Ryan Mitsui's Psy 459, Report 8, Usenet groups

Report 8
Usenet groups

A look at usenet groups through the eyes of Traffic Psychology.

Re:Why I tailgate

Respect is earned, not freely given. Anyone who drives in a reckless manner, with a loaded, two ton weapons doesn't deserve respect, it deserves extreme caution and vigilance.

If the police refuse to ensure safety on our roads, but rather eat their donuts and collect revenue money; then I think its our civic duty to start enforcing safety on the road. Perhaps if less people followed your ideals, our roads would not be such a mess they are today.

Well this Ryan person seems to be tired of putting up with bad drivers and feels that the police are not doing their job. I think everyone has these types of feelings from time to time when other people endanger our lives by tailgating. My advise in this type of situation would be to remain calm and remember that you dont know why he was tailgating. Haven't you tailgated a person or honked the horn by accident just because you were changing a CD or something? And don't you feel kind of dumb and apologetic at that moment? Well what Ive learned to do, is to assume that the other driver made this mistake and this is the way that he feels. I know most of you are thinking that this is assuming a lot, but its the same as assuming that he did it on purpose!! So why not just assume the best and save yourself a lot of stress and anguish.

Re: Slow cars in the Fast Lane

Matthew T. Russotto wrote:

I expect people to do everything they can to get in my way and make my driving experience an unpleasant one. I am rarely disappointed. In return, I will do anything I can to get past them, courteous or otherwise.

Well this person has tried to expect the worst and thus everything in comparison is just fine. Well I dont know if that is a healthy way to approach that situation. It emplies that everyone is the enemy, so if anyone makes any kind of mistake or is not driving to his standard (or his idea of how traffic should be moving along) then they are reduced to just an obstacle, rather than another person who has to get to where they want to go too. Yes!! Drivers are people too, they are not on the road to get in your way, and they have feelings and emotions too and they have their own standard of driving. So my advise is to remember that the road is public property, it is not your private lane. So we all have to learn how to get from point A to point B and share that space with others.

Car phones--a traffic hazard?

Someone wrote: One of the things that upsets me most is people talking on their cellular phones as they drive. To me it's a symbol of how inconsiderate people have become thinking that what they have to do or say on the phone is more important than the safety of the people around them. They can't possibly be paying attention to their driving and I believe it creates a safety hazard. I would like to yank the phones out of their cars and smash them to little pieces. Realistically I would like the states to pass laws making it illegal to use a cellular phone in a car and going one step further require autophone manufacturer's to put an interlock in the ignition system so the only way a call could be received or sent would be to pull over!

Well the problem here is that this person is assuming that the people who use car phones, are inconsiderate and don't care about the safety if rest us on the road. This problem stems from their cognative process, though it may be true that using a phone while driving might be distracting, but I don't think that people would use the phone while driving if they thought that it might be dangerous. As for making it a law to not use a phone in a car while driving I don't know about that. What about radios or cd players arn't they equily distracting? Should we outlaw them too? Or for that matter should we out law chewing gum and walking at the same time? I mean the human brain is powerfull enough to carry out more than one task at a time. But I must admit that there are some people out there who are just bad drivers and I think that it is when we see these people useing cellular phones, that we tend to blame it on them using the phone rather than just them as a bad driver.

Re: Road Rage

Chopper (RTerry@Earthnet.net) wrote:
Obviously, time was of the essence as I might be arriving to find my son in dire circumstance.

As I attempted to rush to the trauma center with my flashers on and alternately flashing my high beams (with 4 additional aux lights) and blowing the horn as I felt necessary, people just wouldn't get out of the way!

I've been in front of people in this situation and had enough sense to realize that there was most likely an emergency and I got the hell out of the way. Why is it that others can't pull their head out of their ass and do the same?

Well once again we are faced with the same problem of our own cognative process. In this situation, Chopper feels that since he got out of someone elses way, they should do the same for him. Well sorry to say that it dosen't work that way. I know how he must have fealt, in that situation, with his son in the trauma center. All kinds of things must have been running through his head. Had everyone known his situation I'm sure that they would have gladly gotten out of the way. But there is no way that anyone could have known if it was a real emergency or just another crazy person honking the horn and trying to get ahead of every one else.

Re: Fast driving

Hans wrote "Where in the U.S. or Canada can I drive fast ?? I don't want to break the laws of any country but I love to drive fast. Are there any highways, by-ways or Interstates where fast driving is legal ? That's where I will be going for my next holiday."

Well from this example, you can see that there are people who have a need for speed. I think that it is important to address this need that some people have, if there is some place where people can go to satisfy this need then they won't have to do it on public roads and endanger the lives of everyone else.

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