TABLE OF CONTENTS
Instructions
for this Report
I Can't Help it if I Have A Need For Speed
Warning!: More Delays Ahead
Procede With Caution
Agression Comes In Many Forms
Police Fight Road Rage
Roads of Frustration
Driving to Save our Lives
Driving Conditions for Future Generations
Don't Blame Me!
My suggestions for Future Generations
How My Compares with Others In My Generation
I CAN'T HELP IT IF I HAVE THE
NEED FOR SPEED
Subject: Re: Agressive driving
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 1994 04:26:15 -0400
ÀThe interesting thread through all these stories about slow drivers is the attitude of one criminal being annoyed about the actions of another. It is like a burgler breaking into a house only to find it had already been ripped off an hour earlier - then hunting down the original guy and yelling at him.
Since it was my post that strated this off, I wanted to point out a few things:
1) the speed limit for the roads in question are between 45 and 55 mph. The signs I mentioned are those yellow curve ahead signs. It is my honest belief that they were designed with 1940's technology in mind.
2) the dumptruck was traveling between 30 and 40 mph, well under the speed limit.
3) I was not tailgating the Porsche untill he stopped completely. And even then I was still about 4 car lengths back (while traveling ~35).
4) I cross posted to the porschephiles as a sort of trolling action. I wanted to see what sort of flames I would get, and from who. It was interesting results I got.....email me privatly if you really care to hear about them
5) I never pass other cars unless the center line is broken on my side, AND there is ample room to complete the pass with good visibility. I'm the last person who wants to get in an accident in my car.
6) The point I was trying to make was not that I can be a great big jerk (which I guess I can at times) but that I found it frustrating that other drivers got so ticked off when all I wanted to do was drive a bit faster than they did (or someone else wanted to drive faster). I certianly don't offer someone the one fingered salute after they pass me on a road, yet occaisionally I see someone doing that to me, strange when the roads are clear, visibility is good, and I never encroached on their space (on familiar roads, where I can see a half mile or so, if there is a slower car I'll start to pass them early, so that I don't tailgate.)
7) i'm sure there are more points, but what's the point....
MY COMMENTS
Miq Millan seems to have a point about people getting so annoyed at
the person who simply wants or needs to drive a little faster than other
drivers. It could be that they are running late for an appointment, or
maybe late for work , or school. Maybe they have an emergency to attend
to, who knows? The point is people who drive a little quicker
do not do so just to be jerks, at least most people do not. What about
common courtesy of slower drivers going to the right lane if someone is coming
up quickly behind them. I am not saying that everytime someone comes up
quickly behind you that you must move to the side, but if you are driving
in the fast lane going 50 mph, at least have the decency to move over!
Unfortunately many people choose to disregard the fact that other people
need to be at certain places at certain times. I hate to say it, but I
believe it is much worse in Hawaii due to the "Hawaiian Time" aspect
of our culture. Since Hawaii's roads are becoming more
congested each year and ,still, people choose to ignore the fact that
there may be individuals that may want, or need to drive faster then they are,
road rage will continue to escalate.
Aggressive Driving: Asking for Trouble Aggressive Driving Facts
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says, about 66 percent of all traffic fatalities annually are caused by aggressive driving behaviors, such as passing on the right, running red lights and tailgating.
At least 20 percent of adults have hostility levels serious enough to be a health hazard. (Source: USA TODAY) Aggressive driving incidents are defined as events in which an angry or impatient driver tries to kill or injure another driver after a traffic dispute. (Source: U.S. News & World Report)
Aggressive driving incidents have risen by 51 percent since 1990. And 37 percent of these incidents involved firearms. (Source: U.S. News & World Report)
The number of drivers on the road is increasing. As of 1990, 91 percent of people drove to work. Commuters in one-third of the largest cities spent well over 40 hours a year in traffic jams. (Source: U.S. News & World Report)
Aggressive driving may be on the upswing, so
remember not to panic and avoid confrontations when possible.
MY COMMENTS
This article seems to be warning drivers about the future and
what is coming up ahead as far as conditions on the road are concerned.
More people are driving on the road, that will never end, and more people are
stressed due to demanding schedules with work and family. Put
millions of people on the road daily and what do you get? Probably road
rage. People are less patient than ever simply because they don't have
the time nowadays. They have an overloaded workday, probably
have a family to tend to, maybe going to school as well, not to mention other
important functions to attend to, such as club or church functions, as well as
other important things that may be involved in one's life. There simply
isn't enough time in a day, on top of everything else one must tackle the feat
of an overcongested highway, give us a break! We need to do
something about our overcrowded freeways before we all kill ourselves.
Aggressive Driving: Asking for Trouble Safety and Preventative Measures
If you encounter an aggressive driver, remember these tips:
. Don't block the passing lane.
. Avoid blocking the right-hand turn lane.
. Don't take more than one parking space.
. Don't tailgate.
. Don't stop in the road to talk with a pedestrian or other drivers.
. If you travel slowly, pull over to allow traffic to pass you.
. Avoid eye contact with an aggressive driver.
. Keep your eyes on the road.
. Keep away from erratic drivers.
. Don't challenge other drivers by speeding up to hold your own in your travel
lane.À
MY COMMENTS
It seems as though each time one drives on the freeway, it becomes a
greater risk to one's own safety and well-being. Why is it that we
have to take precautions in simply driving to work in the safety of our own
automobile? I guess that is the point, it isn't safe in our automobiles
any longer. Each year it becomes a more vulnerable position to put ourselves
in. It is as though we put ouselves in moving targets, targets for angry
and hostile drivers who are waiting for unsuspecting drivers to "make
their day". I had to chuckle to myself when I first came
across this ready-made list of what to do in case of an encounter with an
aggressive driver. It seems to magnify the danger of meeting an
aggressive driver by a hundred times. But when I think about how seriously
dangerous "road rage" has become, the fear is more of a reality
now. People are more enraged on the road today and it becomes a priority
not to become a victim of circumstance.
AGGRESSION COMES IN MANY FORMS
More and more people seem to be adopting this philosophy behind the wheel of a car - with dangerous, sometimes fatal, results. Aggressive driving can appear in many forms: Refusing to yield the right of way; cutting other drivers off; speeding in and out on the highway to get there faster. Other drivers get angry.
"Highway madness and road rage are the terms I use to describe repeated acts that cause physical danger to persons and vehicles," said Dr. John Larson, author of "Steering Clear of Highway Madness". "These driving behaviors greatly increase the chance of accidents."
In his book, Larson outlines a range of aggressive driving. "The first stage is where you get annoyed at other drivers, but keep it to yourself. Your anger is not transmitted to anyone outside the car. Next you might give someone the finger or call them a name. In more serious cases, you try to cut them off or pay them back. At the far end of the scale are incidents where people use their car as a weapon or pull out a gun," said Larson.
Newspaper headlines have long documented car-related highway gun violence in Los Angeles. But the trend is spreading. Fatal gunshots have been fired after roadway disagreements in regions across the country. Locally, in 1995, serious injuries were sustained by a motorist in Fairfield County, Connecticut after he was shot by an irate driver. Recently, actor Jack Nicholson was arrested after bashing in the windshield and windows of another driver's car, shouting, "You cut me off!"
American Automobile Association (AAA) statistics indicate that since 1990 there have been 1,500 reported incidents each year of violence between drivers. "Presumably, there are many more that are not reported," said Stephanie Faul, spokeswoman for the AAA's Foundation on Traffic Safety. "Many police departments do not have a box to check off on accident report forms for aggressive driving."
As law enforcement tries to update its tracking mechanisms, psychologists and traffic planners are figuring out ways to ease tempers behind the wheel. The issue even started to make the rounds on the TV talk shows earlier this year. Meanwhile, surveys conducted by AAA suggest that many people think aggressive driving is more of a danger on the roads than drunk driving (see side bar).
"There is something in driving which allows people to live out personalities they might not otherwise show," said Faul. "You feel invulnerable and you're not dealing with other human beings, you're dealing with other cars."
Larson adds that we have yet to develop our highway etiquette. "People have been walking on streets for thousands of years. We know how to do that without getting into fights. But cars have barely been around for a century. We still don't know how to get along on the road without resorting to anger," he said.
Other experts insist our biological roots are to blame. In a British Automobile Association study last year, researchers suggested that territorial behavior was part of aggressive driving. They reported that 62 percent of drivers had been tailgated, 59 percent had headlights flashed at them, and 48 percent had received obscene gestures.
Aggressive driving "probably does relate to a personality type," said Col. David Mitchell, superintendent of the Maryland state police. "It doesn't relate to gender. We see men and women, young and old, engaging in aggressive driving." Traffic congestion may support the animal-aggression theory: When the number of cars vying for the same amount of road increases, drivers feel their space threatened and raise their hackles.
Not surprisingly, regional variations in aggressive driving are reported. "In Boston and New York, people honk at you before the light turns green," said Robert Baron, professor of psychology at Rensselaer Polytechnic in Troy, N.Y. "In Indiana, one of our researchers sat in his car at a traffic light when the light turned green. We found the typical person in Indiana didn't honk for 10 to 15 seconds."
Larson outlines five types of aggressive drivers: The speeder, who wants to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible and will become enraged if forced to slow down; The competitor, who sees the speeder coming and decides to race; The passive aggressor, who blocks other drivers and doesn't let them pass or cut in; The narcissist, who takes a dislike to another driver because of race, sex or type of car; And the vigilante, who is going to make a violator of the rules pay.
"Driving is really a communal activity - we all need each other to cooperate if we are to reach our separate destinations," said Larson. "The problem is that many people don't see it this way."
Aggression on the streets may also symbolize a more general pattern in American life: Everyone wants to get his own way. Now. "We aren't raised to be patient," said Faul. "I get angry at my computer when I wait for it to boot." Yet, say psychologists, the most effective weapon against losing your cool behind the wheel is counting to 10. Other tips to avoid losing your temper include:
? Plan journeys to avoid rush hours.
? Make sure your seat is comfortable, the
windshield clean, and your radio tuned to a favorite
station.
? And if you storm out of the office or the house in a bad mood, wind down before starting out.
"One thing drivers can do is plan for a little more time on the road," said Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman
for the Automobile Club of Southern California. "Aggressive driving only nets them a few seconds of time. If they actually drove calmly and within the rules, the time difference isn't significant, but the potential for crashes and inciting other drivers is greatly reduced." Larson uses his counseling skills in private sessions with habitual aggressive drivers and offers weekly seminars on avoiding the behavior. "My driving modification program seeks to get people to see the underlying context for their driving. If their attitudes and belief systems can be changed, their driving will be changed."
Another basic tip - don't drive alone. "Single occupant vehicles are involved in most aggressive driving incidents," said Larson. Carpools and vanpools are the best modifiers of bad driving behavior, as the presence of co-workers in the vehicle will keep most drivers in line.
Empathy helps too. Someone who swerved in front of you without warning may be "having a bad day." But that isn't easy for those who find driving depersonalizing. "The person in the other auto becomes an object," said Michael Benjamin, a Washington, D.C. psychologist.
"One of the reasons for the problem is that people tend to hide out alone in their cars - for many it's a refuge from their day-to-day life," said Bob Ouellette, Manager of Drivers' Services for AAA of Hartford. "If you knew the person in the other car, you would stop driving aggressively. You only feel like you can do it if you're dealing with a complete stranger."
Faul added: "You don't think, 'There's a 37-year-old woman with three children who's worried about her husband.' You think, 'There's a Ford Taurus that cut me off.'"
À
MY COMMENTS
This article talks about the different forms of
aggression on the road and also some background on who is doing the
aggression. It talks about the "speeders", the five
different types of drivers that may cause conflict on the road. I think
all drivers on the road fit into at least one category, they are either a
competitor, passive-aggressive, the speeder, the narcissist, and the
vigilante. Even if a person starts out driving like the perfect driver
they will somehow end up fitting under one of the categories mentioned
above. I also agree with the article when it talks about the psychological
aspect of driving on the streets. It mentions the animal-aggression
theory of people fighting for their own personal space on the road as it
becomes more and more congested. It is a natural instinct for a person to
try and maintain their own personal space, it happens all the time, in every
aspect of life. For instance, in an elevator it is obvious that personal
space is important, or another example would be standing in line for something
or another, people maintain their distances from one another, it is a natural
thing for all humans and animals. It is no wonder why aggression on the
road is becoming more and more prevalent.
Road rage over the limit
Police fighting escalation of angry drivers
TORONTO -- Road warriors need to park their anger.
Ontario police are stepping up their efforts to stem the escalation of "road rage" by trying to identify and understand the causes and symptoms of the contemporary driving phenomenon. "(We're) certainly aware of an increase of aggression," said Staff Sgt. Mark Wolfe of the provincial police. "A lot of people become 10 feet tall behind the wheel of a car." Officers already answer calls where guns are involved, Supt. William Currie said. People will get out and kick each other's cars or threaten each other with baseball bats; officers have been assaulted or had vehicles driven at them.
Currie put together a team of 18 specialized officers, called highway rangers, in August 1995 to enforce road safety.
The officers already target driving skills and aggressive driving but now will also focus on a driver's mood or emotional state, he said. Highway rangers spent two days in a seminar with members of the Addiction Research Foundation discussing the reasons for road rage. "Road rage is a societal condition," said Patrick Smith, director of the foundation's clinical research treatment institute. "It's very much a part of our culture." The pressure of aggressive drivers, traffic congestion or getting cut off contributes to road rage but it escalates when people make contact and engage in a "road war," he said. "It's important to realize you're playing Russian roulette any time you're engaging in any road rage activity," Smith said. Currie recommends avoiding eye contact with confrontational drivers and keeping the car doors locked and windows up.
"Don't tell anyone off in a car because you have no idea who you're dealing with," he said. The road rage epidemic is not yet as bad as in the United States where people will pull over and pull out guns, but Ontario police want to take action now. "We want to take the pro-active approach; we don't want to wait until it's too late," Wolfe said.
International research has found that in 20 per cent of fatal accidents, the drivers were found to have been involved in agressive altercations at some point in the six hours preceding their death. Earlier this year in Vancouver two separate road rage incidents ended with a man dead and another man in hospital with head injuries. People have to learn to be control their anger while in their cars, said clinical researcher Lorne Korman.
Drivers will make mistakes themselves but are more likely to construe other people's actions as deliberate, he said. "We need to be more realistic," he said. "Motorists need to give others the benefit of the doubt."
RAGE TIPS
Police are focusing their efforts on preventing the escalation of road rage. Some tips:
Never assume that an apparently aggressive act was intended. Inhibit your own anger by taking deep breaths, keeping yourself calm or putting on relaxing music. If you're being hassled by another driver, try not to react. Avoid making eye contact. Keep your doors locked and your windows up. When stopped in traffic, leave enough space to pull out from behind the car you're following. Try not to disassociate yourself from the people in the cars around you. Pretend other drivers are people you know.
MY COMMENTS
When the police officers become concerned about road rage, it is time to take this epidemic seriously. I aggree with the article when it states the road rage is a societal condition. Drivers are influenced by other drivers on the road. Conditions on the road will effect the way drivers interact with other drivers. It has become an environment where aggression breeds aggression. Like with other societal conditions such as home violence. A child brought up in that environment will soon illicit aggressive behaviors toward other people or loved ones. This is the same for the environment on the highways, it is sort of a protective mechanism against hostile drivers on the road. One who lets other drivers on the road take advantage of their good natured driving will constantly get bullied around by other drivers. Most people do not want to be a victim, but that is what they will become if they let everyone else have their way around them. Becoming an aggressive driver seems to be the only way one can survive on the fast-lanes of our super- highways.
Sunday, August 10, 1997
Jeffrey Page: If you spend most of your time in Passaic and Bergen, you begin to think Sussex County is the sticks. Maybe it is the sticks. There are places where you see more animals than people. But with more and more people moving up there (not to mention northern Passaic and Morris counties), you get some really hairy traffic problems.
Everybody drives, and perish the thought that they car-pool. Take a look: Just about everybody's alone in the car. Even on a great morning like today, you have 15,000 vehicles going through Franklin. That's an official state Department of Transportation count. And it's only a two-lane road up here. Farther south, there are more lanes. But there's also more traffic.
You want to know what brings about road rage? It's what happens when people who are just trying to get to work to get the money to pay the taxes to widen the roads so people can get to work realize that getting to work is getting impossible.
The commute gets off to a nice gentle start in Sussex, where, after you get through Franklin, the only thing that slows you down are hills and curves. Then you just meander along over the hills.
Rod Allee: Meander? How do you talk like that at 7 in the morning?
Notice they've got a single passing lane on this mountain -- you don't see many three-lane highways outside of West Virginia.
J.P.: Probably here because of the hill. If you're
in a car, you don't want to get stuck behind a truck doing 20 mph up the hill.
Look around anywhere on 23, or anywhere else for that matter. Everybody's
alone, lost in thought or listening to music or the
news. Maybe Howard Stern. You drive alone, you're the boss. You choose the
music, and if you make a funny noise with your mouth eating a bagel, or if you
slurp your coffee, who's going to call you a slob?
R.A.: Who's calling who a slob? Uh, sorry about that. The scenery's so nice I wasn't paying attention to what you were saying. You're right, though: Almost every car I see has only one person in it.
But the traffic isn't as bad as I expected. Of course it's a summer rush hour; it must be a lot worse when all the commuters return from vacation.
J.P.: Up here, at least, we're moving. Here's where the road widens to two lanes each direction, and here's Passaic County.
R.A.: The median widens, too -- can you believe it, there are businesses right in the median strip? There's a gas station, a pizza place, something called The Ballroom. Hey, there's a house -- wonder what it's like, living in a median? Where would you walk the dog?
I see the state has been repaving this stretch of 23. They've painted a dotted line down the middle but they haven't bothered to paint solid lines along the sides yet. I'd hate to be driving here at night and be unable to tell where the edge of the road is.
J.P.: Isn't it amazing how taxpayers have to wait for important safety devices? Like a shoulder line?
Well, we're at Echo Lake Road, so the Newark water filtration plant is just ahead in the median. The last couple of traffic lights have shown what happens when a lot of people move into an area and decide that car-pooling isn't for them. I used to drive this road every day, and for as long as I can remember, traffic has just about died at these lights. I swear, commuting on Route 23 is a punishment, but no one tells you what you're being punished for.
R.A.: Route 23's famous curves start here, back and forth over the Passaic-Morris county border. Too bad we don't have a Porsche. On second thought, driving a Porsche through here would be instant road rage -- with all the traffic, you'd never get a chance to open it up.
J.P.: By the way, forget the allegedly clever billboard ads. It's here in Kinnelon where you find the Route 23 Menagerie and Other Fun Stuff; it's the only touch of whimsy along the highway.
A few years ago, someone stuck a plastic Halloween pumpkin on top of a utility pole about a mile south of the filtration plant. The orange faded to white, and then someone put another orange one on top of the next pole. Check it out: After the pumpkins there's a big plastic beer bottle, an American flag with a bowling pin, a rooster, a hawk, a flamingo, a bear, a pink pig, a mailbox with its red flag up, and, finally, a traffic cone. Each on its own pole. P. T. Barnum couldn't have done it better. For years, I've been trying to find the guy who put that stuff up and do a story about him.
R.A.: Better than a row of Burma Shave signs. Don't tell the utility company, though, or some rulebook-crazed supervisor in a gray suit will order them taken down.
We've actually been making decent time and . . . whoops, did you see that "Road Construction Ahead" sign?
J.P.: That means we're coming to Kinnelon Road. DOT is spending $26 million to add a third lane in each direction along a 3 1/4-mile stretch through Kinnelon, Butler, and Riverdale. They started it last fall. They're supposed to finish it in February 1999.
They picked the right spot. Remember that traffic volume of 15,000 a day in Franklin? Well, DOT counted 24,000 at Doremus Road in West Milford, 37,000 at Echo Lake Road. Farther down, at Jackson Avenue in Pequannock, it's 60,000, and it goes to 75,000 where Route 202 splits off from 23 in Wayne.
R.A.: Every last one of these drivers is convinced Route 23 is the crummiest road in New Jersey, and it has gotten worse since they completed Route 287 five years ago. That pushed the outer suburban ring farther north: It's no longer impossible to commute from West Milford or Jefferson or Kinnelon into Westchester or the corporate row of northern Bergen. The real estate agents are happy, but poor old Route 23 was never built for all the increased traffic from 287.
Yeah, the DOT is adding a third lane. But these lights are dangerous. They waste fuel. They waste time. Why isn't DOT taking out these toy turnarounds and building adult-sized cloverleafs? Why isn't it building overpasses? Why doesn't it get rid of these stupid lights?
ANSWER ME!!!
Oh . . . sorry about that. Talk about road rage. I'm getting steamed just thinking of all this. The DOT must have hit a big sale on traffic lights because there are a jillion on this road.
J.P.: Some mornings it seems there's a light every mile. You go, you stop. You go, you stop. Check out these evil twins in Butler -- two lights a couple of hundred feet apart, one at Boonton Avenue, the next one at Bartholdi Avenue. Because of volume and construction, you stagger up to the Boonton Avenue light. The number of cars at this point is 62,600 a day.
So you stop and go all the way to the light, and you stop one final time because some law of nature dictates that when you reach this light, it's going to be red. Then you get to the one at Bartholdi. If the light at Boonton Avenue doesn't completely foul traffic, this one does. I think it's there to allow people from Butler to make a left turn onto 23 south. Why they can't make that turn from Boonton Avenue I've never been able to figure out.
R.A.: The light fantastic. Can't they at least synchronize them?
J.P.: It seems the lights are always out of sync, even though the state insists that they're re-coordinated every three months. Take the three lights in the construction area, at Kinnelon Road, Boonton Avenue, and Bartholdi Avenue. They're within 1.2 miles of one another, but on especially lousy mornings, it can take 30 minutes to go from Kinnelon to Bartholdi. And that's no exaggeration.
But help's coming. DOT says the widening program includes a project to computerize the timing of all three lights on one circuit. This should make things a little more constant, but some people still are going to be trapped by the twin lights at Boonton and Bartholdi.
R.A.: I'm tired, and we're not even halfway to work. What say we call in sick?
J.P.: You couldn't have picked a better day, but I just got back from vacation. They'd figure us out quick enough. Anyway, the construction continues into Riverdale, where the highway widens to three lanes each way down the hill to the traffic light where Newark-Pompton Turnpike comes in. This is a steep hill, and trucks have a nasty habit of losing their brakes on the way down. There have been deaths, injuries, and a lot of cars turned into accordions.
Savvy Route 23 drivers slide into the left lane going down the hill to stay clear of the trucks. If a truck's brakes fail and you're in the right lane, stopped at the light, you're a sitting duck.
R.A.: Typical journalist. Why not see the bright side? Look at it this way: If you're desperate to get the insured value out of your car, just park it here in the right-hand lane and a truck will soon total it.
J.P.: Once past the hill, you find an interesting paradox. The road stays nice and wide all the way down to Routes 46 and 80 -- which is where most of the drivers are headed -- so you expect to keep moving. But you also find a huge buildup in volume because Route 23 is not just Route 23 -- it is joined for its stretch run by the Newark-Pompton Turnpike and Route 202, each of which carries lots of traffic.
After the long lights at Jackson Avenue and Ratzer Road, you catch the final red insult, the light at Packanack Lake Road in Wayne. You age quickly as you creep toward this one. The backup is often a mile. But after Packanack Lake, it's just about clear sailing to Willowbrook Mall and 80 and 46.
R.A.: They ought to designate the 23-46-80 intersection a National Historic Landmark, or at least a War Memorial to all those commuters who've gone before us. The Spaghetti Bowl, everyone calls it. Takes about as long to get through as the infamous 4 and 17 interchange in Paramus, but this one is infinitely more confusing.
Hurry up! Right lane quick! Get over left! No, I meant the middle lane! Stay right -- didn't you see that sign? Let that car in!
J.P.: Cut it out, I'm trying to drive! Maybe those people who refuse to car-pool are right.
R.A.: Whew. They don't call you the Road Warrior for nothing. You got us to Little Falls safely, and now it's time for the instant recap:
It's taken 43 minutes to drive 26 miles down Route 23. That's an average of 36 mph. For a major state highway, that's pathetic.
We're tired, we're frustrated, and we've been exposed to unsafe conditions (we didn't even mention the overgrown weeds on the cloverleaf blocking the view of merging traffic, or the raggedy road surface for much of the way).
Man, I'm dreading the return trip. . . .
MY COMMENTS
I get a headache just by reading the article above about one person's commute to work. Taking 43 minutes to drive a 26 mile commute does not seem that long. But going through all of the details of the little traffic slowdowns that the person goes through takes its toll on me as a reader, and I would imagine it would take its toll on me as a driver as well. I personally go through a similar type of journey trying to get to work and school from Waipio Gentry. It is probably around 20 miles or so from where I live to the University of Hawaii, and a little farther to get to Kahala, where I work. Traffic is terrible! It can take me anywhere from 35 minutes on a smooth day, to an hour and a half on a bad day. Especially now with the road construction going on there is no way of escaping it!
Doing this commute once, or sometimes twice a day, can really make a person
irrate.
Just, exactly, what IS "defensive driving"?
"Defensive driver" or "driving defensively" are terms that safety personnel may casually toss around. We somehow presume that all people know just what we mean and how the terms should apply.
Defensive driving, however, is not just a training course for drivers. It is a concept -- approach to driving that is learned and sustained through continual practice. It is an approach to driving that encourages anticipation of risks and driving accordingly. We should not wait for a collisioin to tell us we are doing something wrong. Learning by our mistakes may work in some circumstances, but is not the way to improve our driving skills or to ensure a long life.
A recent study from Canada, reported by the Insurance Institute for Highway and Auto Safety, concluded that training classes for new drivers do not prove particularly effective in reducing accidents. Further reading disclosed that for beginning drivers improvement was poor, because it seemed they were more intent on accomplishing the driving tasks of simply keeping the vehicle on the road and within the parameters of the driving laws. It seems that being so engrossed in the operational details as a beginner does not allow sufficient time or available mental capacity to deal with the principles of driving defensively. Learning to drive and performing safely is a more long-term learning process. You can't presume that because you had a high school driving class that you have sufficiently developed the skills to be a safe and well-trained driver. Becoming a defensive driver does not mean or suggest that you have to learn a lot of complicated maneuvers that would qualify you as a race car driver. It more accurately means that a driver can stay out of trouble despite road conditions, the weather, and most importantly, the behavior of other drivers.
If we are going to talk about driving defensively, first start with the safety of the vehicle. We are told in any good fleet management policy that we always begin the trip with a pre-trip inspection of our vehicle. This means at least a walk-around inspection of the vehicle for damages and marks, tire pressures, and then a check of lights, belts, and fluids. This is performed to give a good indication of the road-worthiness of our vehicle at the start of our trip. This is a good time to check our own condition as a driver and our upcoming driving situation. We need to think about such things as are we running a little late? Are we stressd? Are we tired? Have we remembered our driving glasses (if necessary), etc.?
It is always better to drive when we are in a
proper mood. More importantly, we don't want to be upset because we know that
when people drive in this condition, they are likely to be more agressive, and
thus drive more offensively than defensively. Regardless of how your day is
going, when you slide behind the wheel, you should be calm and prepared for the
driving event, because it is going to take your total attention and
concentration. Once we slide behind the wheel, we should automatically buckle
up the seat belt, check the adjustment of the seat, the mirrors, gauges, etc.,
before switching on the ignition. This is when we should seriously consider all
of the implications of being enveloped in a mobile mass of steel, plastic, and
glass. This expensive, heavy monster will be participating with other rolling
monsters in a predetermined pattern of routes, turns, stops,
hills, inclines, flashing lights and signs that challenge our reflex responses
and decision making toward the objective of arriving safely at our destination.
The cornerstone of defensive driving is the spacing rule; that is, giving sufficient distance between yourself and the car in front of you to react to emergency situations that will save you from a collision. We say this is the cornerstone of the defensive driving experience because perhaps more than any other situation, if a driver allows sufficient distance to accomplish a defensive maneuver, they will avoid the collision. We use to instruct the driver to measure the following distance by estimating the number of car lengths between the front of their car and the car ahead of them, allowing a car length for every 10 mph. of speed. This has since been replaced with what is referred to as the two-second rule, which suggests that you measure in seconds the distance between you and the vehicle in front of you by selecting an object being passed by the vehicle in front and then measuring to be sure that you do not reach that object in less than two seconds from the time the forward vehicle passed it. Be reminded, however, that two seconds is a minimum. For various other adverse conditions you should increase the following distance to more seconds. You should also consider your reaction time and if you think it may be a little slow, you simply add more seconds.
Of course, the rebuttal that we get from most drivers is that if I leave all this space between me and the car in front of me, someone is going to jump into it, who is more aggressive, thus interfering with my time and schedule and forcing me to constantly slow down. Having practiced this for miles and miles and numerous years, it can be said with much confidence and assurance that it is an insignificant loss of time and distance to drive with the added spacing. To fight the other driver to protect the space in front of you is, in fact, to drop your defensive driving pattern and to begin to driver aggressively or offensively. This is the practice that creates all the stopping and starting and the read-end collisions. Thus, being a defensive driver is a mind-set in that you must consciously rehearse the practice if it is going to work for you. We shall not try to go through all the other elements of being a defensive driving in the detail that we have for the proper spacing, but other items that you must consider or watch for are:
1. Checking your blind spots; that is, looking at the areas to the right and left rear of your vehicle that cannot typically be seen through your mirrors. Notice we use the plural, mirrors, because defensive vehicles have not a single mirror at the middle of the windshield, but also outside mirrors mounted at the left and right front doors. Checking these mirrors while you are driving should be routine, occurring every 3-6 seconds. Also, as you are checking to see if other vehicles are in your blind spots to your rear on the left and right, you must also be sure that you are not setting your vehicle in the blind spot of other vehicles just ahead of you. We should also remember that trucks and buses have larger blind spots, the most difficult being if we ride directly behind large vehicles at a closer following distance, so there is no visibility at all in their mirrors.
2. Passing properly is also important. You must keep three maneuvers in mind:
Maintain the proper following distance, turn on your turn signal, look ahead and behind, and check the blind spots. Move left into the passing lane, increase your speed, move ahead, and then signal to return to the lane, checking your blind spots. When you complete the path, look in your mirror. Whn you see pavement in front of the car you are passing, move to the right, then turn off your signal and maintain the proper speed.
3. Head-on collisions are the ones that create the
most fatalities. Defensive driving suggests the four
R's to avoid the head on crash:
Read the road ahead. Drive to the right Reduce your speed. Ride off the road.
This is particularly important on so many of our two-lane highways, where we are in a constant flow of oncoming traffic. It is always important to be considering every oncoming vehicle as a major risk to your life and well-being.
4. Adapt your driving for the situation, be it city or rural. You must recognize that the dangers are significantly different between the two driving environments, and you must remind yourself what to look for in either occasion. In rural areas there are obstacles and unmarked conditions as well as animals to which we must be sensitive. In the city we must be particularly sensitive to our defensive driving skills because of the extra traffic, pedestrians, bicycles, parked cars, and other situations that can enter our path along the street or at intersections.
5. Anticipating problems is the ongoing task of the defensive driver. It really boils down to anticipating trouble in time to do something about it. This requires that we look ahead and consider the possibilities for a negative outcome and be prepared to avoid or eliminate that circumstance. It is important to remember that driving is an active, not a passive, job that requires that you maintain a constant vigil 100% of the time while you are behind the wheel. In the city, that could mean looking a block or two ahead to anticipate what might occur. In a rural area, it is looking ahead to the next hill, the next curve, a blind spot, or a guardrail to not be surprised by an upcoming event. You are also reminded to check your mirror every 3-6 seconds.
There are a number of other ways of describing defensive driving as well as added scenarios and traffic situations. This is why classes are conducted to discuss these techniques. Hopefully, with an article we can whet your appetite for more information and discussion. The most obvious and most compelling fact about accidental deaths is that motor vehicle crashes are the greatest single contributor to the loss of life from accidents in the United States. We also know from our experience that defensive driving classes do make a difference. There have been a sufficient number of studies and antidotal experiences on the part of companies who have given their drivers defensive driver training to show that it reduces accidents by those who are trained. If you have a driver's license and a vehicle, one of the best gifts you can provide for yourself and for those you care about is to participate in a Defensive Driving Course to initiate or reinforce your development and practice of defensive driving skills. Statistics show that more workers will be lost driving to and from work than will be injured on the job. A significant amount of these employee losses to the workplace is due to the worker not practicing good defensive driving skills.
Remember, you do not have the right-of-way until someone gives it to you, and being within your legal rights in terms of the traffic laws does not protect you from a collision. It is your mind-set and the approach you have to driving that is your best protection. Be your own best friend, and do all you can to learn all the defensive driving skills and make them part of your daily practice as a safe driver. Aggressive driving has progressively increased during the '90s and incidents that trigger violence in traffic are often remarkably trivial, say a report carried out for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
The study was carried out by the international
security firm of Mizell & Co. between January 1, 1990 and September 1,
1996, and looked at 10,037 separate incidents of aggressive driving in police
and newspaper reports. A total of 12,828 people were injured or killed as the
result of aggressive driving (218 killed, 12,610 injured), including 94
children under the age of 15. The
number of reported incidents has increased every year since 1990, at an average
annual rate of nearly 7 percent.
The majority of perpetrators are males between the ages of 18 and 26. However, in hundreds of reported cases the perpetrator was 26 to 50 years old, and in 86 known cases the driver was between 50 and 75 years old.
The Foundation offers the following tips:
. Don't take your eyes off the road.
. Avoid eye contact with an aggressive driver
. Stay cool -- don't react to provocation
. Keep away from drivers behaving erratically
More on the report and a summary of results can be found on the AAA Foundation web site.À
MY COMMENTS
This article seems to be a refresher for a driver's
education coarse. It's going over everything that I already
know as a driver. Do we as drivers need to be reminded of driving
cautiously? I guess with the road rage incidents happening on the road,
all of us should review the materials on a regular basis. Driving
offensively does seem to stave off road rage to a certaim extent, a person who
avoids looking a an aggressor will not throw fuel into the fire, but what about
those "bullies" on the road, what should we do about them? Is
there such a thing as "bullies" on our highways? Or are they
the ones who are driving perfectly and just seem to get angry at the not so
perfect drivers that may, for example, drive too slow in the fast lane and fail
to move to the right lane. Are these so called road rage incidences a
result of ignorant drivers who cause normal people to turn into raging
lunatics? Of course, there are the exceptions of drivers who have no
concept of of proper driving ettiquete, and who refuse to abide by the laws of
the DOP(Department of Transportation), but for the majority of the people
driving, who is to blame? It looks as though we are all victims of
circumstance, a product of the Psycho-Social theory which states that the
environment plays an important role in shaping behavior and the way people will
perceive events.
DRIVING CONDITIONS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
Thursday, July 24, 1997
Road rage? Some drivers can`t contain frustrations
Tailgating on Interstate 70 made one man mad enough to point a gun at a couple about four months ago near Woods Chapel Road. What happened to the couple is called road rage, and it`s happening not only on the East and West coasts, say local law enforcement.
Just about every driver has a horror story to tell of how someone cut them off, passed on the right or committed any number of traffic infractions that are relatively minor.
MY COMMENTS
Has it come to that point where road rage incidents all
turn in to horror stories? This epidemic is spreading like wildfire
on our highways and no one seems to be doing anything about it. Sure
people can write about all of the incidents that happen on our roadways, but it
is going to help us get better? I don't think it is that easy. As
social pressures worsen, so will our driving behavior. People are already
at the end of their rope when it comes to having patience with other drivers,
what will happen a little ways into the future. I predict that there will
be increasing violence on our freeways, and it will get extremely violent, with
greater frequency, until we start developing laws to protect the victims, and
dissuade future offenders. For now, conditions on our roadways do not look
bright.
Subject: road rage article... is funny as hell!! -
its long though
Date: 1998/01/06
À
Hey all,
I know this doesn't belong on this newsgroup, but I
thought it was funny as hell. I think it is decribing
my driving! Read on...
Time
À
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Road Rage
Aggressive driving is America's car sickness du jour. But is there a cure
for thinking everyone else on the road is an idiot?
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It's a jungle out there. well, not really: it's worse than a jungle. It's a
stretch of roadway anywhere in America, and in place of the ravenous tigers and
stampeding rhinos and slithery anacondas are your friends and neighbors and
co-workers, that nice lady from the church choir and the cheerful kid who bags
your food at the local Winn Dixie--even Mom and Dad and Buddy and Sis. They're
in a hurry. And you're in their way. So step on it! That light is not going to
get any greener! Move it or park it!
Tarzan had it easy. Tarzan didn't have to drive to work.
It may be morning in America--crime down, incomes up, inflation nonexistent--but it's high noon on the country's streets and highways. This is road recklessness, auto anarchy, an epidemic of wanton carmanship. Almost everyone from anywhere has a story about it, as fresh as the memory of this morning's commute. And no wonder. Incidents of "road rage" were up 51% in the first half of the decade, according to a report from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Some occurrences are grisly enough to make the headlines. Last year a high-speed racing duel on the George Washington Memorial Parkway outside Washington killed two innocent commuters, including a mother of two, traveling in the opposite direction.
More often the new ethos of road anarchy manifests itself in the mundane: the unsignaled lane change by the driver next to you, the guy who tailgates you if you go too slow, and the person ahead who brakes abruptly if you go too fast--each transgression accented by a flip of the bird or a blast of the horn. Sixty-four percent of respondents to a recent Coalition for Consumer Health and Safety poll say people are driving less courteously and more dangerously than they were five years ago.
And the enemy is us. Take a ride with "Anne," a 40-year-old mother
of three who would rather we not use her real name, as she steers her 2 1/2-ton
black Chevy Suburban out of her driveway on a leafy street in residential
Washington. The clock on the dashboard reads 2:16. She has 14 minutes to make
it to her daughter's game. Within a block of her house she has hit 37 m.p.h.,
taking stop signs as suggestions rather than law. She has a lot on her mind.
"I'm not even thinking of other cars," Anne
admits cheerfully as she lays on the horn. An oldster in an econo-box ahead of
her has made the near fatal mistake of slowing at an intersection with no stop
sign or traffic light. Anne swears and peels off around him.
Anne has a clean driving record with scarcely even a fender bender to her
name. But when she takes to the highway, even her kids join the fun. "Make
him move over!" they shout as she bears down on a 55-m.p.h. sluggard in
the fast lane. She flashes her headlights. The kids cheer when the unlucky
target gives in and moves aside. Back in town, Anne specializes in near misses.
"Jeez, I almost hit that woman," she chirps, swinging the Suburban
into the right lane to pass a car turning left at an
intersection. She makes the game two minutes late. "I don't think I'm an
aggressive driver," Anne says. "But there are a lot of bad drivers
out there."
Too true, too true. But the example of Anne--prosperous, well-adjusted Anne, loving wife and mother--raises the overarching question of road anarchy. Residents of late 20th century America are arguably the luckiest human beings in history: the most technologically pampered, the richest, the freest things on two legs the world has ever seen. Then why do we drive like such jerks?
The most common answer: What do you mean we, Kemo Sabe? Of course, you don't
drive like a jerk. Neither does Anne--just ask her. Very few drivers admit to
being an obnoxious road warrior. There seem to be only three types of people on
the road these days: the insane (those who drive faster than you), the moronic
(those who drive slower than you) and...you. But this merely confuses the
issue. Surely someone is doing all that speeding, tailgating, headlight
flashing and abrupt lane
changing, not to mention the bird flipping and horn blasting. There's enough in
the phenomenon of road rage to keep a faculty-loungeful of social theorists
thinking deeply for years--or at least until the grant money runs out.
That won't be any time soon. With millions of victims and hardly any
confessed perpetrators, road recklessness has become the car-related sickness
du jour, deposing (for the moment) drunk driving from its long-standing reign.
Like drunk driving, the issue has energized America's vast machinery of social
concern. The Federal Government is spending money on research, Congress has
held hearings, law-enforcement authorities have held seminars and developed
special enforcement
programs, and psychologists are treating it as a genuine, stand-alone disorder.
There are Websites devoted to the topic, including one--the Database of Unsafe
Driving--that allows Web users to enter not only an account of their experience
with an aggressive driver but also the "insane moron's" l
MY COMMENTS
It is so true that we tend to blame others instead of
ourselves for the hazardous conditions on the road. It is much easier to
point fingers at others about their short-comings as a driver than it is to
admit that maybe we are the ones to blame. Maybe it is us that aren't
paying attention, and maybe we are the impatient ones, and the others are
driving normally. It could be that we are the terrible, reckless crazies
that don't give "a hoot" about anyone else's safety just so that we may
arrive at some destination a few minutes early. But society today will
never admit it, we are born in an environment with the "not me"
attitude, making it someone else's responsibility. We as a society have
enough responsibilities to begin with let alone take on additional ones like
watching out for other people's safety. Everyone is out for themselves,
especially on the roadways and it will continue to be that way unless drivers
start taking responsibility for themselves.
MY SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
My suggestion would be to not panic when doing the exercises and to go through each step slowly but surely. Eventually, you will get the hang of things!
HOW DOES MY REPORT COMPARE WITH OTHERS IN MY GENERATION
My report is not as artistic as some of the other members from my generation, but I feel the content of my report fairs pretty well compared to most reports I've read. I have not quite mastered the technique of using graphics on the computer yet but I know it will not be long before I become comfortable with using designs to decorate my pages.