This report will focus on an aspect of driving that most everyone has or will experience at one time. Namely the behavior known as Tailgating. This report will discuss several aspects of tailgating such as its psychological impact, its moral implications, and also its spiritual implications. Discussion will be drawn from the experiences of students in past generations.

The first report on tailgating that I came across was Denise Tanaka's Report 1. Here Denise refers to a report on tailgating from a student from the previous generation. From the examples that Denise gives, it may be sensible to say that tailgating is the forcing of the tailgater's will over the will of the tailgatee. It is clear from Denise's example of Todd Crawford's Lab Reports that when the person tailgating him turned to overtake him, Todd gave him the finger. If the tailgater's will wasn't being forced upon Todd, then Todd would have never have givenhim the finger. Way to go Todd!

In her report, Denise goes on to admit her own fault at being a tailgater. I agree fully with Denise's assesment as to the reasons why tailgater's do what they do. As Dr. James discussed, tailgating is a skill that has to be practiced to master fully. While practicing for the first time, the driver already has a feeling of confidence, perhaps even arrogance in their driving skills. When the driver begins to tailgate, maybe even by mistake during his first time, if the driver gets away with it without suffering any negative consequences, that driver will do it again. Because no punishment or negative reinforcement is associated with the tailgating behavior, that tailgater will continue to behave that way. This tailgater is cognitively aware of their actions while tailgating yet does not alter their behaviors. Not only does this infringe on the rights of other drivers, it shows the lack of ethics and morals within that tailgater.

This notion of the exertion of one's will over another as it pertains to tailgating is repeated in Josephine Allen's lab report. She takes a Freudian view to tailgating saying that tailgating is a subconscious reaction. Josephine also goes on to say that this exerting of will (or power) is inherent within our society. When she moves on to the subject of the moral implications of tailgating, Josephine stresses the point of how dangerous tailgating is and the lack of respect tailgaters outwardly show. In my own experiences, I have seen the total immorality of tailgaters. But one must not discount the chance that some tailgaters may not realize what they are doing. To them, tailgating may just be a habit. If they have done it enough times without being punished for doing it, or without experiencing anything bad as a result of their tailgating, then this tailgating behavior will form into a tailgating habit. And once this habit festers within this person, it becomes like all habits-an unconscious reaction.

When Josephine goes on to discuss the spiritual implications of tailgating, she goes deeply into the idea that taligating is a sin. While it is true that when tailgating, the tailgater does take on a different attitude, this may not apply to those tailgaters for whom tailgating has become a habit. By being desensitized to the immoralness and unholiness of their behaviors, the attitude they take on, to them, may seem quite normal. This is quite troubling considering the sheer fact that tailgating is very dangerous. But like many bad habits, the cycle can be broken. This is what the field of Traffic Psychology aims for. To change the person in order that they may become not only better people, but better drivers as well.

The next example of tailgating come from Shane Akagi's Lab Report. Here Shane states that when being tailgated, he "...get really nervous again, and try to pay attention to what's in front of me." This is a fine example of how the tailgater elicits an emotional, cognitive, and affective response from Shane. When Shane becomes afraid while being tailgated, he becomes a different driver. By being afraid of the actions of the tailgater, Shane's emotional levels are aroused. This in turn affects his cognitive thinking which in turn influence his motor behaviors. Because of the negative feelings being aroused in Shane, his driving behaviors may in turn reflect his negative feelings. Although Shane does not specify as to how he reacts to tailgaters (ie: giving the finger, swearing, etc) he does that he does tend to speed up when being tailgated in a convoy of cars. This reaction, as Shane points out in his report, can be a potentially dangerous behavior.

Further down his report, Shane discusses the morality of tailgating. Here Shane talks about how he feels that tailgating is immoral. He recognizes the fact that every driver is a human being, "...with their own individual feelings and reactions." Although this may explain that because we are all human beings, we should behave more morally towards each other, the fact that we are human beings allows us to act as we do when we drive. All of us know what we "should" do, but few of us, if any, actually do it. Shane discusses this further in his Tailgating Spiritually section. Here Shane simply states that as drivers, we must think not only of ourselves, but to think of all the other drivers around you. By doing this simple thing of thinking of others, tailgating incidents, as well as all other traffic incidents and accidents may be reduced dramatically.