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Number of Weekly Messages to Post:
You need to post 3 messages each week, starting Tuesday, January 18.
The first weekly message you post is called a Self-Witnessing Report (SWR).
The second weekly message you post is called a Reaction Comment (RC).
The third weekly message you post is called an Opinion Comment (OC).
*Note: When posting a message type in the subject line what exercise you are doing, and label it in parenthesis with (SWR#1), (RC#1), or (OC#1), as in these examples:
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 What to
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Robertson | 03/15/00 02:05PM | ||||
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*Note that Robertson forgot the subject topic in one example, then forgot the exercise type in the second example.
How to Post a Self-Witnessing Report (SWR):
Click on G13 Hawaii QDC, then on the reply button to post your SWR.
SWR Steps:
1) Read the TEE Card listed for each of the 10 successive exercises (see below).
2) Plan your Self-Witnessing exercise based on it.
3) Carry out your Self-Witnessing exercise while driving on one or more trips.
4) Write a draft on your word processor of:
- Your feelings or emotions during your Self-Witnessing exercise.
- Your thoughts and observations during and after the exercise.
- Your behavior or acts during the exercise.
5) Include some specific details such as the time of day, weather factors, location, and anything else that pertains to your exercise. Paint us a scene with words.
6) Proofread and spell check your draft. When it's ready, post it on the G13 Hawaii QDC thread along with the others.
How to Post a Reaction Comment (RC):
RC Steps:
1) Read other people's SWR postings.
2) Comment on one or more of them as follows:
- What they say that you also recognize in yourself as a driver
- Suggestions on how to interpret it psychologically
- Suggestions on what to do next
- Questions about what's not clear
How to Post an Opinion Comment (OC):
OC Steps:
1) Read other people's postings, comments, opinions, or reports, including other threads, not just QDC topics.
2) Comment on anything you want.
How to Create a Coolboard Account for Forum Discussions:
1) Go to the Forum Discussions Page.
2) Click on New Account. Please use your last name for registering (and if taken, use last name and initial).
3) Fill in the empty fields.
4) Send me your Username via e-mail after successfully creating an account. This will help me keep track of your postings and weekly participation.
10 TEE Card Exercises (One per week)
All TEE Cards are posted below in this file!
Exercise 1: TEE Card No. 44C2 and 42C2, then take the driver test at: http://aloha.net/~dyc/survey/survey3/personality.html -- brief version
No.44C2
Attribution Bias in Driving Exchanges |
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It's normal to try to figure things out when something happens: what's going on, who is doing it, why they're doing it, and so on. Typically, we assess incoming information and come to a logical conclusion. When it comes to driving, drivers often ignore important information and make the wrong conclusion which then gives them trouble. The following statements describe how drivers feel in some common situations, and the percent of people surveyed who agree or disagree with that conclusion or mentality.
The vast majority of drivers agree that one is not supposed to close the gap and deny entry to another car, and a driver who does that "needs better training to avoid such errors" (item 4) and learn to become "more alert" or cooperative (item 2). But, about half of the respondents agree with the idea that making such an error turns you into "a power hungry idiot who enjoys offending others" (items 1 and 3). How about you?? Consider this: If half of the drivers on the road think that the other half are power hungry idiots who enjoy annoying you, then we have a serious problem on our highways! Note that a majority of people disagree with the explanation that the driver who closes the gap does it "by habit, not even realizing it" (item 2). And yet this is answer is more likely, as you yourself can know by observing your own driving more closely. You will find that it's a common thing to do--unconsciously closing the gap when you notice a car wanting to switch to your lane ahead of you. It's done unconsciously because we acquire the tendency in childhood while we ride in our parents' car. And if not, we still do it for years and it becomes unconscious. Here are some common things people say when asked why drivers make them mad. Do they sound familiar to you?
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For
additional information and ordering instruction, visit the Web at |
No.42C2 Symptoms of
Confrontational Thinking |
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Look at some of the
symptoms of confrontational thinking behind the wheel. Here are the
results of a national survey on the Web See how you would answer each item.
Let's look at item 3. You can see from the results that the vast majority of drivers can figure out that if you get into a fight you share the blame no matter who started it, as long as it's clear that you had a choice to stay out of it. People understand that if you yell at someone, a fight can start. So it doesn't matter if later you claim you didn't mean to start a fight. Note that 17% still don't understand this--that's 1 in every 6 drivers! They need more training in how to think appropriately about driving situations. Item 2 is a kind of paranoia to which drivers are vulnerable since driving situations are often unclear. It's possible that a driver might intentionally slow you down and get a kick out of it, but the fact that we think this way every time, or most of the time, is a sure indicator that it is paranoia, not reality. Ask yourself whether you get your kicks by intentionally slowing others down. It seems that it's always the other driver who tries to do you in. That's not reality. Item 1 splits the population down the middle. The reality is that you don't really know why a driver does something. Keep track of how many times you think a driver is going to do one thing, then does another. It happens often. So the fact is, we're not very good at explaining why a driver has honked (maybe the hand slipped, maybe they saw someone and are trying to catch their attention, maybe they're fooling around with each other inside the car, maybe the horn has a short, etc.). |
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For
additional information and ordering instruction, visit the Web at |
Exercise 2: TEE Card No. 1C1 Top Ten Aggressive Behaviors--Which Ones Do You Do?
No.1C1 The Nation's Top Ten Driving Offenses |
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Nuisance |
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Observe which ones you do |
1 |
Cutting off or, cutting in and slowing down | |
| 2 | Lane changing in a reckless manner or, weaving through traffic | |
| 3 | Turning without signaling | |
| 4 | Cruising in the passing lane, not moving over | |
| 5 | Taking too long to turn or to get moving | |
| 6 | Yelling, insulting, or gesturing | |
| 7 | Rushing or being impatient all the time | |
| 8 | Tailgating and following too close | |
| 9 | Passing on the right shoulder when a car is turning left | |
| 10 | Running red lights or, speeding up to yellow | |
For additional information and ordering instruction, visit
the Web at |
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Exercise 3: TEE Card No. 2C1 Competitive Mentality--Which Ones Apply To You?
No.2C1
Driver Check-up |
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Your 'Gunny Sacking' List |
Observe which ones you subconsciously keep track of |
| 1 | How many cars you're passing | |
| 2 | How many cars pass you by | |
| 3 | Which lane is faster or slower as you progress | |
| 4 | Whether someone 'forced' you to brake | |
| 5 | How many lights you made without having to stop | |
| 6 | How many times you got to be the 'leader' of the pack | |
| 7 | How many minutes you were able to shave off on today's trip | |
| 8 | Whether some driver was acting "pushy" towards you | |
| 9 | Whether you got away with speeding over that stretch of road | |
| 10 | Feeling insulted and wondering whether you're a wimp if you don't retaliate | |
| 11 | Whether you were able to prevent someone from entering your lane | |
| 12 | Whether someone prevented you from doing something | |
| 13 | Other:____________________________ | |
| Most drivers keep track of several of these items. How
about you? The spirit of territorial competition governs this economy of keeping track and acting on it. This mental driving economy serves to maintain an aggressive culture on highways and streets. As soon as our gunny-sack of complaints is full on any particular trip, we sense the passion of self-righteousness swell in our chest, and we feel justified in letting it fly, exploding with rage, with disapproval, with condemnation, with thoughts of violence. Next time you catch yourself keeping track of these competitive points, tell yourself to JUST STOP IT, and then think about all the reasons why it's smarter, safer, and more pleasant not to drive that way. |
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For additional information and ordering instruction, visit
the Web at |
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Exercise 4: TEE Card No 4C1 Road Rage Tendency--What Is Yours?
No.4C1 Test Your Road Rage Tendency |
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| Instructions: Answer each question yourself and ask a passenger who knows you, to fill out the back, answering about you as a driver. | on EVERY trip | on SOME trips | NEVER |
| 1. I complain to myself about other drivers or the traffic. | |||
| 2. I get annoyed or irritated by some drivers. | |||
| 3. I feel frustration and anger in congested traffic. | |||
| 4. I drive like I'm in a hurry, leaving slower drivers behind. | |||
| 5. I honk at drivers who upset me. | |||
| 6. I tailgate slower drivers who refuse to move over. | |||
| 7. I yell at drivers, and if they deserve it, I give them the finger. | |||
| 8. I break speed limits. | |||
| 9. I go through red lights. | |||
| 10. I drive impaired (alcohol, medication, fatigue). | |||
| Evaluation: 2 or more EVERY answers=Your road rage tendency is at a dangerous level. 5 or more SOME answers=You have moderate road rage. 7 or more NEVER answers=You're in control of yourself. Congratulations! Now compare your answers about yourself with the passenger's answers about you. |
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For additional information and ordering instruction, visit the Web at |
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Exercise 5: TEE Card No. 8C2 The Driver's Threefold Self: Two Phases, How Does It Apply to You?
No.8C2 The Driver's ThreeFold Self: Phases 1 and 2 |
For
additional information and ordering instruction, visit the Web at |
Exercise 6: TEE Card No. 9C2 Strategies For Managing Anger--How Do They Work For You?
No.9C2
DrDriving's HINTS |
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| Slowly count to ten. | This gives you control by interfering with your natural tendency to vent your anger and whip yourself into a rage or frenzy. While you force yourself to count slowly, your adrenaline in the blood goes back down to normal levels. |
| Count your blessings. Forgive and forget |
Reflect on the positive side of driving, even traffic. Congestion and traffic are more aggravating when you fail to cope with your expectations. Think about the people who are waiting for you to arrive and how you don't want to disappoint them. Think about your family members and favorite people: one of them may be in the car you just cut off or denied entry into your lane. If you have religious feelings, think about how you would drive if God were your passenger! |
| Make funny noises | This gives you something to do other than venting your anger or seeking to return an insult. Laughter not only interrupts your negative thinking, it unloads the stress. |
| Use the Castanza Technique | When you're in a bad mood, act the opposite of what you feel like. It worked for George on Seinfeld--remember that episode? |
| Pretend you're from Hawaii and drive with Aloha | You don't have to feel pleased in order to act like a peaceful driver. Even if you don't feel like being nice or polite, you still can act that way. The other motorists will not know the difference--and that's what counts. Do your courtesy waves and smiles. Put on a pleasant face. The way you drive is contagious. If you're nice, others feel the pressure to be less hostile. They can't help it. You're influencing their behavior, not by retaliating, but by peacemaking. |
| Think of alternative reasons why someone does something. | Diving with emotional intelligence is the ability to think of alternative explanations about the behavior of other drivers, and to accept them as legitimate. For example, the slow driver up ahead who is holding up the lane may not be a jerk or an idiot: Perhaps he is sick. Perhaps she is old. Perhaps he is confused. Perhaps she is not aware of the drivers behind her. Perhaps he is a student driver. All sorts of possibilities may be true when you consider the great diversity of drivers in our vast motorized nation--about 125 million of them on the road every day. |
| Develop an attitude of latitude | Convince yourself of this:
We need to create a culture of patience on
our highways. t is smart to subdue our emotions when they carry us away into
hostilities with our mobile community. It is intelligent to choose positive
explanations, rather than negative, because they may be equally true, and at the same
time, they are more peaceful, less disturbing, more community oriented, less alienating,
more deeply satisfying. Try it next time you drive, and prove to yourself that you can do it, and that it is ultimately more deeply satisfying than the "you stupid jerk" approach. |
| Commit yourself to a Lifelong Program of Driver Self-improvement | You cannot rely on your memory or impression or reputation you have with yourself as a driver, which is mostly exaggerated and unrealistic. To be accurate and realistic, you need to keep a Driving Log or Diary and make appropriate entries after each trip. Or, you can record yourself while driving, speaking your thoughts aloud. What a revelation when you listen to it later! It's a wake-up call to a driving personality makeover. |
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For additional information and ordering instruction, visit
the Web at |
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Exercise 7: TEE Card No. 15C2 Three Step Program--Apply It To One Of Your Driving Habits
No.15C2
Rethinking Behind The Wheel Aggression |
DrDriving's ThreeStep Program (1) ACKNOWLEDGE that you are part of the problem by the way you drive. This is not easy. Most drivers think of themselves as "excellent" and are not aware of their own mistakes and habits. But if you can admit that aggressive driving is a cultural norm you learned in childhood when being driven by parents, then you can begin see it as a national or societal problem in which we are both perpetrators and victims. (2) WITNESS your own errors and transgressions. We need to take stock of how we function as drivers. Ask yourself: Are you captive of your own negativity and irrationality? We must realize that along with learning to drive, comes learned negativity and learned irrationality. These are cultural norms or habits of driving transmitted from generation to generation. Unconscious habits can be made conscious, and then they can be modified. Ask yourself: Are you thinking in the language of retaliation? We learn our driving style and outlook from our parents and from the media. By the time we start driving at 15 or 16, we have been exposed to thousands of scenes depicting Drivers Behaving Badly (DBB). So now we need to backtrack from all that aggressiveness, hostility, and speed with which we become familiar in movies and commercials. (3) MODIFY your errors and habits one step at a time. When you see the mistakes of other drivers, choose to be concerned rather than cynical. This is your free choice. It's a moral decision. When someone is tailgating you, choose to be a peacemaker, not a warrior. This is a rational choice because it allows you to retain control over the situation. If you choose the warrior's way, you loose control over the situation, not knowing how the other person will respond to your provocation. |
For additional
information and ordering instruction, visit the Web at |
Exercise 8: TEE Card No. 30C6 Scenarios Analysis--Select a News Story On Road Rage and Apply a Scenarios Analysis To It
No.30C6 Scenarios Analysis--Newspaper Stories Road Rage Shoot Out in Fender Bender |
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Road Rage Shoot Out A hit-and-run "gone terribly wrong" was how sheriff's officials described a fender-bender between two pickup truck drivers that ended in a shootout Thursday night in northeast El Paso County. One man was killed. The other remained at Penrose Hospital on Friday with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The shooting stemmed from a crash that occurred about 7:30 p.m. Thursday on Powers Boulevard just south of Stetson Hills Boulevard. The man in the red Dodge Dakota was "driving erratically" when he bumped Bispo's blue Ford pickup, Hilte said. The Dakota driver then wheeled around Bispo's Ford and sped north on Powers Boulevard, Hilte said. Bispo, a civilian employee at Fort Carson, followed as the driver turned east onto Dublin Boulevard and parked on the shoulder. "He pulled over about a car length back, and it just went bad from there," Hilte said. Both men got out of their vehicles wielding handguns. Words were exchanged. Shots were fired. Blood was spilled. Bispo's girlfriend was still on the phone with 911 dispatchers when the shooting started. On-scene investigators found about a dozen shell casings - two from the Dakota driver's revolver, the rest from Bispo's 9 mm semiautomatic pistol. While enlisted in the Army, Bispo qualified as a sharpshooter with an M-1 rifle, according to military records. The Dakota driver died of a gunshot wound to the chest shortly after the shooting. Neither driver was licensed to carry a concealed weapon. |
Here are two drivers who got into a dispute, the result of which was that
one driver is dead, while the other faces possible charges of a serious nature for his
future. This is not a good situation for either driver, obviously.
Warning: this has happened hundreds of times this year, where one driver is dead,
and another is facing homicide charges. The one who did the killing did not plan to
do so. Could this happen to you? The fact is that most of the "killers" in a road rage
dispute were taken by surprise at the ferocity of their response. Notice these elements in the story on the left: (1) the first driver was driving in an alcohol impaired state. He chose to do so, which led to the next event. (2) the first driver left the scene of the crash after causing a fender bender with a second car. He chose to do so, which led to the next event. (3) the second driver went in pursuit to obtain the license number. Pursuing another vehicle is not dangerous and illegal. But the driver had a second motive: to confront the fleeing driver. Evidence: he did not just get the license number. He chose to stop, when he could have just driven off after getting the license plate. (4) The first driver chose to stop. This may have been an attempt to confront the second driver, or something else. We do not know. The second driver saw this, and he did not know either. (5) The second driver chose to stop behind the first car. This then set up the next event. If he had not stopped, or if he had stopped some distance away, the first driver may still be alive. (6) The second driver chose to approach the first car, or at least, chose to exit his car. He could have stayed in the truck and wait for police to arrive. (7) The second driver chose to exit his car with a weapon. This weapon was visible to the first driver. (8) The first driver chose to shoot. If he had not started to shoot, he may still been alive today. (9) The second driver chose to shoot back. The first driver gets hit and dies. As you can see by these 9 steps, each driver had several chances to back down and not make the next move that led to disaster. Is this a road rage case? Yes, because it involves two drivers making a series of moves that lead to a violent exchange, when either one of them could have broken the deadly dual by not going along with the next step in the series. Remember: it takes an unbroken series of links in a long chain of bad choices to get into a road rage shoot out. |
For additional information and ordering instruction, visit the Web at |
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Exercise 9: TEE Card No. 33C7 and 34C7 Drivers Behaving Badly--Replicate With Your Favorite Show
No.33C7
CARRworkbook |
| 1. In a
classroom or family setting, you can discuss various TV programs and commercials. Have
everyone contribute to examples of Drivers Behaving Badly. Discuss each one in terms of
its risks and its potential for unconscious imitation by drivers. 2. In a family or group setting, you can view videos or TV and point out scenes of Drivers Behaving Badly. Discuss their potential for lulling us to minimize risk and injury from certain events, giving us a distorted image of danger and injury. Some of the things you can point out that happen frequently are the following. Use this list to identify and record scenes of DBB.
3. Encourage children to keep a TV log of Drivers Behaving Badly by writing down the date, the program or commercial, and the event. Take time to discuss with them the implications of uncritically watching thousands of such events before you get to be a driver. 4. Have children of all ages make drawings or posters of Drivers Behaving Badly scenes and have them discuss the consequences of watching these scenes uncritically. |
For
additional information and ordering instruction, visit the Web at |
| No.34C7
CARRworkbook Children Against Road Rage Drivers Behaving Badly on TV--Power Rangers |
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| Drivers Behaving Badly | Source | Evaluation |
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Cartoon: Power Rangers Turbo | This cartoon is geared for young children and the material is presented in a format for a child to view, but the hidden meaning in the cartoon plays on the thinking of a child. It is appealing to the child in order to get the child to want the toy that comes with the cartoon. It is also showing the child that they can do anything as long as they are fighting with someone. |
For additional information and ordering instruction, visit
the Web at |
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Exercise 10: TEE Card No. 55C2 and 57C2 Anger Control Strategy--How Does It Work For You?
No.55C2
Anger
Control: |
| Reaffirm to yourself
the value of cooperation, community, altruism, support, tolerance, and rationality. The
highway really enlarges our community membership. It is like a 'moving neighborhood' or even a 'virtual neighborhood' in
which the membership may last only a few seconds, or a couple of minutes. The drivers
around us are not enemies and competitors, they are neighbors and citizens representing
great diversity--to which we need to accommodate willingly, as in a neighborhood. Each little exchange with another driver constitutes a 'mini-encounter' and for a few seconds we form a 'mini-relationship' -- just like we do at the post office or bank line, though not the same way. Think with compassion not rejection, about
Above all think of this: what kind of a person are you really, really, when behind the wheel you act like you don't care about these human needs that are really, really there on the highway, and when you act like someone who cares only about yourself, feeling no concern for the legitimate needs of other drivers all around. |
For
additional information and ordering instruction, visit the Web at |
No.57C2
Anger Control: |
| First, remind
yourself that we start our careers as drivers with a culturally inspired norm of negative
attitude and hostile competition on highways, as clearly portrayed by drivers behaving
badly in car commercials, cartoons, and movies, as well as repeatedly enacted by our
parents who drive us to school or soccer and ballet practice. With this aggressive driving socialization
background, we find it normal to
To break through this negative driving culture, start with your own anger behind the wheel. Remind yourself that getting angry behind the wheel is an automatic, natural response to one's territoriality feelings. Observe how your anger quickly dissipates within 5 to 7 seconds, UNLESS you rekindle the fire of emotion by venting your anger through self-righteous indignation, e.g.
During the critical 5 to 7 initial seconds after the "offending" event, use breathing tricks to control the emotion
The breath controls the thought, and thought supports the emotion. Then, when the surge of adrenaline is over, and your breathing returns to normal, give yourself a pep talk about
Make yourself distinguish
This increases your emotional intelligence as a driver and allows you to control your emotions in an adequate way, given that you are being constantly challenged on the road. Aggressive driving is a response to biased interpretations. Drivers get mad when they interpret another driver's act as an insult or negligence. The negative emotion cannot occur UNLESS we interpret the other's act as an intended insult or a negligent lack of concern for our safety. By deciding in our mind that the driver's act is insult or negligence, we are automatically setting ourselves up for the fall--the emotional explosion of anger through which we lose it and then act dangerously and mindlessly. If you let it go that far, you need to back up, reverse yourself, by using the other techniques for self-control. But it's far easier and more effective if you prevent the anger from occurring in the first place. And you accomplish this by maintaining the distinction between insult vs. mistake, negligence vs. incapacity. 99% of the time you can correctly assume that the other driver's act was not an insult but a mistake, or else, that it was not some heartless negligence but some incapacity or impairment due to life circumstances. This positive interpretation may not be our first preference, since getting angry is so natural and satisfying! However, getting angry is shortsighted, and we are left with danger, insecurity, emptiness, and guilt; or else, with selfish domination and anti-democratic sentiments. Positive interpretations of the behavior of other drivers is the hallmark of supportive, hassle free, smart driving, conscious driving. It is driving with excellence, safety, and cost effectiveness. It protects you from driving stress and from the insanity of other drivers. You are contributing to the general welfare of the highway community and you are affirming the dignity of human beings. |
For
additional information and ordering instruction, visit the Web at |
