merge with at the time?) What area of town(income level of the people in general? - High socio-economic standing?)

Recomendations for future studies: Kina'u street before the East bound freeway on-ramp, and the University Street West bound off-ramp.

A Review of Kristen Evert's Report on How Driver's Communicate with Each other

She set out with a list of hypotheses, but unfortunately none of them had a chance to be tested due to the limited incidences of communication among drivers she saw. She does list a few negative 'road-rage' incidences, and with the exception of one, tried to down-play or second guess the antagonist's(driver's) actions. I almost felt as if she was trying to justify the driver's actions so she wouldn't feel negative about experiencing the situations.

She does give some helpful suggestions regarding newsgroups, and advises the usefulness of them versus a 'library' search. Over all, her report gives some helpful hints of what can happen when carelessness gets the better of you and another driver gets irritated.

A Summary of Mary Elizabeth Pacheco's Report: How Drivers Communicate with Each Other.

I found many intriguing subjects in this search, but unfortunately there is currently a URL problem with every subject, but one that I had interest. I hope in the near future the other links will be up and running.

Driving: traffic safety issues

Under this topic I found list after list of driver information, from the practical, to suggestive, to psychological profiles of thoughts that aggravate/antagonize drivers. There is much there so far, and the more people who read and contribute to it, a strong solution may emerge and become part of our education.

My Report on Driver's Communication -Responsibility and "Culteral Localization"

Methods

Every time I drove my moped or rode in a car over the semester I actively observed peoples driving behavior, and when ever I had the chance I recalled the incidences and wrote them down in a notebook with detail and drew 'stick-figure' pictures to illustrate.

Hypothess

1) Drivers communication requires mutual responsibility, since it can lead an unwary persons into a dangerous situations.

2) Communication varies between continents, countries, and between states. Some topographical areas will use one form of communication which is mutually accepted among drivers, whereas in another area that form of communication is unknown or not approved of.

Observations and Analysis