Oral #1:
| Chapter 3- Beyond Traffic Safety |
By: J.P. Rothe
New Brunsick: Transaction Publishers, 1993.
Traffic is patterned behavior. It is a collection
of rules, socially approved boundaries which drivers operate their vehicles.
One boundary is responsibility. Responsibility thought of in
3 ways: personal, social, legal. Personal responsibility focuses
on individual feelings, motives, wants, goals.
Driving is also decision making. Once someone
chooses to drive in a certain way, he/she must accept the consequences.
People are authors of their own behavior and are often labeled speeders,
drinking drivers, risk takers. The chapter also talks of social responsibility
that refers to obligations people meet everyday while playing different
roles-mother/child, bus driver/parking. Drivers adjust their behaviors
according to the responsibility they share to maintain patterns of joint
action. Legal responsibility is like a social contract between drivers
and the state. It's expected, if the driver chooses irresponsible
driving, they should accept expected costs of an accident or change to
an alternative conduct. Assumption: drives within limits of law are
error free drivers, who don't have accidents, not responsible for the accident.
Fault may be considered part of normal behavior or it may be a momentary
act of inattention or distraction. Traffic safety may not lie in
foolishness of drunk driver, but the failure of auto industry to construct
an automobile assuming they will be foolish or drunk and not construct
the vehicle as so.
Some questions that arise are does the Government
construct safe highways, promote safe driving, car makers make cars maximally
safe? Sometimes the statement arises: If literal application of law do
more harm than good, driver may relax the law, like construction delay
and speeding. Intention doesn't negate legal responsibility,
it modifies it. Ignorance of law is not reasonable justification
for negating driver responsibility. Ex. Driver seeing sign behind a truck-
police assume not seeing sign is just an excuse.
Presence of passion is also not a good excuse for
escaping responsibility. Health- if driver diagnosed and treated
prior to driving, it's driver's responsibility. If heart attack or
stroke happen, the driver has no responsibility. Habit does not free
drivers from legal responsibility. People act more on social responsibility
than to legal ones. One example is if a Doctor is rushing to aid
sick child at 7 am on an empty street. The appeal was lost.
If lawmakers make speed limits at 30 mph and there are children and parked
cars, drivers are expected to slow down. If motorists engage
in unlawful driving, it's probably not all the time, doesn't mean a defect
in responsibility, but negation of legal responsibility for the sake of
a social one. Because there are two realms, further study is needed
in traffic safety
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Baptista,
Juliet: In regards to "social responsibility", do you sometimes find
yourself speeding up as a result of other drivers driving fast?
A: I don't find myself personally speeding up when other drivers
are driving fast. The "social responsibility" in this aspect would
be to notice the speed of faster cars and not be in the far left lane to
block them in. I would move one lane over to the right.
Flores,
Christopher: Failure of auto makers. What about holding the state
and owner of the roads responsible? Can they be forced to fix the
road?
A: I believe that the state should be responsible for the roads.
If we have a legal responsibility to follow their road laws, then they
have the responsibility to keep them safe. That's where it's unfair.
If every road had no problem, then they would live up to their end of the
contract and they have a right to enforce laws.
Hampp,
Karla: Between social, personal, and legal responsibility, do
you feel that there is one more important than another, or are they equally
important?
A: I believe that all three are equally important. I also
can say that I believe that everyone follows their personal responsibility
most of the time because of the high numbers of speeders and reckless driving.
They certainly aren't thinking about their social and legal responsibility.
Huynh,
Don: How do you think we can get the government to promote safe
driving?
A: I always believed in the pure fact of rewarding drivers for
keeping their legal record clean. One can conclude that if they keep
their driving records clean, then they're are driving safely.
Thompson,
Jason: Are all three responsibilities personal, social, legal
important in structuring our driving habits?
A: I believe that all three come into play when we develop our
driving habits. We don't pay attention to them when we're learning.
Dr.
James: Isn't' it true that in terms of probability, you're more
likely, on the average, to get into a crash if you break legal and safety
rules? Explain why or why not.
A: I believe that you're more likely to crash when safety rules
are not followed because you are taking the car past it's safety limits
and there is a high chance of error. I don't believe that breaking
legal rules have any direct cause to crashes because it's done on a daily
basis and the driving hours breaking legal rules compared to crashes are
very small.
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I felt pretty good answering question because the content
was easy to understand and easy to remember. I got the feeling that
everyone in the class basically had the same questions in mind. Everyone
seemed to be paying attention to me because I was getting a lot of eye
contact. The questions in the end gave me the impression that they
were listening and that everything was easily understood.
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I think all the reports are basically the same when
it comes to content. The only differences I saw was the
appearance of the page. Some people had lots of pictures and bright
colors while others had a simple white background but their text varied
in size and style. I think because of the rules put upon the reports, that
they all were pretty basic looking.
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You have to have some interest in the report you're doing because if you're
not interesting, nobody else will be. The better the person's report
you are presenting, the better your presentation will be. You need
to take good notes of the content and make it flow so everyone doesn't
get bored. Also make sure you take good notes during the discussion
because it is hard to remember everything that everyone says in a hour
long class.
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