Report 1: Initial Self-Assessment as a Driver

Traffic Psychology may seem a little strange to you but don't feel that you are alone. When I first registered for this class I thought that this class would help me to get more background in computers and also a handy writing intensive credit, but know I see that I've stumbled on something really useful. Traffic Psychology is the study of behavior in any kinds of traffic including automobiles, pedestrians, airplanes, etc. I mean the list could go on and on and on. As I search the internet for information on traffic psychology, I realize that there is a whole new world of information out there that I really could not comprehend before! As I follow in the footsteps of the generation one students before me, I am starting to learn a great deal from them as well as on my own.

In this report (my first publication on the internet!) I will be assessing myself as a driver and using what I learned, from the information that I've searched for, to better my driving self and hopefully pass on something useful to another internet surfer. With the aid of the first generation of traffic psychology students, my older brothers and sisters, I was able to narrow my traffic interests into five different categories. All of my topics were easily chosen because I have many bad habits when I drive and I sometimes don't like to admit to them. Some of these include speeding, tailgating, bicycling, personality makeovers, and driving in convoys.

I'm sure that you will be able to relate to a couple of these topics, and hopefully by the time you finish reading this report, you will take another glance at your own habits and become a better but more importantly, a safer driver all around.

back to my index

Speeding

Starting off with something we all can relate to is my first topic of speeding. Why does the department of transportation post signs up limiting people to the amount of speed they are allowed to accelerate to? That's easy, so that drivers of all sorts can disobey them! Let's face it there is not one person on this planet who hasn't gone past the specified numbers on that sign while driving. Actually there may be a few who disprove me on this but basically the majority of you won't feel left out on this subject. For those who don't speed, this subject also deals with how you would react to those who do speed, so you may want to stick around for that.

I get the impression that those speed limit signs are just an illusion and that there is another sign behind it that is visible to some drivers. This hidden sign seems to say that it's alright to go five miles over the speed limit without getting a weary conscience, am I right or is my speedometer off by exactly five miles? Somebody needs to get back to me on that because I decided to drive the department of transportation's specified speed limit and as I drove I didn't hear the end of it. Other drivers were honking their horns and flashing their lights like I was driving unsafely! As I looked for reassurance from others on the internet I came upon some interesting drivers.

Michelle Ota proves my theory that there may be a hidden sign someplace, although she doesn't mention a hidden sign in her reactions, she states that it is okay to drive five miles over the speed limit and not get a ticket for it. I found Michelle as I was clicking through the previous generations files.

Another comment that I thought was interesting was made by Caroline Balatico and she says that if you don't keep with the flow of traffic (even though everybody else is speeding)...."This may result in a traffic jam or may cause an accident because all the other cars are going fast (speeding) while this driver isn't going fast (not speeding). I think the advantage of speeding is that you get to your destination faster as well as it saves time. On the other hand, the disadvantage of speeding is that you may cause an accident because you don't have enough reaction time." I think that she is contradicting herself when she says that it's okay to speed as long as the other drivers are doing it. Traffic Psychology deals with the effort of trying to improve driving conditions by improving someone's behavior towards drivin. In this case I feel that you can't sacrifice safety to please others, like when she says to keep with the flow of traffic, even if their speeding. Here's another thing, if speeding lowers your reaction time, does speeding along with five other drivers increase your reaction time? Probably not, so I think that the conformity to this speeding situation should be to conform to the person driving at the recommended speed limit; you may not reach your destination as fast, but at least you'll get there.

Now Joleen Lai has a different perspective about speeding or rather being in a rush. Joleen says that it really bothers her when people are in a rush and that they know they're in heavy traffic, but they still insist on weaving in and out cutting people off just to try and get in front of every car that is in front of them. This kind of behavior eventually leads to a fender bender or sometimes even a big accident! After all a few cars ahead should not make much of a difference, you might get there thirty-seconds earlier.....but oooooh, that's not worth a penny.

back to my index

Tailgating

Football fans take cover because this is not the kind of tailgating that you do everytime before you enter the stadium to cheer on your favorite team play. No, this is not a bring your own beer and potluck kind of gathering, this is a great deal more dangerous. This is when you are driving along on the road and you are so close to the car in front of you that you can see the mole on the driver's face through his/her rearview mirror! Of course that was an exaggeration but this is a serious topic in traffic psychology and needs to be discussed.

On September 22, 1995 I suddenly observed myself tailgating someone as I was driving home from the UH. I couldn't see the person's mole on their face but I was closer than I would normally want to be to another vehicle. The reasons for this was that I was in the middle of a lot of traffic and I didn't want to be the cause of a traffic jam so I kept up with the flow of traffic as best as I could. I also found that I wanted to follow so close that nobody would be able to cut in front of me, in other words, I was there first and it didn't make sense that someone behind me could beat me somewhere because I let him in.

As I was searching through Netscape (via Professor Leon's homepage) I began to read Aaron Reisner's comments on tailgating. I found his comments to be very interesting because it is something that I never thought of. He mentioned that the only reason why people tailgate others is because they are in a rush. He recommended that you should pull over or just let them go if someone is tailgating you because then you are in a safer position to continue driving and it is possible that the other driver will calm down and not tail anyone else after that.

I found this comment very interesting because it would create a better attitude/behavior towards driving for both drivers, and therefore fulfilling the concerns pertaining to traffic psychology. For those of you who enjoy Letterman's top ten lists, check out Aaron Reisner's top ten I think you'll enjoy it!

I also came upon Laura Izutsu's lab report which yet gave me another point of view on tailgating. This is what Laura had to say..."But if I am grouchy, tired, or late, my driving tends to become dangerous. I start tailing people, making remarks about the other drivers ability to drive, and have the tendency to honk my horn more often." Laura gives another aspect of tailgating which includes the condition the body is in, not necessarily just the frame of mind. This is important because traffic psychology deals with the behavior while in traffic, and surely your behavior differs greatly if you're tired.

Just the other week one of my friend was involved in a tailgating accident, however this time it was his father who rear-ended the other car. This is an example of how a little mistake can have major effects in many ways. Although the collision happened between his father and the other car, it was reported as a five car accident! The reasoning for this is that when his father hit the car in front of him, that car hit the car in front of it, and that one hit the one in front of it, and so on. So you may think that this is just a small problem but small things tend to lead to other and sometimes bigger problems in the long run.

Now here is an interesting person I came upon while browsing through the first generation files, Diane Beauchemin. She says..". I tend to tailgate people who are going UNDER the speed limit in the fast lane. In my opinion, these people should be mailed driving handbooks. They should be made aware of the plight of other drivers who really want to get somewhere. I also find myself tailgating others when I'm in a hurry. I detest lateness, and feel compelled to be obscenely early to everything."

Tailgating....a spiritual activity? Shane feels that tailgating is morally wrong. It won't get you sent to hell or something but it's just that he feels it is what happens as a result of those actions that you will get sent to heaven or hell. Well, everybody has their own theories of heaven and hell, so I think I'm gonna leave this one up to the reader because I don't want to offend you guys!

Tailgating can be a very dangerous habit which can put you as well as many others in serious trouble, sometimes even life threatening. It's true that sometimes if you keep a good pace in back of a car then you may end up getting to your destination a second or two faster than the car behind you, but that is not worth the risk you're taking for both you and the unfortunate person who may lose their life because of you.

back to my index

Bicycling

I am currently attending the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and you see and experience many things that relate to traffic psychology from a student's point of view. Whenever I go on to campus to go to class, work, or just to cruise I always see many people walking and catching the shuttle bus to their destination, but then out of nowhere, a bicyclist would come flying out of nowhere to pass me and I always what it would've been like if I would have been hit by that bicyclist. Of course we all agree that it would definitely not be a pretty sight, but seriously in a setting like this where you would expect many people to be riding bicycles, why doesn't the university provide a safe riding environment for both the bicyclist, pedestrians, as well the automobile traffic. I have been searching the internet on bicycle related topics and I came across important statistics that deal with accidents relating to bicycles.

Are bicycles considered to be part of a traffic situations or are they a nuissance to those who spend their time locked up in their cars? Well, some people seem to think that these bicyclists have no concern for the rules of the road and are liable to cause accidents sooner or later. However the fact is that most automobile drivers are the ones who have no concern for the rules of the road, I say this because there are laws laid down by our government that were created especially for the soul purpose to allow bicyclist certain rights to share the road with automobiles. Shane Akagi feels like he wants to knock them off their bikes and beating them up. I wonder if Shane sees a crosswalk as a bullseye target as well?
Bicyclists are not the bad guys in this issue because they are normal people like you and me, and being a bicyclist myself, I know that there are certain laws to follow as well as moral laws to follow. It's just that in Hawai'i, there are not too many opportunities for bicyclists to ride their bikes to wherever they want to go and feel totally safe the whole trip. We always have to yield to other forms of traffic like pedestrians and automobiles especially, we are unlike the mainland in which they have many bicycle routes and lanes in which the bicyclists don't have to worry about anything but cycling! How hard could it possibly be to pave a simple two-way bike route from the dormitories to main spots on campus so that there would be minimal traffic between bicyclist and other forms of traffic. These are just simple solutions to a simple problem.

back to my index

Driver Personality Makeover

Taking on a whole new perspective in this report is the focus on trying to reform our attitudes toward our own driving and driving personalities. I decided to look for other peoples thoughts about this topic before I give my own reaction and that's how I read about Adele Kimura.

Adele Kimura was a member of the legendary first generation of traffic psychology students. I found her homepage by first doing a search (using Lycos) under Leon James, and surprisingly enough it was the first heading that I got, so that turned out to be very easy. Then I clicked on Traffic Psychology generation one and I went into the homepages of each student. I started to go through each one and I found Adele's comments to be very useful in my report which included a section on the driver's personality makeover.

An important part of Adele's argument was that we must keep in mind that we cannot change other people's personality, as much as we'd like to that is one thing that we cannot have control over. So we must focus upon our own personality and how we can accept others for what they are so that we can continue to drive ideally and not with a clouded mind.

I came across Danell Saito as I pursued more information and she states that..." I feel that in order for any one person to change their driving personality, the whole population has to change theirs also (is that pessimistic or what?). I say this because if that one person changes her personality but the other drivers on the road don't change theirs, how will that help. 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. As with everything else in this world, it's an endless, sometimes vicious, cycle." Well, Danell has a good point but just because other drivers are not reformed then that doesn't give us an excuse to revert back to our bad habits. She is right on the nose though when she says that we all have to go through this change to become all around better drivers.

As I drive along the road and observe my personality as a driver, I find that I can always find a sensible reasoning behind each action. These are more commonly called excuses, and this is what we must change in our personalities in order to become better drivers as well as better people. We must not worry that others will not be just like us because the possibility that the whole world can change all at once or even within a years time is unthinkable.

As I speed along the highway, or tailgate a merging driver, I can't always understand why I do the things that I do. However, if I continue to do my self-observations and go back to recreate these situations then gradually I will be able to conquer all obstacles. It can be compared to smoking because it's a bad habit to have and an even harder habit to break. However, driving can be change with way more ease because there are no addicting chemicals involved like the nicotine factor in cigarette smoking.

back to my index

Convoys

We already talked about the fact that keeping with the flow of traffic is not okay when the others are speeding, now I want to talk about why people conform when they're in a convoy.

People like Shane Akagi feel more comfortable driving with a convoy, however his has a little twist to it, he likes to only be in the front or the back and not in the middle. The thought of having all those cars around you is frightening to Shane and I can understand because when you're in a fragile vehicle there is always a risk that you take. I think that a convoy would play an important controversy in traffic psychology because a convoy can be directly connected to a behavioral change that can jeopardize your driving ability. I mean it's almost a reflex that when you are in some kind of tight situation, you're going to try and do whatever you can to relieve yourself of that situation. And in this case you would weave and speed and try anything to get in front of the other cars, or as Shane put it he would just turn off the freeway and continue his path using the backroads.

Another aspect of convoys can be beneficial according to Joleen Lai . Joleen brings up a good point about convoys, she gives an example of driving at night. She states that she likes to drive in convoys at night and especially when she is unfamiliar with the destination and how to get there. I like the idea of driving in a convoy at night because then you will have someone to follow if the path seems unclear. This is beneficial especially if there is sharp turns and windy roads; like those going aroung Koko Head by Sea Life Park. She also mentions that if that convoy is one with all your friends in it, in order to keep up you would have to maybe run red lights, cut people off, etc. just so you don't get lost!

The idea of convoys can only be attributed to human nature; the tendency for human beings is to conform to society's rules, and this is exactly what a convoy is, a little mobile society. When you're in a society it is required that you conform to their rules because if you don't then you are considered an outcast. It is just like in a convoy, the outcast driver is the one who is the slowest because he/she is holding back everybody and is the lowlife who is cramping everybody else's style; this driver now becomes the target for obscene comments and gestures by all the others around him therefore peer pressuring him/her to conform to their habits.

There are times in which I prefer to drive in convoys because it can benefit me as a individual greatly. For instance, if I were in a rush to get somewhere and I didn't want to get a speeding ticket then I would just find a convoy that is going above the speed limit and stay with them, and that way I will get to where I'm going faster. The reasoning behind staying with a convoy is that even though you are speeding, if a policeman were to clock your convoy above the speed limit, there is no way that he can tell the party of five automobiles to stop and give them all tickets. I guess that there is a way, but most likely the police officer would be more content to let the convoy go and sit and wait for the next lone victim.

Conclusion

We wonder why are people yelling at us when we are blocking the intersection but when we see someone else blocking the intersection we yell at them as well. We need to see what we are doing wrong and not get mad at others for the same reason. We also need to see that others drivers are ususally not trying to slow us down or to make us late for work. We need to be a little caring and not think that our car is our dormain and not abuse the right we have in our cars. As for speeding, tailgating, bicycling, personality makeovers, and driving in convoys, well here are my new feelings toward each. Speeding can be seen as a tool for keeping you awake or getting you to work on time, and this is a silly excuse because if you plan your schedule out and give yourself plenty of lee-way time then you ll never be rushing to anything, and if you're sleepy then buy some coffee or something because you shouldn't even be driving if you're not prepared to. As for tailgating, there is no excuse for tailgating because with a little patience and consideration then a couple car lengths might even look too close for your own comfort. Bicyclists, being a bicyclist myself, I know the frustration you guys feel when nobody gives you the right of way or even when you get a ticket for riding on the sidewalk; but just be patient and our time will come when there will be bike lanes throughout Hawai'i and the world. Just think, we won't have to take any detours to get where we're going because we'll have a planned out route for us everytime. And for convoys, well this is a problem for the police to figure out on how to give tickets for this kind of situation; I mean there is nothing wrong with convoys but the trick is just to find the right convoy (society) for you.

Now that you've all been briefed about the ideas of how traffic psychology can change the world, I know that all of you guys and gals want to sign up for Aaron Takahashi's personal Personality Makeover Kit! It's only $29.95/month and can change your driving personality over a months time, but for you delinquent drivers who are considered outcasts will probably an extra month or so; but as for the date I'll release it, I'll have to get back to you people on that but the world will be a better place when I do start, oops, I mean complete it. Until then see if you can out do my plan for the better driver, but remember you must test it out on yourself before you release it.

Good Luck!!! Drive Wisely!!!

Back to the top

back to my Topical index

Back to my Traffic Psychology Page

Any comments? Mail me!

Back to my homepage