Report 2

Tailgating...

Most of us have it at one time or another...the urge to get revenge! I, like many do it in the form of something called tailgating. Tailgating is following the car in front of you. The recommended space between cars is one second of space for every mile over the speed limit or something like that. Before we get to my thoughts on tailgating, I want to review a few self-witnessing reports done by graduates of previous generations first.

Nancee Aki, from generation two, says that she found she tailgated when she was late. Her tailgating behavior was done to "push (the cars that won't get out of her way) and push them until they go faster." She also claims that it makes her feel in control. One name that she uses to describe her behavior is "monster" because of this.

Tailgating can also be done for other reasons. For instance, "revenge for another driver" as reported by Sharla Supnet. As she described her unfortunate experience with the driver in the next lane's sudden urge to cut into her lane. After the unfortunate incident, she decided to follow him and tailgate that car.

Aaron Takahashi tailgated only to keep up with the flow of traffic while also admitting that he didn't want to let anyone cut in front of him. For me, interpreting tailgating behavior as forcing their will over other drivers seems accurate according to the self-witnessing reports. It is often the case that we make the assumption that we tailgate for "revenge" reasons. Maybe the car in the front is going too slow, or the car in the front just cut you off. Most of the time, the car that is being tailgated does get intimidated. And wa-lah! -- mission accomplished. Seriously though, tailgating does not help me any at all. It just lets me vent out my anger. And to top it all off, it never really makes me feel 100% better after I have done it.

Is tailgating moral? Justifiably, no. Morally the best way to handle an upset situation would be to make something positive out of it.

And how do I feel?

In my opinion, tailgating does make people happy when they do it. Technically, that's making something positive out of the situation. It may make you happy, but, it is not the best thing in terms of respect for the other driver. And why think of the other driver? The best knowledge on the road is that any one driver does not deliberately do sosmething bad for you. Chances are, the driver does not even know who you are personally. To him, you are this license plate and a car. Woopee. Nothing more, nothing less. It could have been any other car in your place. What you are doing when you tailgate is make the other person feel negative. You are projecting your negative feelings onto the next driver. Who in turn while thinking what he did to make you tailgate him, projects his negative feelings onto the next driver. It's a cycle. All because you could not stop getting annoyed at the situation.

Is it fair? No, I believe because for reasons stated above, that car in the front did not deliberately cut you off or drive slow just to get at you. When you retaliate, though you deliberately hurt the other driver's mentality. That, I believe is not fair.

Spiritually, tailgating is wrong. I believe that this is because what happened in the past should be kept in the past and not be dwelled upon. This would mean that you, if dwelling upon the incident are living in the past. To be spiritual is to be at peace with yourself. If you are constantly dwelling, then obviously you are not happy with yourself, and therefore you are spiritually fooling yourself in thinking that the tailgating behavior is making you happy.

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