instructions for this report

 I really enjoyed Kristin's report. It was informative and fun to read.  She did her own observations of verbal and nonverbal communication while driving. Because she lists several situations, you can go directly to the situation that you are interested in. This is very helpful. She lists several situations from making turns, which is very common, to racing on the highway which is pretty uncommon to most people. She then analyzed the methods and effectiveness of different kinds of communication like gestures and facial expressions to vehicular communication.
 
    The first situation she observed was making turns. People used gestures and facial expressions, as well as vehicular communication which is manifested by slowing down or speeding up to let the other driver know that he/she cannot turn left or to go ahead and go.
 
    The second situation was changing lanes. This, Kristin points out, is one of the most complex situations on the highway. There are so many cars and so many things going on that communication in every form is a must. You do not know if a person is going to change lanes at the same time you are so waving, facial expressions and vehicular communication like using your blinker is a must. One thing that I observe a lot that Kristin did not add is when someone forgets to turn their blinker on the freeway. You wait and wait for them to change lanes and they do not. You really don't know if they forgot to turn their blinker off or if they are eventually going to change lanes. This can be very dangerous and I have seen people actually yell out the window to the person telling them their blinker is still on.
 
    The third situation was yielding. She was very brief about this situation but I think it deserves more attention. Drivers look around to see if it is clear to go and eagerly enter the intersection, sometimes too eagerly. Yielding is especially a problem when someone is in a hurry because of being late for something. This is when someone is less likely to yield when they legally should.
 
    The fourth situation was making room in one's lane for someone. She gives you a good scenario of this situation where your own politeness can actually make you angry in the end. If you let someone go in front of you because they want to get in, they end up making the yellow light and you are stuck in a red light. Here, mostly facial expression is used to let someone you know you want to get in by staring at them. The fifth situation is tailgating and overtaking someone. People do this for obvious emotional reasons. They communicate their anger by trying to evoke fear out of another driver.  I am not sure what she means by overtaking but I am assuming that she means passing. I agree with her that it is not a bad thing, but it usually becomes a bad thing when you are in a rush because you wind up speeding and you are emotionally revved up.
 
    The last situation she gave was racing. I have seen racing more than a number of times so I disagree with her that it is very uncommon. Some people do not know how to recognize racing but it is easy to spot especially when a group of similar cars are weaving through traffic etc.
 
    Kristin goes on to explain the various forms of communication on the road: vehicular communication, verbal communication, and gestures and facial expressions. She explains each type of communication and how each are effective. Each type of communication depends upon the context that they are used. I believe that the most usual type of communication is vehicular communication because using your steel car is much more effective for aggressive drivers than flipping the bird. You may provoke more anger in another person by flipping the bird but you still would have been ahead of that driver.
 
    As for her recommendations, I agree that the flash cards would not be a good idea. It is too distracting and just adds on to the number of things people are doing while driving. You may hold up the wrong sign and may ultimately distract other drivers because you are holding up this sign. They may be looking too intently at you instead of in front of them. Kristin seems split on the gestures recommendation.  One web site I found recommended universal gestures and had pictures of them. I agree with the gestures because it sounds like the best idea to curb miscommunication as of yet.
 
    Kristin's advice to future generations was good, as she suggested to watch at&t commercials for new gadgets for communication.

    The third report I looked at was Kristin Evert's report. She does something very clever in her report: she made specific  predictions of communication while driving and set out to disapprove or approve her predictions. She predicted that people in sports cars and those driving down town were more likely to use their car to get their intention across, like tailgating or speeding up behind someone. She predicted that females are more likely to be nice on the road. And one very common sense prediction that drivers are less likely to use facial expressions and hand gestures at night. I also would have these same predictions except for the last one which is very common sense. One thing that makes Kristin's report reliable is the amount of driving she does and the distance she covers every day. She drives from Waimanalo to UH and in Kaneohe every day. She also carried a tape recorder so she can come back to specifics at a later time.
 
    Kristin evaluated three very negative encounters while driving.  The first incident when someone sped up behind her, she at first takes personally then reevaluates her emotions and feelings later. This is very important to do and hopefully with practice we can be able to evaluate our initial emotions in a matter of seconds so that when an incident occurs we do not feel like retaliating.
 
    Kristin also encountered harassment of a pedestrian in which she feels that the driver was way out of line even though the girl ran across when the walk light had stopped. I agree with Kristin that pedestrians always deserve the right of way, even if they are at fault because they are not surrounded by steel.
 
    Her next observation correlated with one of her predictions although she didn't notice it (or just didn't mention it). A porche weaving around in traffic causing problems for everyone. I think that just about everybody knows that you do not buy a fast car to drive slow. The person driving the porshe knows this for sure and really uses vehicular communication to get his signals across.
 
    All in all, Kristin found that her predictions were just too complicated for this report. I don't think so. I think that I could have recorded and come up with correlations with these predictions. One thing very interesting that really made me think and realize, is that people do not smile when they are driving alone. But if you do smile and you're alone, someone may think you are a bit crazy. I would be really interested in doing an experiment to see how others react to me smiling also and if my own driving behavior changes when I am aware of my mood and facial expression.
 
    Kristin's epilogue is titled rethink-implement-practice. Like me, she feels that her positive attitude while driving makes a big difference in how she sees communication between drivers. She doesn't feel that it is really as awful as it seems.Implenting changes in your own driving can be hard but doing your own mini-observation (like Shapiro's) can be helpful.Finally, practice makes perfect, even with driving. Maybe not perfect, but practicing random acts of kindness and being polite and courteous on the road can really make the miles much more pleasant.

    Mary Elizabeth Pacheco did several observations of driver communication. Interestingly, these observations were mostly positive. Drivers gave friendly waves to others when overtaking or changing lanes. This really seemed to uplift my spirits as much of my research for this report has been about negative communication. Although the whole purpose for analyzing driver communication is to make it better. She did not seem to analyze these friendly and positive gestures probably because they were positive. Her prediction however was that driver communication is usually very misinterpreted. A very interesting point she made that has a lot to do with psychology as a science is modeling. She says that we learn from modeling and if more people used friendly communication others can learn from that. From a behavioral  perspective this is right on target. Modeling is something we learn about in almost all psychology courses. I found her report to be the report that most directly related to specific psychology vocabulary.

    These three studies are sponsored by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. For those of you who do not know what the AAA is, it is the American Automobile Association which does research in traffic safety. It is a non-profit organization that operates under charity. The first study addresses the issue of Aggressive Driving in particular: a) incidents of aggressive driving; b) vehicles of mass destruction and c) advice for motorists.The second hs to do with how communication is particularly related to road rage.

    The different incidents described in this study are rather interesting. The first one was about the man who killed somebody with a bow and arrow over a traffic dispute. Another was a car crash because someone would not turn off their car alarm. The author discusses who these aggressive drivers usually are: poorly educated males with criminal records. But really, there are others out there who are lawyers, doctors, even police officers. But the author's definition of aggressive driving, in my opinion, is exclusive. He defines it by a driver or passenger having the intention to harm or kill another passenger or driver, etc. I really don't think all aggressive drivers have this in mind. I think many of the crashes and fender-benders and so on  caused by drivers are really accidents. The driver probably intended on getting even because of anger or that that person had.
 
    The author did not discuss tailgating or other incidents in which I think are the majority hat happens on the road. And when people get into the habit of these aggressive behaviors, their anger escalates and the results can be fatal. The author also gave a list of reasons why people get out of control while driving. These reasons have been associated with incidents that have ended fatally. Here are a few: (Some may apply to you as well - meaning these thoughts can make you have an emotional reaction and retaliate)

    "He cut me off"

    "Nobody gives me the finger"

    "He or she was driving too slowly"

    "The bastard  kept honking and honking his horn"

    Now, get this. Weapons uses in fatal aggressive driving incidents: fists and feet; tire irons and jack handles; baseball bats; knives; hurled projectiles (throwing liquor bottles, etc); defensive sprays used aggressively (mace). I am sure you all remember the teenager in Florida who was shot to death after squirting a passing car with a water pistol. Sure, this may not happen every day. But the point  the more drivers communicate in a negative way, the more drivers are going to respond in a negative way. And this leads people to get needlessly hurt.

    The author gives some really good tips to drivers on how to respond to another driver acting aggressively and how not to tick someone off when driving. First of all the reality is that you never know what kink of person you are interacting with on the highway. More and more people are carrying weapons in their vehicles. Secondly, because crime is on the rise, people are also carrying weapons to protect themselves and sometimes can use the weapons for the reverse reason. And think about this: Don't judge a book by its cover. Never underestimate anybody regardless of what they look like or what kink of car they are driving. You never know what grandma might do. The author gives drivers advice in a number of situations. Here are a few that directly relate to driver communication:

    lane blocking: "don't block the passing lane; if someone wants to pass you, let them"

    gestures: "you are playing Russian roulette if you raise a middle finger to another driver"

    signal use: "Don't switch lanes without using your signal and don't cut someone off when you move over"
    horn use: "think twice about using your horn to say hello to a pedestrian, the person in front of you may think you are honking at them"
 
    headlight use: "do not retaliate by flashing your beams to another driver with high beams on in order to 'teach them a lesson'"

    eye contact: "do not make eye contact with an angry motorist, this can be a sign of a challenging gesture"
 
    "adjust your own attitude and do not drive when you are emotional, angry or upset; avoid talk radio topics that invoke anger in you"

    My favorite of all his pieces of advice was the "adjust your own attitude". It is important that people practice not taking others mistakes personally. Kristin Evert talks about this as well.

    The second study was done on "Road Rage". This term is most frequently encompasses only extreme acts of aggression but for our class we usually refer to it as any act of aggression. One interesting finding in this study was that the most common form of road rage was tailgating followed by obscene gestures. This goes to show just how important communication is while driving.
 
    So what is causes road rage? Well the author clearly says that frustration and miscommunication is the core. The reason why I chose this as my first report is because I really feel that communication is really at the core of what angers us while driving. Every time we do something, like signal, or change lanes or follow too closely behind someone we are communicating with another driver. We communicate our ustration and our aggression. And this kind of communication can cause others to react the same way.
 
    Another aspect of communication on the road is what the author describes as "territory". We all have our own sense of personal territory and our vehicle is an extension of this territory. When someone invades our territory we have to comprise our forms of communication. Unfortunately this usually ends up being negative gestures, tailgating, honking etc.
 
    So how do we avoid not responding aggressively with these forms of communication? Well the previous author sums it up well. But I also thought of something. Try to be aware of how you appear to other drivers, especially in congested traffic where people are more likely to be fustrated. Try smiling at others and this may reduce their tension as ell as yours. The author includes an interesting survey finding. Motorists were asked what kinds of behaviors they received from other drivers in the last twelve months. 62% of drivers experienced tailgating, 59% experienced flashing headlights from annoyance, and 48% received rude gestures. Communication at its best.

Subject:      Our problem is anonymity
From:         jstevens60@hotmail.com
Date:         1998/03/02
Message-ID:   <6df70m$6su$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
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X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.02 [en] (WinNT; U)
Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion
X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Mar 02 21:06:56 1998 GMT
Newsgroups:   ca.driving

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I believe that rude and aggressive driving stems
mainly from the fact that driving is an
anonymous activity.  It's easy to act discourteously,
then drive away...nobody is the wiser.

Next time you're driving, imagine that there's a
big sign on your vehicle with your name on it.
Imagine that people whom you respect are observing
your driving habits.

Don't you want to be seen as a competent *and* courteous
person?  Don't you want this to extend to all your
social interactions, including your time behind
the wheel?

    This is really a great and new way to look at the reasons behind why people act so mean and aggressively while driving. During the day when we're around so many people, most of us are actors, merely representing ourselves on a stage. We can't act on our impulses and so forth. If a teacher or someone at the bank irritates us we don't just give them the bird right there (well maybe some people do, but the majority of us don't). But when we're driving we are anonymous and we feel protected by our vehicles. When we're facing someone maybe there is a subconcious fear that the person my retaliate by injuring us or really embarrassing us. There are social ethics when surrounded by others. These social ethics however really don't exist when we are in our vehicle. Everyone is going fast and we most likely will not remember especially the face or vehicle that the person is driving. We are more likely to act on our impulses when we are in our car than in person face to face.

Subject:      Road Rage
                          From:         Mitch Sako <msako@netcom.com>
                          Date:         1998/03/14
                          Message-ID:   <msakoEpsAow.20q@netcom.com>
                          Newsgroups:   ba.transportation
                  Ä
 

                          I've seen more than a few items on TV and heard more than a
                          few on the radio regarding road rage.  None of them address
                          some of the problems that may cause road rage, for instance,

                            Brain-dead drivers who do stupid things

                            Slow drivers who leave huge gaps in busy traffic

                            Drivers who are overly timid and waste time

                            etc., etc., etc.

                          You see and hear cases of people who get out of their cars,
                          shoot or beat someone and basically just go crazy.  I don't
                          drive overly fast, usually staying between 65-68 MPH when
                          I can but it hacks me off when people think they can drive
                          60 MPH in the left lanes in clear traffic.  I don't drive
                          overly aggressive, however, I do drive defensively in that
                          I will always try to drive around what I consider "trouble
                          spots," most frequently poor drivers who exhibit poor
                          driving habits and may tend to do stupid things.  I
                          consider my driving alert-proactive, that is, maintain
                          the speed limit when possible, keep alert of everything
                          going on around me, etc.

                          I've observed so many incidents of stupid drivers doing stupid
                          things and then some rager goes ballistic and tries to get even.
                          I have sympathy for some of these ragers, they pay taxes as I do
                          and I can understand what sets them off, although they are living
                          dangerously because you never know these days who is going to draw
                          a gun and let them have it, I suppose.

                          I just have noticed that all of these stories in the media
                          tend to ignore the root of the problem in some cases.  Why?
                          --

                          ------------------------------------------------------
                          "There are no stupid questions, just stupid people who
                          ask questions." - Chris Berman

    I had some success searching Uncover but none really with Eric. I will continue to be looking for journal titles. I tried many different word combinations dealing with road rage, aggression, driving, communication, etc. None seemed to work with Eric. Well, here are two journal titles from Eric:

1. Bowers, Barbara. Getting Aggressive about Road Rage. Best's Review: Life Health Insurance Edition, Nov 1997, 98, 61.
2. Lowenstein, L.F. Research into Causes and Manifestations of Aggression in Car Driving, Police Journal , Jul 97, 70, 263. 

    I was quite surprised to find alot of reports on different subjects. Some did driver communication, some did gender differences in driving, one did how to be a driving buddy and how music affects drivers. I found everyone's report fun to read and many had some nice graphics. The most unique report I found was Thompson's report on how to be a driving buddy. It's a great story and reminds me alot about when I first had to learn to drive and my dad taught me. In his report he discusses how he taught his wife to drive and how fearful she was. This is a great way to learn how to be driving buddy and its crucial you're a good one because the person you're teaching may never want to get behind the wheel again if you're not an effective driving buddy. Anyway, I found everyone's report equally well written and informative.

    Driver communication is really an integral part  "road rage" . People can become aggressive or those that are already aggressive can become extremely irresponsible when given negative communication when driving. Therefore, it is essential that society is educated on how to give positive communication on the highway and how to control oneself from not feeling out of control when given negative communication from others.
 
    I really enjoyed doing this report on communication and I would like to do my own mini observation much like Shapiro's. I feel that anyone doing a report on this topic should see for themselves what's out there. We often do not pay attention to all of the communication taking place out there on the highway. In Psychology analysis of situations and people is a fundamental part of the science. By analyzing drivers and their ways of communicating, not only do we see problems in our own driving so may correct them, but we also practice  analysis which is so essential in our field.