What's in this report...
My reaction to the GCR
What did I learn?
What did the author learn?
Does the content fit Traffic Psychology?
Get out of this document

My reaction to the GCR

My first reaction was, "Wow! This was done on a TYPEWRITER!!!" Two different typewriters, at that. Ugh. White out and the whole nine yards....EEEucgh.

The actual paper was written in 1987, which would account for the use of this ancient device.

The author is Leigh Ann Ganigan (say that out loud, it has a nice ring!), and she calls it "My Resistance To Driving Properly: Why Do I Drive Deviantly On My Moped." She focused on her attitude while driving her moped (I assume around UH).

The first part of the report said how and where she located her info...a standard for all of these reports, I see.

The next part was rather interesting - a study done on UH moped drivers. In 1983, only 9% of UH students drove mopeds. How about that? I bet you could get a breath of fresh air every now and then too. I think (without any scientific research to back this up) that in 1995 9% of UH students DON'T drive mopeds.

Ms. Ganigan asserts that better moped driving could be attained through 1. Road surface improvement, 2. Better driving facilities (I don't understand this either?????), and 3. Other motorists becoming more aware of moped drivers. Sounds fair to me. As Ms. Ganigan said,"I can well relate to these results and can even relate to them." Huh? Ah, the many joys of manual typewriters. This quote was at the bottom of the page, so I think that's why it stayed there.

Something that disturbed me about her report was a confession about driving on the sidewalk. That would truly scare the heck out of me, if I was trudging along to class and some psych on a moped came driving towards me on the sidewalk. I'd also be freaked if they came up behind me too. That's driver intimidation!.She also mentioned going the wrong way on a one-way street.

Ms. Ganian relayed that, "As much as 35% [of students] admitted to violating a law...for some length of their trip. They did this without receiving a single warning or citation from the police. From my point of view, this level of "tolerance" on part of the police should be a signifigant factor in relating to deviant driving. If you're not going to get caught doing something wrong, would you do it?" Well, yes! That's the name of the game. Not really, people who get caught doing something they usually do, but don't get caught for it, are usually really pissy about being caught, and may commit the act repeatedly just BECAUSE. This is not science, folks, this is human nature. We don't have to make sense.

What did Ilearn?

I learned that things have really changed a lot at the old UH campus with regards to moped driving. Wow! A mopedder can't even find a place to park now, even if they DO have a parking pass. What did the author learn?

Does the content fit Traffic Psychology?

I feel that her content fits the definition of traffic psychology because in her observational data, she includes cognitve and affective features.