Jill Umetsu, G5 Hawai`i, Report 2

Report 2: Managing a Quality Driving Circle: Spreading the "Aloha Spirit"

Table of Contents
Introduction
Traffic Psychology Through the Generations
My Driving Personality Test
My Quality Driving Circle
Driving Improvement Resources on the Web
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Introduction: Help through the QDC

In this report 2 I explored the generational curriculum and chose students from each generation and took some quotes from them on the topic of traffic psychology. In generation three they had support groups for all types of driving behaviors and even for passengers. I also made up a driving personality test using Dr. Driving's Chart of the Nine Zones. I then used this test as a starting point for my Quality Driving Circle. My QDC was made up of three members and we all met three times for one hour. I used the test to get the participants to see what their driving personality was. Once they got to know their bad behaviors then we worked on changing their behaviors by suggesting techniques to use. I also have listed some resources aimed at improving safety conditions on the road.

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Traffic Psychology Through the Generations: The knowledge lives on.

Generation 1:

  • Diane Beauchemin's page on convoys which are a group of cars driving at high speeds in packs, where she writes, "Another observation is when I am "going with the flow" or just mellowing out at 55, and I see some person driving really fast, darting from lane to lane trying to get around people, I have the tendency to get obnoxious. For example, I like to play the "Box-in" game. I know it is unhelpful, cruel, and annoying, but there's this dark side to my driving personality that gets satisfaction out of making hurried drivers flustered (Annoyed, ticked off, excessively angry, you can use your favorite adjective here)." I also feel this way about boxing in cars that are switching from lane to lane. I feel like their behavior is dangerous and they need to be stopped from doing this so I tend to speed up so that they can't cut in front of me.

  • Danell Saito's page on the procedures of traffic psychology, "Carrying out and maintaining long-term systematic behavioral self-modification attempts at traffic behavior improvement." I feel it is important to maintain a long-term commitment to improvement.

    Generation 2:

  • Aaron Takahashi's page where he has a section on bicycles, " but seriously in a setting like this where you would expect many people to be riding bicycles, why doesn't the university provide a safe riding environment for both the bicyclist, pedestrians, as well the automobile traffic." I agree with him that there should be a path for bicycles to ride safely.

  • Curtis Nakao's page on the use of cellular phones, "The potential for accidents or near accidents is greatly increased. " Which I agree that using cellular phones while driving can be dangerous because it takes your attention away from the road.

    Generation 3:

  • Michelle Alonzo's page on a driver support group for people who can't stop driving over the speed limit. Go there and read the confessions of other drivers and maybe you will see yourself in those confessions and know that you are not alone.

  • Vance Mizuba's page on passenger support groups for people who feel abused by the driver. One person who left a contribution said, "All through the ride he made stops so unbearable that I almost got sick. An old lady nearly fell off her seat." This is an unusual topic of passengers being abused by the driver, but it does occur.

    Generation 3a:

  • Sondra Blake's page on discovery, "Upon reading many of the generational student's reports on traffic psychology and the Driving Personality Makeover, I have determined that many of them did not realize that they had a particular driving habit that needed to be acknowledged and corrected. " This is a common problem in which people think they are driving fine, but actually others see that they need to change a bad habit.

  • According to Cherish Higashi, "I was able to find out that the concept of a Driving Personality Makeover can be applied to almost everyone who drives. Even those students who thought that they themselves were flawless drivers, found a flaw in their own driving personality upon more careful observation."

    Generation 4:

  • Ryan Mitsui's page on his experience on tailgating. I don't think I would tailgate someone to the extreme that he did, go to his page to find out.

  • Shane Cobb-Adams' pageon what a driving personality make-over is. "By making us consciously focus on what we're doing wrong, cognitive dissonance provides motivation for bringing our actions in line with what we know to be the right choice. "

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    My driving personality test:

    The three zones that I chose from Dr. Driving's Chart of the Nine Zones were Zone 1: Feelings, Safety Issues, Zone 5: Thoughts, Self-control Issues, and Zone 9: Actions, Social Responsibility Issues. There were six questions from each zone for a total of 18. There is an explanation of each zone and that's where I got the test items from.

    Please answer True if you feel the question applies to you and False if you feel it does not.

    Zone 1: Safety Issues/ Affective

    1. I feel impatient with the flow of traffic and I feel that I'm being held back.
    2. I try to be accurate and avoid making errors in driving.
    3. I obey traffic sign and laws.
    4. I am patient and self-controlled while waiting at traffic lights, stop signs, or while someone pulls out of a parking space.
    5. I feel respect and appreciation for traffic regulations and authorities.
    6. I often change lanes without signaling if traffic is light.

    Zone 5: Self-control Issues/ Cognitive

    7. I often rationalize or justify my faulty driving behavior.
    8. I often blame other drivers for causing my own frustrations in a driving situation.
    9. I feel like I am isolated in my car and that no one can see me.
    10. I make up reasonable explanations for the intentions or behaviors of other highway users.
    11. I see things in the eyes or perspective of other highway users, driving a mile in their chair.
    12. I analyze a driving situation to make sense of what's going on.

    Zone 9: Social Responsibility Issues/ Sensory Motor

    13. I let my bad mood and angry feelings influence my driving for the worse.
    14. I treat other drivers as competitors or enemies.
    15. I feel annoyed because I missed a green light or parking spot.
    16. I tailgate other motorists to teach them a lesson.
    17. I try to maintain a good mood while driving.
    18. I enjoy driving and use it creatively to engage in productive work such as reflection.

    I decided to use these three zones because they each deal with the three phases, Safety, Self-control, and Social Responsibility Issues, in Dr. Driving's Chart of the Nine Zones. These zones also deal with each of the three domains in psychology: Affective, Cognitive, and Sensory Motor. Affective is your feelings or how your heart feels, Cognitive is your thoughts or what your mind is telling you, and Sensory Motor is your actions and behaviors which is a result of your heart or mind telling you what to do, or a combination of both. Zone 1 is Safety Issues/ Affective. This is the attitude of the driver which is either disregard for rules or respect for authority. Zone 5 is Self-control Issues/ Cognitive. This is the driver's judgement either subjective and untrained thinking or trained reasoning and objectivity. Zone 9 is Social Responsibility Issues/ Sensory Motor. This is the kindness of the driver. Are they stressed and dislocated or cooperative and integrated? This test covers each domain and phase, however for each phase there are all three domains.

    These test items relate to my Report 1 because I feel that for any change to occur the person has to want to change. These items will make the test taker more aware of their thinking and behaviors and notice where they need to make improvements.

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    My Quality Driving Circle: Driving Personality Make-overs.

    My Quality Driving Circle (QDC) consisted of my three family members. I'll call them person 1, 2, and 3 and use the pronoun he. Person 1 and 2 are my parents so they are about 52 and 53 years old. Person 3 is my brother who is 18 years old. All three people drive daily. Since we all live together it was fairly easy to meet for this QDC. We had to meet for one hour a total of at least three times.

  • Session 1:

    In this first session of our QDC I was pretty excited to start this group. I thought it would be exciting to talk to my group about traffic psychology and they would also get to know a little about what I'm doing in school. It would also be interesting to find out how everyone feels about driving behaviors. My plan for this first meeting was to get each member to talk about their driving personality, any kind of "bad" driving behaviors they had and what they did when some other driver gets too close to their car. The purpose was to get each member to think about their own behavior and introduce them to traffic psychology. The problems that came up in this first session was being honest and admitting their bad habits. My philosophy for this group is to make changes gradually and to have the motivation to make that change. The motivation that I tell them is that if they do change their bad driving habits then they will achieve a more relaxing drive time.

    From riding with these group members I pretty much knew their driving personality. But, in this group I wanted each one to state, honestly, what they thought their own driving personality was. In the beginning they didn't like to admit all their faults, but because we had all ridden with them we could help them be more realistic. Person 1 is an impatient driver, always ready to use the horn of the car if needed. If some other driver did some kind of irrational behavior the horn would be used, Person 1 would not yell at the other car or make obscene gestures, just shake his head. He also recognized that if the car in front is going to slow he will tend to follow close and then switch lanes to pass the slow car. If someone was tailgating him he wouldn't slow down or speed up, but just stay at the same speed and let the other driver change lanes if they wanted to go faster.

    Person 2 is a calm and relaxed driver. He never really got upset too much while driving and did not have any "bad" driving behaviors. When some other driver did an irrational behavior Person 2 would just shake his head and say, "What an idiot!" If someone was tailgating then he would move out of their way.

    Person 3 is a driver that wants to get to his destination as quickly as possible. If this means detouring and taking another street when he misses the green light at the first street then that's what he'll do. As far as getting upset if another driver crowds his space he won't get upset, he'll just move out of the way. He does tend to speed although he tries to keep it at the speed limit.

    The homework for our next session was to be more observant of their driving behaviors. Taking notice when another driver gets them upset and how they handle it. I told them to try writing their behaviors down on paper as soon as they are able to, like at a stop light. I also told them that next week they would be taking a driving personality test.

  • Session 2:

    For this meeting my plan was to give the group members the driving personality test and then discuss the results of the test and what it meant. The purpose of this was to make each member more aware of their personality by realizing new things that they didn't before taking this test. Also to work on ways of improving their bad habits. I told them about the AWM technique in which you Acknowledge that you are out of control, Witness themselves being out of control, and Modify their behavior. The problem that came up was not totally understanding the test because some questions were ambiguous. I solved this by going over each question as they came to it so everyone had to wait for each other to finish before we could move on to the next question.

    After they were done taking the test we went over each question and discussed the answer. First, each person gave their answer and why they chose the answer that they did. Then I told them what the right answer was and if they did not get the right one then we discussed why or what could be changed so that the next time they take the test they will have the right answer.

    Person 2 is actually a calm driver and did not need too much help. Putting himself in the chair of the other driver was something that needed improvement. Person 1 is an impatient driver so the answer to the question about being impatient was true. That was the area that he needed to work on. All three participants did not see the perspective of the other driver and just attritubuted their crazy driving behavior to being an idiot. That was an area that all of them had to work on. Person 1 and Person 3 did not like to wait at red lights. They feel like, "I should have gone instead of waiting at this light" and Person 3 will even take detours sometimes to try and beat the red light. We then discussed ways of getting rid of the bad behavior. Some of the suggestions that I made to Person 1 and Person 3 is to think that by detouring when there is a red light will not save me much time and may actually take longer. If you are stopped at a red light then think that it will not make much of a time difference by waiting. Person 1 and 3 agreed with this reasoning and said they would try it the next time they miss the green light. All three need to try thinking of alternate reasons for the actions of other drivers. I told them to think that the other driver had a good reason for cutting them off like they had to take the off ramp. They all said that this has happened to them before so they can understand. I suggested the AWM program to them when they feel frustrated by seeing themselves being annoyed and to think of the techniques that we discussed and to use them. I think that this test helped the participants see their driving behavior in a more realistic and objective way. The questions helped open their eyes because it made them think about the behavior in question and think about the appropriate answer for themselves.

    The homework for the next meeting is to work on improving the areas that was discussed after taking the test. Everytime they start to feel or act in their usual way to remember the solutions we had talked about and to use them.

  • Session 3:

    This was our last meeting. My plan for this session was to have them take the test again to see if their answers had changed and to talk about the future after this last QDC meeting. The purpose was to have them stick with their changed behavior and make their driving personality a more mellow one. At the beginning of the meeting I had them take the test again and then gave them their old test to compare the answers. Then we discussed the what would happen after they left the QDC.

    Person 1 did better on some of the items, but stayed the same on others. The ones that he did better on was thinking of alternate reasons for the actions of other drivers. He stayed the same on the items that dealt with patience, or in his case lack thereof. I think the thing for him is that he is just an impatient person and when he drives he is still impatient. Although he said that he did try using the solutions that we talked about and it did help. He actually timed the lights and found that it really was not much longer. Same for Person 3, he tried waiting at the light and also using a detour and found that it took about the same amount of time. So I told him," Doesn't it make more sense to just wait instead of rushing and making all these turns?" Both of them agreed, but said that they just don't like having to wait at the light. However, taking a detour was not a faster way, so they would have to keep that in mind and try to wait patiently for the light to change. All three people tried thinking up alternate reasons why other drivers do the things they do and they said it helped them. They all have been in positions where they needed to cut someone off because if they didn't they were going to miss the off ramp. By using this explanation they could understand instead of getting angry and calling the other driver names.

    As far as their driving life after this QDC they all said that they were going to try and use the techniques that we had talked about. They said that when they did try it they felt better. Because of this positive reinforcement I feel that they will continue to use the solutions we had talked about and be on their way to a happier driving experience. Remember Dr. Driving's motto,"Drive With Aloha Spirit."

  • I think that these QDCs should be used throughout our society because it will be useful in making people aware of their driving personalities. It will make them see their faults and have a discussion of why they feel this way and what can be done to improve it. They will also see that they are not alone and that others feel as they do too. If they do use the techniques then they will have a more relaxed ride. I think that the leaders will be people who have knowledge of traffic psychology and have received training in leading a group such as the QDC. I think that as soon as a person gets their license they should be in a QDC group. Although the person who just gets their license will not have much driving experience they do have a driving personality because they have been driving with their permit. An advantage to starting young is that you can shape and mold them right from the start into a relaxed driver. By using the techniques when they are just starting out it will most likely stick with them throughout their lives. When the older drivers go to renew their license then they should be required to go to a QDC meeting. If everyone is required to be in a QDC then the roads will be a safer place to drive.

  • My advice for future generations who will be doing their own QDC:

    Meeting times will be hard because everyone is so busy and have varying schedules. For me, it was a little easier because we all lived together. Maybe you could take time on the weekend to do the sessions, it won't take very long, only about an hour. When you go to meet with this group have your plans about what you want to discuss and cover in the session ready. Remember that you will have about an hour so don't plan too many activities that you may not be able to cover. Emphasize discussions more and not be the only one lecturing. Ask the members to talk about their answers on the test and why they feel that way. You'll probably find that more than one member feels that way and that can lead to more talking. Have the participants suggest solutions instead of you telling them what to do. Give them homework to work on until your next meeting like taking notice of their behaviors and try to improve them. When you start the group the next time then discuss the homework.

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    Driving Improvement Resources on the Web: Safety Issues.

  • Dr. Driving's site (a.k.a. Dr. James) has a good number of resources for driving improvements and also provide lots of information on how to change your bad driving habits.

  • Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety works with various agencies to make the roads safer.

  • The Art of Driving gives tips to drivers on how to drive safely.

  • The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety promotes traffic safety and gives information on how to attain this.

  • Teen New Drivers' Homepage is written by a teen new driver, Ryan Buckholtz, who just got his license. This page gives tips on how to drive in school, in the country, in bad weather, as well as general tips.

  • Highway Loss Data Institute gives information on the injury, collision, and theft loss of cars by the make and model of the car you choose.

  • School Bus Fleet gives information on transporting students. Because you are transporting a large number of children it is essential to be especially careful. Also, other drivers need to be aware of these buses.

  • Motorcycl e Safety Foundation for those of you who are interested in motorcycles need to go to this page immediately to get educated about safety while riding one.

  • Simon Hawkin's On-the-road page gives lots of links related to traffic safety. Go to this page to find links on all kinds of traffic issues that include: rental companies, car maintenance, and bicycling.

  • Webfoot's Useful Automotive Information gives lots of links to various sites concerned with the automobile. One that I was interested in was Operations. This part listed sites that you could go to that will give information on keeping your car running smoothly, from gas to transmission to audio.

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