How Do Drivers Communicate:
Is it a Universal Language?

Table of Contents

Student's Ideas of Communication Resources on the Net What about Search Engine? Search a Journal Database What does the Book Says? Do You See What I See? In the End...

Instruction for Report 2

Introduction

In our daily life, we communicate almost every single minute. Communication is a social skill that we learned while we are babies. As we grow older, communication gets harder and harder. The way we communicate can mean different things to different people. We can say one thing when we actually mean something else. We use verbal and non-verbal means of communication and it can easily be misunderstood. Have you said something quite clearly to another person but they misunderstood your meaning or intention? Well, as in driving, people can also misinterpret or get the signals mixed up. Does a wave of hand mean something else other than saying thank you.

Student's Ideas of Communication

Mary Elizabeth U. Pacheco's report deals with how drivers communicate with each other. She discussed and interpreted some situations dealing with communication of other drivers while on the road. She said the phrase, action speaks louder than words, is one part of how people communicate. She suggested that our gestures we used can be misinterpreted by others.
In her course of study, she observed many situations as a driver and a pedestrian. She witnessed the interaction of drivers while changing lanes and overtaking other drivers. She found out the used of gestures are very common among driver as a mean of communicating. It is part of our everyday life.

Kristin Evert wrote an interesting report on different types of driving behaviors. The first type is "Car Communication" and the second type is "Physical Driver Communication." What she means by car communication is that it deals with communication by how the car is use by the driver and the way a person drives. For example, the tailgating phenomenon, where people use their cars to communicate to the other driver when they might be going too slow. The second type is the usage of facial expressions, hand gestures, and verbal communication.
Why are there so many problems on the road? She tackled this problem by saying it's the society. We are in a society, where it is socially and culturally acceptable to break rules or even laws just so as long as you don't get caught. In this report, she proposed ideas and methods that can decrease the problems on the road.

Andrew Shapiro did a very fascinating report on using gestures to request the right-of-way at a four way intersections. He did a mini-observational study at a four ways intersection in Stockton, California. He noticed the gender differences in aggressive behaviors. Most aggressive behaviors are the demand of right- of-way. It was evident that majority of those were young male drivers. He also correlated some of this data to the AAA Study. The study shows that drivers who are more aggressive have a background of violence. It is also suggested that certain gestures are not universally understood, therefore, this cause misinterpretation between drivers.

Kristin Subia expressed the importance that drivers should take the responsibility to communicate with other drivers. This would prevent accidents and maintain safety on the road. Every day that we drive, we communicate with other drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and cyclists. There are no ways a person can drive without communicating. Kristin talked about the different ways we encounter situation that deals with communication. For example, making turns, changing lanes, yielding the way, making room in one's lane for someone else, tailgating, and a very dangerous one ñ racing.

Resources on the Net

Web

I've search through the web and was looking for driving and communication with gestures and here are some of the things I found. It's quite interesting to find out that people can easily misunderstand each other just because they are from another culture. I found a web site that talked about the communication through the usage of non-verbal signals. They even gave some example of the gestures drivers used that can cause misinterpretation of meaning. Roger Axtell, the author of Gestures: Do's and Taboos of Body Language Around the World presented a list of things a driver might do on the road that can be misleading.

U.S. = In the United States, cars are equipped with flashing lights to signal turns and when they are not working a driver must use hand gestures. It's funny that we all should know these type of hand gestures but not everybody does.

Extending the left arm out the window means to turn left.

When the arm is bent upward it means to turn right.

When the arm is bend downward it means to stop.

Austria = while driving, a rude gesture is to twist your fingers in a motion toward your head. This specifies that you think the other motorist is "crazy."

Bulgaria = if you acknowledge other people's driving by nodding (for positive response) or shaking your head (for negative response), then you might miscommunicate to people who are from Bulgaria.
A nod (head up and down) means "no".
A shake of your head back and forth means "yes".
Isn't it funny, it's the total opposite.

Denmark = it is consider rude to make a gesture by pointing your index finger to the temple and rotate it back and forth.

France = when your are unhappy with the other person's driving, you can raise your hand in the air, fingers up, and rotate your hands back and forth.

Do you know what to do when you reached a four way intersection? A lot of people don't know the answer to this simple question. It's hard to believed that they can pass their driving test. When a car stopped at a four- ways intersection, someone usually wave someone else to go ahead. This type of communication usually occur at a four- ways intersection. Some people who don't know the four-ways intersection rule, will surely zoom pass all those vehicle that are waiting for their turn to go. Doesn't that just pisses you off? What about a four-ways intersection with stop signs? Who should go first? The answer is also quite simple, it's whoever stop first. But there are so many times where I would stop and another car would be coming at such a fast speed, I knew in that instant what would happen. The car would usually not stop or slow down a little and then go right through. Even though I have the right to go through first, but why get into an accident when I know I could prevent it.

Dejanews

Subject: Re: Road signs From: "Tim Archer" Date: 1998/04/08 Message-ID: <01bd62b8$fd512520$14e14e81@client-83.stpauls.usyd.edu.au> Newsgroups: aus.cars [More Headers] [Subscribe to aus.cars] Brian Miller wrote > There is a TV commercial currently running that shows a number > of ways that drivers can vent their aggressive and hostile feelings > to other drivers by way of hand signals. Are you serious? You mean they actually went through with this idea? Sometimes I wonder. You'd think they could do better things with their money than TV commercials with people making stupid gestures. Like getting defective vehicles off the road... > Like everyone, I sometimes make mistakes when driving and would like > to convey my apology to the driver who I have inconvenienced. But > there seems to be no sign language to convey the expression "I'm > sorry". A wave of the hand can be misinterpreted. I remember when Bob Carr (assuming this is NSW we're talking about) announced this last year ... he had come up with a gesture for "I'm sorry". It was patting the top of your head with your hand (perhaps fist). Pretty pointless idea IMO. Why not concentrate your efforts on driving better in the first place? Saying sorry, as much as it might be appreciated by the other party, is not actually very productive when it comes to road safety. BTW, the the commercial recommend the one figer salute for saying "F*ck you!"? :) Tim

I pretty much agree with what this person is saying. Instead of trying to make signs to show your frustration to other drivers, isn't it better to concentrate more on becoming a better driver. Why are we promoting signs that not everyone would know and what about the cost it would take to educate people. It's nice to have a gesture that says "I am sorry" because there are times when I made a mistake and feels really bad for it. Don't want to wave to them because I don't want them to get the wrong idea. It is so easy for people to misinterpret certain gesture because certain gestures have different meanings.

Subject: flashing your lights - what does it mean officially ??? From: "Andy C." Date: 1998/04/07 Message-ID: <3529EEB5.F50801A1@york.microvitec.co.uk> Newsgroups: uk.rec.motorcycles [More Headers] [Subscribe to uk.rec.motorcycles] A colleague, who's a rospa drivers has told me that the powers that be are looking at changing the highway code subtly. You know the bit about the "flashing the lights to indicate your preseuce" bit, yet in the real world people knowit to be "pull out". Well it looks like the highway code may include both statements - Bwahahahaha - how stupid can they be - defining the same signal to mean opposite actions. Watch for the increase in people pulling out of side roads, when the intention was to warn of presence . -- Andy C. "advice freely given - and never guaranteed" http://www.york.microvitec.co.uk/~asc

This is what I am trying to say. A certain gesture or signal can mean one thing to one person but another thing to another person. That is why people have miscommunication problem on the road. I didn't even know about this signal until I read it here in this newsgroup. I think some gestures and signals are not universally understood. We need to get our signals straight.

What about Search Engine?

CSS Engine and Site Indexes

In this site, you'll find a sweet, innocent girl becoming a "beast" when she is behind the wheel. Michelle Alonzo is not alone. I know that many of us are quite like Michelle. We can consider ourselves to be upstanding citizens but once behind the wheels, we turn into another person. For Michelle, she described herself as an "evil" driver. In her report, she expressed two different types of vehicular communication. She talked about tailgating and being cut-off. Both are good examples of vehicular communication. Vehicular communication is a way drivers communicate to other drivers by using their vehicle. Whether it is using your vehicle to close in on the gap between you and the driver in the front or cutting in front of them, it is a type of communication that sends a message to the other driver.

There's a question I would like to express when I was reading this report. Can people easily misinterpret certain situations? Michelle expressed great anger when someone cut her off or tailgates her. When people do tailgate her, she gives them a break job. Which I think it's one of the most dangerous things to do, because it can cause accidents or even get someone killed. Yeah, it may be a way to release your anger but what about the consequences. It's great to get revenge on someone but what if they didn't mean it. What if it was unintentional? I know there are times when people think that I cut them off, but I didn't realize that I did it until after it was done. I even tailgate people without knowing it. It's that sucking effect that Dr. James was talking about. I think that people need to learn to see that there are more to it, then meets the eye. What they think they see may not necessarily be what the other driver intentions are.

Search a Journal Database

The ERIC Database

Reel, J. Just Make a U-turnñNobody Cares! A Cross-Cultural Look at Taiwanese and U.S.

Attitudes toward Rules. A Symposium on Professional Communication in an International
and Multicultural Context, 1994, p.15.

Gusfield, J.R. Risky Roads. Society, 1991, 28, p.10-16.

Giles, H. One for the Road Then? International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1992, 2, p.139-

165.

Arnett, J. Understanding Reckless Behaviors in Adolescence. 1989.

Adams, K. and others. Nevada Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 1995.

Steering Kids to Traffic Safety. PTA Today, 1991, 16, p.11-12.

What does the Book Says?

In chapter 2, I found some interesting information regarding communication. Cultures do play a part in the way you communicate to each other. The author expressed that "the world of traffic is a specialized world. When people communicate to each other within such specialized worlds, they received special meanings and actions take on symbolic power" (Rothe, p.27). The author gave an example that clearly demonstrates these concepts. In Brazil, where it is a custom to stop at a red light, but if one does not see cars coming either way, one goes through the red light. In other words, a red light functions as a stop sign. When students that came from Brazil to America to go to school, they adjusted to the American way of driving. So when the students go back home to Brazil, they found that it was impossible to drive. "Other cars would toot their horns, drive around them or in other ways force them to revert to the dominating custom" (Rothe, p.27).

It is so easily misinterpreted that these students are bad drivers because they are so used to driving the American way. Sometimes, it's hard to adjust to different cultures' norm of driving when you are gear to drive a certain way. Therefore, miscommunication occurs. Other drivers would get angry because you don't follow the way that they drive. They think that you are just a bad driver.

Do You See What I See?

The report done by Claudine DelaCruz was neatly organized. I like the way she broke down the different components of driver behaviors and the way they communicate. She also summarized other student's report in great details with is done very nicely. The approached to her report was quite different and I like it. Now why, didn't I think of it?

Another report that I saw that was done in great details was Cheddie diRizzio. Her report also have a lot of details which I think she must have spent countless hours in the computer lab. I think we all spent countless hours trying to download information and then upload it on the web. Gosh, it's a lot of work.

In the End...

...I learned a valuable lesson. It is that communication is important in everyday life. Either we are with friends, classmates or even driving we use our communication skills to express our feelings and ideas to other people. We used a lot of non-verbal communication while we are with people or driving on the road. Sometimes, the communication process could be confused and misinterpretation takes place. After writing the report, I learned to tolerate other's behavior because there could be more to it than meets the eye. I also tolerate those that are not around here, the driving customs may be different and what they think it's right may not be right. Hey, don't you want to be treated the same way when you are driving outside of your state. Don't you want people to forgive you because their driving custom may be new to you. Why can't we all just along and understand each other? Maybe, someday we will.

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