A Quality Driving Circle. This report will discuss a little bit about my Quality Driving Circle, and discuss some topics related to Traffic Psychology to this group. Before I had brought the group together I thought that this would be a discussion group which would discuss the topics freely, and with no reserve. It would have a comfortable atmosphere and because of this, the discussions would be free of any problems, if any. When I got the group started it resembled the attitude that I had thought would happen when I started my group. But as time passed, I noticed some problems with expression of feelings regarding each topic. Now this could be becase of cultural attitudes, yet I thought that each person was assimilated into 'western' thinking. I was wrong. We continued and accomplished some of the things I wanted to get done. So here is my 2nd report, with some past reports from previous Generations. Mahalo. Go back to Table of Contents
Michelle's report page has an interesting weekly report on convoys. An example of convoys would be a group of vehicles huddled together for the sole purpose of matching each others speed limit. I sometimes try to convoy with other vehicles, especially when I am on the freeway, to avoid being ticketed by the police. It is a way for people to be considered 'safe.'
Michelle sees that convoys ...provide protection...to avoid being
pulled over by the police... By understanding about convoys, Michelle also sees that understanding her behavior re: convoys can help her understand about her behavior when it comes to driving. She does some 'self-witnessing
observations' so that she can understand what happens on the road. Self-witnessing is important because then you can understand some of the behaviors that one does on the road. Then a person might change because they would know what they were doing on the road. I
believe that will help her in the future as a reformed driver. It will also help me in the future, because then I would see what I was doing and change because I am aware of my bad driving behavior.
Danell Saito
Danell talks about what he calls a vicious cycle. He has noticed that
Aloha in driving has disappeared... He believes that
because people are driving in a more emotionally charged driving
behavior, in addition to the effects of reformed drivers from
other actions from other drivers (the reformed driver will start
to get upset again at the other drivers and will wind up doing all of
the things she used to do before the change.). I also believe that this is somewhat true. When I first came to Hawaii for vacation, in 1992, I noticed that driving was very much different here. I noticed that people were driving much slower than that of my hometown of San Diego, California. Hawaii drivers were driving slower than California drivers, and there was more 'courtesy' on the road. People, young and old, were being very polite when they were driving. People would let other people go into their lane, and then you would see a 'shaka' sign, which would be considered 'thank you.' Now, I noticed that driving behavior has changed for the worst. People are getting more and more hostile, and they are causing trouble.
Danell has a very
interesting last comment on this report, and it is something I have also noticed this is very much true. As with everything else
in this world, it's an endless, sometimes vicious, cycle. Go back to Table of Contents
Generation 2
Denise Tanaka
Denise's report on her Driving Personality Makeover Plan
was an intersting report. She understands that her problem is
tailgating. She tailgates people if they are going too
slow. I also tailgate other drivers especially if they are going too slow. In California, where I am from, if you are going too slow, you are given the 'right' to tailgate the other driver so that they would go to another lane, and then you would be on your way. That sometimes doesn't happen here. Especially if the highway you are driving in is a two lane highway. The other driver doesn't have the convenience of going to another lane because there is only one lane going the direction you are going. She understands that this class and her understanding of
her problem will not fix the situation though, and I somewhat agree with
that concept. That is a problem here, but I believe that is somewhat true because we don't want to fix our driving behavior. People think that their driving behavior is good, and we shouldn't change our behavior because it is good. That is where the vicious cycle comes about.
Nancee Aki
Nancee's report 1 had a topic of speeding. This is a topic which would interest me very much because I am notorious for speeding. She understood from Lisa
Isobe that in society today people are always in a rush and find
themselves getting more frustrated as delays and annoyances
increase. It is true that we are in a rush because we are more
frustrated because delays and annoyances increase!!!! Yet some individuals speed for the pure reason of speed. It is like a rush, and some people speed to get that feeling. I speed sometimes because I am in a hurry, yet sometimes I speed just to get that 'feeling' too. When I lived in California, I used to race my completely modified 1991 Toyota Tercel. I thought it was fun. It feels reallly good when my car can beat a sports car, like a Toyota Celica, or Supra, or even a Ford Mustang!!! But. of course, the problem with speeding is because of the fact that we are in a hurry. We are living in
a society in which we are trying to do so much in so little time.
Michelle's Driver Support Groups page was a page in which people can
discuss Traffic Psychology related material (Michelle's topic also was about
speeding). She also has links to other sites that have topics of
speeding (Traffic Psychology Generation 1 and 2 students who discussed
the topic of speeding, and Home pages relating to speeding). It is very interesting to see what each Generation has to say about the topic of speeding. Each Generation uses the previous Generation's feelings regarding a topic such as speeding, and modifies it a bit to fit it to their own feelings. Now this is rather difficult because you don't know if the person (Michelle) had that current belief, or if it was taken from previous generations. I decided to follow the trend and add another important variable to the equation. I have modified the belief of speeding to also include the feeling of the 'rush.' For some people, they get the feeling of control and superiority when the speed past other drivers, and get to their destination, or other accomplishment, quicker than the other driver.
Interesting page to discuss speeding.
Angie Inouye
Angie's Driver support page was similar to that of Michelle's page,
except her topic was about not being able to stop wanting to be
rude to some drivers. She has a support group, in which other people would leave comments about the subject of being rude to other drivers. I myself do not like rude drivers because it really feels uncomfortable for me, and I might not have a good day because of it. In addition, I didn't believe Hawaii had 'rude' drivers in the first place, so this topic did discourage me somewhat. I always thought that Hawaii was the haven for 'Aloha' drivers. Yet people were leaving comments that it was happening. She also had links from Generation 1 and
2, and home pages related to this topic of Traffic Psychology.
Fran's report 1 starts off by talking about speeding, and this is a topic that I can relate somewhat, especially from my experiences driving a vehicle in California. Although I don't remember how my car accident occured (because of Post-traumatic amnesia), I know that I could have also died because I forgot the strength of the car. After taking this class, I now know I should have created a Driving Personality Makeover, because it could have prevented this accident. Now, because of the accident, I am disabled for life. There is no way I can change what happened in the past, but now I can change the future. This report also talks about what the generations are, and then discusses the need for a Driving Personality Makeover. Back then, I know I should have had a driving personality makeover. Now, I believe there is no need because I 'learned my lesson' and changed because of it. So for all you 'aggressive speeders' I have one comment for you...read Fran's report 1 on speeding (and/or any other report re:speeding) and try to 'self-witness' yourself. Then you will see that you are causing harm to yourself and others by doing this.
Cherish C. Higashi
Cherish's report on Everyone needs some "road" work and it talks about how driving an automobile is an everyday activity for many of us...(and) it can be taken for granted. A driving personality makeover can prevent us from taking such a crucial task as driving for granted... Cherish takes quotes from students of different generations to discuss the Driving personality makeover. She then finds out that this makeover can be applied to almost everyone who drives, crazy, subtle, or flawless drivers. Well, I sorta find this true. It would be useful for someone who needs assistance in correcting some flaws of their driving skills. But, how about for someone who already considers themselves 'flawless.' Or how about ignorant people who don't want to change. I believe the first part of a driving personality makeover is the acknowledgement that the driver must change. Then, can a driver truely change. Cherish then talks about other generational material, and then talks about the specifics of the driving personality makeover.
Generation 4
Cherilyn Okazaki
Cherilyn's report 1 talks about the definition of Traffic psychology.
She gets the definition from students of previous generations. I believe that it is important to understand each Generations responses toward Traffic psychology because then we might get a feeling of what each group felt at that time. It also helps us to see what has, or has not changed in each Generation. She then
goes on to tell us that she needs to know more about Traffic Psychology
because of what happens when she exhibits 'road rage.' I 'rage' also, yet I know when I am raging, so I usually either try to stop raging, or I listen to the radio (this helps me to calm down because music has the power to calm me down). She understands
that Traffic Psychology could help us be 'convinced that
maybe we should change our driving personality. I don't necessarily agree with the idea of 'changing' our driving personality, but rather 'modifying' it.
Shelly Secretario
Shelly's report is about fast drivers, and is a very
interesting report. She drives fast, and Shelly says that
(Shelly) can only say that I like to drive...even my mom likes to
speed, and she taught me how... Hmm...Is driving attitudes
hereditary? Possibly she speeds because she always sees her mother driving fast, therefore she dirves fast also. This behavior is her 'guidelines' on how to drive a car, and she has learned how to drive from her mother, so she adopted the guidelines because of the fact. Anyways, Shelly does say that although we do have speed
limits, rules are meant to be broken.... I don't necessarily agree with that comment because speed limits are used to control the flow of traffic, and if we broke these laws (like I had in the past) then the freeway would be like a Daytona racing gran prix!! I believe that speed limits are to be broken only if the flow of traffic is somwhat faster than the posted speed limit. BUT, the flow of traffic CANNOT be higher than 10 miles above the speed limit. This is only applicable in a freeway or highway situation, with 3 or 4 lanes of freeway on both sides!!! The police usually have a 'safe' speed zones above the posted speed limit which is usually 5 or 10 miles above this speed limit. Time of day and conditions of the road are also factors.
The three specific items I worked with on my Quality Driving Circle was on Zone 1, Affective, phase 1; Zone 2, Cognitive, phase 1; and Zone 3, Sensorimotor, Phase 1 Driving personality zones. I had used these Three zones to set up my personality test questions.
Before they filled out the questionnaires, they had to read instructions, which said they had to ...read all of the responses and if the response matches their driving personality, please mark next to the response. They are only allowed to mark 5 responses.Some examples I have used in my Personality test are as follows: _Feeling dislike, contempt, or disdain for traffic regulations or the police, or other authority figure.
_I believe that driving at the speed limit is too slow for most roads.
_Executing an incorrect or illegal act in routine driving situations.
_Striving to be accurate and to avoid making errors in driving.
_Observing or noting mistakes in driving.
_Becoming more aware of your driving actions, thoughts, and feelings.
_Not noticing signs or being insufficiently alert to traffic conditions, and other questions
I wouldn't mind having this car
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