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First things first. Before you read anything to do with traffic psychology, there's one basic principle you should know. Driving behavior is made up of three domains: Affective(feelings, motives), cognitive(thoughts, judgments), and sensorimotor(sensory input and actions). They are present in every driving situation and learning to distinguish between them is very important.
When a certain situation arises, it usually generates feelings which may be good or bad. These feelings along with your emotions generate into thoughts. Finally, all of these combined lead you to act out accordingly. Here's a little visual for you to help clear things up a bit. Let's say you're driving behind someone who in your mind is driving way too slow. If you're like me, you'd probably start to feel irritated(affective), think about finding a way to make them go faster(cognitive) which may result in something like tailgating(sensorimotor). By the way, if you do this kind of stuff(retaliating on other drivers), you could definitely benefit from a driving personality make-over. Anyway, as you can see, each domain is dependent on the others and learning to distinguish between them is a big step in your journey through traffic psychology.
Self-witnessing is a useful term which was coined by Dr. James (a.k.a. Dr. Driving). It involves being aware of your driving behavior by recording your feelings, thoughts and actions as they happen. There are various ways to record this but Dr. Driving recommends carrying a tape recorder with you when you drive. A substitute method would be to carry a pen and paper with you and try to record your experiences the first chance you get. However, the pen and paper method is not as reliable. First of all, you won't be getting your initial reactions as they happen and you may also forget to write down important information.
You should be very specific when recording, keeping in mind the three domains at all times. By analyzing your recordings, you will get a good look at your driving personality and you can better understand the process involved in driving. Once you are aware of these things, you can then work to make improvements. To get an even better understanding, let's take a look at a few self-witnessing reports by former traffic psychology students.
In her self-witnessing, Cherilyn Okazaki noticed her impatience to be a problem. In the beginning, her trip started off well but a stalled car soon changed that. As we all know, whenever and wherever there's a stalled car, there will always be rubberneckers. Okay, let's stop right here. I just have to say that I can't stand rubbernecking. Not only does it slow down traffic but come on now, if you seen one stalled car you seen them all. I can understand quickly glancing over but not to the point where you are slowing down to stare. Besides, put yourself in the other persons shoes. I'm sure they don't appreciate standing on the side of the road and having everyone stare at them. It probably makes them feel like a freak show or something. Anyway, back to Cherilyn. She said:
"There happened to be a stalled car on the far right shoulder lane. When the cars began to break to rubberneck, I became enraged, and I started swearing and cussing to the cars in front of me for slowing down. I even remember pretending that my handbrake was a machine gun and I shot all the cars in front of me."
As she was forced to slow down, she became angrier and more impatient. When this happened, everything else seemed to go wrong as you will soon see. She went on to say:
"When I thought about it, I had not been singing for a while and in fact, had not heard a slow song for a while. Also, the sun was coming in from the left side of the car very brightly. I even started cussing at the sun! I started cussing and swearing worse than ever."
Fortunately, because she was doing the self-witnessing exercise, Cherilyn was able to think rationally through her behavior. She found that as she focused on the negatives, everything else began to get on her nerves. These were small things which she encountered everyday and was often able to let them pass without a second thought. Things like the sun and the radio were now her enemy. After finding this out, she decided to work on the source of her negativity which was her impatience. The next time out, she made sure to pay special attention to her negative feelings. Focusing on this, she was able to stay in control and not let her bad emotions take over.
Heidi Easley had the same problem of being impatient. Her self-witnessing exercise was broken down by domains for easier understanding. She said:
"It's been a long day at school. I feel tired and cranky(affective)."
"I'm thinking how badly I want my Reese's peanut butter cup and Diet Coke before work and only have 15 minutes to get there. I want TIME to eat my Reese's and now I'm stuck behind a donkey's ass. I'll tell you, Impatience is my first name right now. Here I am cruising on my ped, making good time and all of a sudden this dumbdumb just floats into my lane. Does this donkey think he's at Disneyland riding a "Its a Small World" boat(cognitive)?
"I squeezed between Donkey's car and the curb, looked at him through the window, gave him the finger, told him to go back to Disneyland and took off(sensorimotor).
As you can see, Heidi's self-witnessing exposed her aggressiveness as a driver. She too was able to modify her behavior. By changing her thinking patterns, she replaced the negative thoughts with positive ones. This allowed her to remain calm during the same type of situations which brought about impatience.
Through my self-witnessing, I was able to learn a lot about my driving. I am a very situational driver. For instance, if I'm on the freeway when it's not busy and when there are no cops around, I speed. I probably end up going about 20-25mph above the speed limit. To tell you the truth, traffic permitting, I may even go faster but my Toyata Tercel probably can't handle that. Once it hits 70mph, it sounds like things are going to fall off.
Anyway, I realized that one of my biggest problems is impatience. If I'm in a rush for something, I tend to drive like a maniac. I begin to feel more and more irritated(affective) as it seems everyone is purposely going slow, and everything the other drivers do is taken personally(cognitive). Even the red lights are staying on extra long just for me. When I think about this kind of stuff it just makes me more irritated and it is reflected in my driving. I speed, take more chances and squeeze into lanes which I normally wouldn't attempt(sensorimotor) to squeeze into.
After looking at the reports of myself as well as others, its obvious that a big problem is impatience. However, if you really wanted to work on it, this as well as other behaviors can be changed. The key is to remain in control as much as possible. To learn how to do this, take a look at my first report.
Now comes the fun part. With the permission of her parents, I took Lori (my friend's sister) out for a little drive. I was attempting to get her to do some self-witnessing as a passenger to see what goes on in that little brain of hers. Lori is a talkative 5 year old so I just figured this would be no problem.
As the three of us jumped in the car(Lori, my friend and myself) Lori was ecstatic about being able to sit in front. The first thing I asked was "what's the first thing you do when you get in the car?" She replied "put on your seat belt." All right Lori! Your parents taught you well. The plan was to head down to Chuck E. Cheese to have some lunch(the only way I could get her to come). So before we set off, I asked if she was comfortable and she said yes. We began our journey and I asked what she was seeing as we drove. She replied, "the buildings, clouds and a pole." I asked if she could see the cars in front of us and she said "no." It took me a while but I soon discovered that she couldn't see the cars because she couldn't see over the dashboard. We took a detour to my house and picked up a pillow for her to sit on. So now we were ready to try this again. "Can you see the cars in front of you now?" I asked. "Yes" she replied and so we were off.
As we drove around, I began to ask her how she felt. "Hungry" was all I got. "No Lori, I mean about my driving. Do you feel safe?" She replied "yah." When I asked why, she said "cause I have my seat belt on and there's an airbag." It surprised me that she even knew what an airbag was. Unfortunately, her side didn't have one. Here's a sample of how some of our dialog went.
Me: "Your side doesn't have one."
Lori: "Why not?"
Me: "Because the people who made the car didn't put one in."
Lori: "How come?"
Me: "I don't know"
Lori: "Why?"
Me: "So what, do you know how to get to Chuck E. Cheese? "
Lori: "Don't you?"
Me: "Yah but I was just wondering if you did."
Lori: "No"
Okay, this is going well. By this time, I noticed I had better ask some better questions. So we continued for a while and here's how it went.
Lori: "Watch out for the car now."
Me: "Where?"
Lori: "Over there(pointing to the car which was switching lanes 200 feet ahead)."
Me: "Don't worry, I see him."
Lori: "Don't bang him."
Me: "What would happen if I did?"
Lori: "We would get hurt. Watch out for the man."
Me: "I see him."
Lori: "Don't bang him."
Me: (thinking things were better when she couldn't see)Am I going fast enough?"
Lori: "No"
Me: "I'm going the speed limit. You're not supposed to go over that right?"
Lori: "I'm hungry."
Me: "You want me to break the law because you're hungry?"
Lori: "Yah(giggling)"
Me: "That's not right."
Lori: "I know. Watch out for the car."
Me: "Do you know what that light means(pointing to the blinkers)."
Lori: "He wants to turn that way."
Me: "What if he didn't signal?"
Lori: "Then he would go straight."
Me: "What if he turned but didn't signal?"
Lori: "Then the police would catch him."
I continued to ask questions regarding signs, what the lines on the road meant and basic rules and regulations. I was soon able to notice that Lori was a pretty knowledgeable person considering her age. Although she didn't know the exact rules of the road, she was able to distinguish right from wrong in many situations. For example, she knew that going above the speed limit was bad and that not signaling when turning was wrong. She was also very aware of safety issues. She knew of the importance of seat belts as well as airbags. In addition, she seemed very much aware of her surroundings while driving. I don't know how many times she told me to watch out for that car or watch out for the man. She was the ultimate back seat driver but I didn't mind one bit. It gave her a chance to learn and will help develop awareness for when she starts to drive.
Personally, I feel self-witnessing for children is a great idea. It not only teaches them to be more aware of their surroundings but can also teach them good driving behavior. It's not too early for them to learn especially for things like wearing seat belts and paying attention to the road. After all, children are easily influenced so teaching them now is a good investment for the future.
I feel children's self-witnessing should be encouraged by parents as well as schools. Schools could contribute by encouraging children to practice with their parents. They could learn to observe good/bad driving behavior while out driving with their parents. I realize that not everyone has access to a car so an option would be to just take a walk with your child. Have them point out good/bad driving behaviors as well as things like when and where to cross the street.
Another excellent activity which could be done in school is watching driving behavior on tv. They could have them view cartoons and point out all the bad things. This will allow them to participate in a fun environment which would promote learning.
Allowing them to participate actively as a passenger or pedestrian not only teaches them, but gives them a chance for them to feel important. Whether we adults realize it or not, children are very smart and their input can be very beneficial. For example, Lori noticed that I take my shoe off when I drive. She went on to ask if it bothers me and what would happen if it got stuck under that stuff(the pedals). I thought about it and she was right. Well thanks to Lori, I now put my shoe on the side so my feet can move freely. Anyone can benefit from children's input as long as you are willing to listen. After all, part of our responsibility as drivers is to be aware of the passenger's feelings and if possible, to accommodate them. Being in tune with the passenger will make them feel more comfortable, and probably make you a better driver. Give it a try. You won't be disappointed.
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