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G5
Manages a Quality Driving Circle Traffic Attitude Adjustment
Introduction:
Smile Drivers SMILE!
This is a report on Quality Driving Circles (QDC). The purpose of this paper is to determine the effectiveness of QDC's. We will also review the opinions of past generations and compare them to those of today's drivers. It Is our goal to create happy drivers driving in a happy environment.
Traffic Psychology Through the Generations:
Past Perspectives
Generation One
Todd Takitani
- Like me, Todd had lived in Los Angeles and have experienced what traffic was like in L.A. We had spoken about this exact topic of the difference of traffic in Hawaii as compared to traffic on the mainland (specifically in California) in class several times. Attitudes had not seemed to change. I believe that many people who live in Hawaii seem to think that traffic environment in the big cities on the mainland is much worse that those one may encounter in Hawaii. This point can be argued. Yes, it is true that Honolulu rarely encounters the bumper-to-bumper traffic that can be encountered on a daily basis in Los Angeles. On the other hand, I don't think that people take things as personally in Los Angeles as they do in Hawaii as for as driving is concerned. I have been a driver in both Honolulu and Los Angeles for 3 years and what I've noticed is that people in Los Angeles honk their horn much more than in Hawaii but here in Hawaii I've seen more "stink eye" and heard obscenities being shouted out of cars than in my three years in L.A.
Laura Izutsu
- Laura brings up the point that driving is indeed a group activity. Some people "fail to see driving as a group activity," states Laura. Yes, it is true that while we drive, we hardly ever come into contact with the other individuals behind the wheel but in each and every one of those cars is a person, each with personalities, emotions, and feelings. As we discussed in class one day, many of us make mean faces , shout obscenities, and make rude gestures at our fellow drivers who had been unfortunate enough to irritate during the course of our driving, but has any of us thought about what that action may be doing to that other person? I'm sure most of us has not. It's easier to do such things when you don't see the consequenses of your actions. When you're in your car and you give another driver the finger or shout an obscenity at them, they drive away and that's it. You'll probably never, ever see them again. If you were to do the same thing in person you see the consequences. You see the reaction of the individual after you go through with the said action. You may see their face turn and see because of your actions, you've made that person's day a little bit worse. Now, some of you may feel that ruining or making another person's day is of no consequence to you. Why should you care if you made someone else's day happy or sad? Well I'm sure I am not the only one that feels that knowing something you did for (or to) someone has in some way ruined or enhanced their day is important. That this in turn ruins or enhances your day as well. Some people may not realize that this type of interaction occurs in a traffic setting as well.
Generation Two
Alan Furukawa
- All of us have this invisible "personal space" that we always have around us. It is like a force field which surrounds us. If anyone gets too close, therefore entering into your "personal space" you feel awkward and feel the need to either repel this person out or to back off so that this person is no longer in your "personal space". Alan applied this concept to driving. The way Alan explains it, while were driving, we have this "driving bubble" which surrounds us as well. Inside the bubble is MY space and outside is THEIRS. Anyone who dares to invade my space is deserving of my retaliation and the aggressive behaviour bubbles to the surface (excuse the pun). I believe this is a common attitude among drivers. Alan mentions many of the same concepts as Dr. Driving. First step to reform your driving is to realize you are doing something wrong (Self-Witnessing). If you are provoked, you have choice either to retaliate or not. He also brought up the point that other drivers are not purposely trying to make you mad or attack you personally. This is another factor addressed by Dr. Driving. As drivers, we tend to take the actions of other drivers much too personally to the point where we start to assume the thoughts and the motivations of the other driver. As Dr. Driving says, we must avoid such actions because, after all, we don't know what the person is thinking. Think about it for a moment. Is it really realistic to think that another driver, a complete stranger, is purposely coming at you, risking life and limb, to attack you personally? I highly doubt it.
Nancee Aki
- "Chornic Speeder" is the term which Nancee defines as "someone who always exceeds the speed limit by ten or more miles per hour." This point got me thinking. If this was true, the people in my home town, Los Angeles, would all be chronic speeders, at least on the freeway anyway. The average speed on L.A.'s freeways are a swift 70 miles per hour, much higher then those encountered in the freeways of Honolulu, at about 60 mile per hour at the most. Could this be due to the fact that, as Nancee points out, that the reason for all this speeding is because society has become exceedingly selfish, always thinking of oneself over others? Maybe there are a higher number of selfish people that live in L.A. than in Hawaii. This may all be true, but let me try to explain why I sometimes speed. The number one reason I speed is because I am late getting to my destination, the time factor also mentioned by Nancee. I have five minutes to get across town and I have five minutes to do it. To make matters worse, it is 4:30 in the afternoon and most of the major streets are full of cars. This causes me to rush yellow lights, weave through traffic, and to put my full weight into the accelerator even if the length of travel is only 10 feet. I think a big reason people speed is bad time management. I know time managment sounds like it has very little to the act of driving but this does effect the overall mood and mindset of the driver. In this respect it really does alot to do with driving.
Generation Three
Christy Forsythe
- Christy brought up the interesting point of your behaviours having influence on your feelings. This is a point which was also discussed in our class. We can all agree that a smile, a hug, a burst of laughter, even if you are sad or angry, will have a soothing effect on you. So don't you think that yelling, shouting, acting vengefully would make you ill-tempered and irritable? It relates to the notion that a person feels better when they get angry and "vent". If behaviour really does have an influence on feelings then if you act out bahaviour that is vengeful and spiteful, how can you expect to feel better? It is a known fact that the phisiological changes which occur when your face is smiling fools your brain to think that you are indeed in a good mood and pretty soon you really are in a good mood. Your brain associates the physical action of smiling (or scowling) with being happy (or mad). Maybe next time someone cuts you off an inch off of your front bumper, you can just do alot of smiling and laughing and you'll feel better. Is driving really worth getting all upset and worked up over?
Angie Inoue
- In her report, Angie discusses the topic of smoking and driving. Yes, smoking is indeed a safety hazard when it comes to driving. Some insurance companies even have a different category smokers because they believe that smokers are more of a risk are more of a risk. It really can be distracting and hazardous as Angie has mentioned in her report. I had a similar incident a few years back. I had a lit cigarette in my mouth and I was making a right hand turn. As I was making the turn, the cherry from the cigarette dropped right on my left forearm. I had to bite down and bear it until I completed the turn and was able to let go of the steering wheel. I still have a scar on my arm from it.
Setting Up and Running My Quality Driving Circle:
Just a Bunch of Monkeys
For this section, I had to collect a group of people and have three sessions in an attempt to make them happy drivers. One was a 20 year old female who's lived in Hawaii all of her life, the second was a 20 year old male who moved to Hawaii just a year and a half ago, and finally a 21 year old male who had moved to Hawaii about 4 years ago. I chose to address the problem of a problematic driving environment and how this effects one's driving. This is the result of the three sessions.
Session One
For the first meeting, I got testimonials from each of the drivers and how they each describe their driving style. These are some of the questions which were asked in the test.
- What kind of music do you listen to when driving? Does it effect your driving?
- How much earlier do you leave to go to your destination when getting there on time is important (ie going to work, school, etc.). Do you think that is enough time?
- Do you smoke while you drive?
- Do you talk while you drive? Does that distract you?
All of them reported that they enjoy a variety of music while driving. Two out of the three reported that music often influences them to lean into the gas a bit more depending on the "aggressiveness" or speed of the music. Two stated that they give themselves 5-10 minutes and said that it is not enough time. When asked why they don't leave earlier, they explained that either they are lazy or procrastinating. Only two of them smoked but only one smoke while driving. Only one explained that talking while driving is distracting. Other questions addressed emotional states while driving such as driving while angry, sad, nervous, etc. and all of the participants explained that these emotions had some sort of influence on their driving. My purpose in this session was to attain information about the drivers and to tell them to observe their driving and report their results in the next session.
Session Two
This session was held 5 days after the last session. In this session, I inquired about their observations while driving. On this second session, I was informed that though the environment inside the vehicle was important (music, smoking, etc.), but the environment outside the vehicle was more of a concern to them. This posed a problem because it was beginning to stray from my focus of these sessions, so I did what any sensible college student would do. I shifted my focus to include outside influences. They stated the obvious things such as the pace of traffic, irritating or disrespectful drivers, weather, etc. Some things which they mentioned which I really hadn't thought of was the weather, not so much the bad weather but the good weather. They explained that they are in better moods when the weather is better and it's nice and clear outside. From this I began to think that possibly the solar rays have some therapeutic value or perhaps the amount of light has something to do with elevation of mood. This would be out of the scope of my assignment so I really did not go too deep into the topic but I did come up with a simple theory. There are things such as light therapy to treat severely depressed people and it is true that places with very cloudy weather, such as Washington state, has high suicide rates, I concluded that there are some truth to the sun rays elevating their moods. For the next session, I modified my original plan and asked the participants to observe their thought process while driving and their effect on mood and in turn their driving. I asked them to try to notice their mood turning negative and do something (maybe animal sounds just as Dr. Driving does) to diminish their negative mood and turn it into a positive.
Session Three
This session was held 3 days after the last one. In this third and final session, I asked all of the participants of their results to my advice. They sited some instances, getting cut off was named by two, which their mood was challenged. Neither of them followed my advice and made animal sounds but instead they just decided not to think about it and thought about something else. This seemed to have worked because they said that they did not feel as frustrated and was not as grouchy about the whole situation, all in hindsight of coarse. Overall, other than the fact that I had to alter my focus of the sessions, I feel that these sessions went pretty well. I just wish that I could have had more sessions with more time in between to really see some changes because at least two out of the three seemed to show some improvement. I think that if I had to do it again, I would make the personality test serve as an assessment of problem areas so I can come up with a focus, instead of beginning with a focus and then preparing a test to find out more about that one topic. I feel that something like this would only work if the participants are open-minded and are willing to change. Those who stubbornly deny that they have a problem or protest that they are not doing anything wrong would not benefit from such a program. One begins with acknowledgement of their problems and the willingness to change.
Driving Improvement Resources on the Web:
Links to Better Driving
The Detroit News (May 5, 1996)-- This site lists examples of "Road Rage" and some ways to resolve it. VERY relative to our topic at hand.
Psychology and Road Safety -- A Traffic Psychology study at the University of Barcelona including background information explaining its beginnings. For a global perspective.
Traffic Safety Information Village -- A database having to do with drivers' training, education, services, licensing, road safety and, of coarse, Traffic Psychology. Do a search under "social" in their database search. They have an abstract of a new Driver Education method developed in New Zealand that includes behavioral training as well. (the article itself is only accessible to members)
Study on Driver Behavior by the Manchester Driver Behavior Research Group -- Gives statistics and characteristics of high violators. Their data is gathered through extensive surveys. This is just another European perspective on driver behavior having an effect on driving aggressiveness and style.
Database of Unsafe Driving (DUD) -- An alternative to presented therapeutic methods. This site exposes reckless drivers in a given area by describing their unsafe actions and even providing, in some cases, descriptions of vehicles and/or licence plate numbers. If you see one of the cars listed in the database in your area... Watch out! Too bad Hawaii is not listed as of yet.
The Psychology of "Battle of the Sexes" -- Describes a problem which was yet to be discussed in any of the psychology sites I've seen. This crude little site talks about other people in the car and their effect on your driving and presents solutions. This site brings up a topic generally not dealt with in other sites.
"Road Rage" on the rise -- Aggressive driving news release and summary of aggressive driving study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Discusses the statistics, causes, and ways to protect yourself from aggressive drivers. Deals not only with the psychological aspects of the external driving mechanics (obey traffic laws, don't take it personal, avoid unnecessary use of the high beam, etc.) but with the driving environment (driver comfort, listen to soothing music, etc.).
The Road Safety Project -- A research project at the University of Waikato NZ (Department of Psychology). Topics include perception of road navigation, eye-movement studies, driving behavior at T-junctions, perceptual factors in older persons, social factors in driving, the perception of driving risks, and the use of passengers in behavioural interventions.
Summer of the planning of the International Conference on Traffic and Transport Psychology -- The European Association of Traffic Psychology and the Traffic & Transport Division of the International Association of Applied Psychology both recognise the need for an international forum that can serve to promote research on the human factor in the areas of transport, traffic and Driver Safety. Because conferences fulfil the important function of establishing such a forum, these Associations have decided to organise, jointly, the first International Conference on Traffic and Transport Psychology. This site summorizes the planning of the conference.
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