Report 3
My Driving Persona Modification Plan
Though my "evil" personality mainly shows up while I'm driving, and I
have many of those "evil" behaviors, I feel that I am a pretty reasonable
and sociable person. But it really bothers me that I am capable of being
so evil, especially when I am a devout Catholic, and I feel that being
"not nice" to other people is a sin! But regardless of my religious
beliefs, I find myself behaving in a way other than what I should. Many
of us are like that, right???
One particular driving behavior that sticks out in my mind as one that I
would really like to change, especially because I am acting out toward
other people, is when people cut me off without signalling and then
without a "thank you." Doesn't anyone have manners anymore? No one
taught them the proper behaviors of saying "please" and "thank you."
What do I do when people are so rude to me on the road, especially when
they cut in so closely without even a slight gesture of gratefulness?
What would any other red-blooded American do? Get angry of
course! I feel violated and "used." They used my "defensive driving"
tactics against me by squeezing into the space that I leave between
myself and the car ahead of me. Or even when I do let them go in front
of me and they don't wave, it just drives me crazy!
But I realize that I shouldn't be feeling this way. I know that I must
pay attention to my own driving and not criticize how others drive.
Maybe these people are so uncoordinated that they can't cut in and wave
within seconds of each other. Or maybe their arm is in a cast and can't
lift it up high enough to say thank you. I realize this, but when this
actually happens, I react before I actually have time to think about it.
This behavior really needs to change!
For two weeks, I monitored my driving, intensely, to try to figure out my
behavior when people decide to cut in ahead of me without so much as a
thank you or signalling. Because my boyfriend and I ride together to
work, I told him that I would be driving for most of our trips to town
from Wahiawa, especially when there is a lot of traffic and anxious drivers are
milling about and cutting in and out of lanes to get to work or home in a
hurry. Of course he agreed, not really knowing what I was doing. All he knew
was it was part of my homework assignment.
Before I actually went out on the road, I told myself, "control yourself
out there!" Okay, fine. But when I actually got on the road, it was a
completely different story. I could not control my swearing and my
rage. I would swear out loud and at times, when I knew the other person
was old or looked wimpy, I would occasionally exercise my middle finger.
I really felt bad after a while, but when someone would cut me off again
without signalling and/or waving "thank you," I would do it all over
again. Most times I would swear at them, give them stink looks, and call
them a very dirty name such as "bitch" or "asshole" and other names.
While going through the previous generations on their swearing behaviors,
I found that I wasn't alone.
One of the people that also swear when driving is Brian Yucoco. I
compared my observation on my behavior and compared it to his
observations on his own
swearing
and it's pretty similar. I guess I'm not the only one. Actually, I
realize that there are a lot of people out there. My boyfriend is one of
them too. Maybe I picked it up from him!!!
The next few observations I made were pretty much the same. I would
normally react before I actually thought about it. I was really
disgusted with myself because I never realized before that my behavior
was so bad. I thought that I was a pretty calm driver with the exception
of a few bad habits such as tailgating people after they had cut me off
or even highlighting them after they had cut me off. But after observing
this one specific behavior for two whole weeks, I realized just how
barbaric I seemed.
One particular situation really stuck out in my mind and made me realize
just how sinful I was being and I remember thinking that I was going to
go to hell for this. I was in a pretty good mood that day. Traffic was
pretty heavy but I didn't let it bother me. My boyfriend and I were in
one of our "totally-in-love" moods and we were both happy. I was in such
a good mood that when people would signal to go into my lane, I would
slow down and let them go. So far that day, everyone had waved. All the
more reason to be happy since that rarely happened!
Well, so much for that! I hear a lot of horns beeping behind me so I
checked my rearview mirror to see what was going on. I noticed a car
weaving in and out of lanes behind me and he seemed to be pissing a lot
of people off. But I thought to myself, just as long as he doesn't cut
into my lane, I'll be fine. Well, as usual, I was driving with a little
bit of space between myself and the car ahead of me. When I noticed that
this man was trying to speed up ahead of me while tailgating the car in
front of him so that he could jump into my lane, I started to slow down
so that he could get in. I did not want to ruin my day by getting angry.
After about twenty seconds, he decided to cut in abruptly. He turned
around to look at me, stuck his middle finger out and sped off. This is
the thanks I get for letting him in???!!!!! What an a--hole! I couldn't
believe it. I was so pissed off at that point that I called him every
name in the book, with little swear words in between each of those
names. I felt my face getting hot and my hands started to shake from my
fury. I continued to swear into the air minutes after he had disappeared
into other lanes ahead of me. Then I just became quiet all of a sudden
and played back what had just happened.
I couldn't believe just how loud I had been shouting and how I got so
worked up over it. I looked over to my boyfriend who was just staring at
me with his mouth opened, as if in shock. He couldn't believe that I
could get so upset. He helped me to realize that I was going against all
of the things I was telling him to do in church. I would lecture to him
that we should just forgive others for what they do because that's the
way Jesus had done it for us. I thought about it and I realized, I am a
hypocrite. I AM A HYPOCRITE!!! If you want to see
Claudia Kaneshiro's comment on emotions
I would advise you to, just so that you realize, as I did, that we need
to control our feelings and emotions. We can't have our emotions and
feelings controlling us!
I never really thought of myself resisting the change. In fact, I really
am desperate for change, especially in my swearing and name-calling
behaviors but to do it is really difficult. I tell myself each time that
I know I must change. But whenever the situation presents itself over
and over, I feel that I have reacted in this manner so much that it is
almost impossible to change the way that I will react in the future.
Hearing Dr. James talk about Driver Behavior Modification does give me
hope. I've been in enough behavioral classes to understand that all
behavior is learned and with the proper reinforcements, we can probably
change our behaviors. But with me, I probably don't have the proper
techniques to give me that little push into talking through it and
thinking about it before actually acting out this animal-like behavior
that I've performed again and again like a broken record.
Where do I even begin to try and change my behaviors? I have
acknowledged the presence of the prbolem. And as they say, "knowing is
half the battle" but just knowing that I have a problem is not helping
me. The best it does is that I feel bad afterward. Sometimes I feel
that I shouldn't be driving anymore because I have such bad behaviors
when I get behind the wheel. And I shouldn't stop doing it just because
of my behaviors. What else is there to do?
In search for an answer, I looked through some of the previous
generations and found some of their success stories in overcoming their
problems in swearing. This gave me some hope. And if you have the same
problem as I do, you should check out
Rochelle Tactacan's experience
on how she overcame the swearing with the help of Traffic Psychology.
She states that she thinks about how others feel about her swearing, like
the passengers in the car. Well, I should think about that too because
we may hurt their feelings or they may feel as if we don't care about how
they would react.
Brian Yucoco
also wrote on his experiences with swearing. He pointed out that his
swearing habits started to rub off on other people. I never thought
about it but now that I think about it, whenever I used to drive my
little cousin around and she would hear me swearing and calling people
names, I realized that she would repeat what I said. I would tell her,
"don't say that cause you are too young!" But around her parents and the
other kids, I would hear her saying things that I had said. It made me
feel even worse because I was setting a very bad example for my young cousin.
This is why I am really dedicated to trying to change my swearing and
name-calling behaviors. I don't want to be the hypocrite that I am. I
need help. And if these Traffic Psychology methods have helped others,
I'm definitely willing to try.
I finally finished with my observations of myself. And I have come to
the harsh reality that my behavior is not one that is acceptable in our
society. I realize that it is very barbaric and animal like to react in
such ways that I did by swearing and yelling at the other drivers.
The first thing I did was try to put myself in the other person's
position. When I thought about it, I actually do that to other people at
timies and often, not intentionally. Then I feel too embarassed that I
don't wave or give any other kind of indication that I am thankful they
didn't pull out a gun and shoot me because I cut in front of them. That
really changed my outlook on my behavior because the other person may not
have been doing it for any evil purpose and then felt too embarassed to
say thank you because I was already yelling through my windshield.
The first thing I did was try to change my swearing behaviors in other
situations, just as a practice so that I know, when I am driving, how to
control my thoughts and my actions. Each time I would get really upset,
upset enough to swear at someone, I automatically tried to think of
excuses that may explain why someone was rude to me or why someone did
what they did in the first place. Actually, I thought the best of
someone even if I knew that person may be doing it intentionally to
irritate me. After one day of trying this, I felt pretty confident that
it would work because I could calmly have a conversation with someone
without a swear word. That was great!!!! So I thought, I'll try and see
how it would work out on the roads.
My first day out on the road, after fully realizing that I needed to
change my behavior was really bad. I had fallen back into my "normal"
routine of getting angry. I had forgotten so quickly what I had
practiced only hours ago. I realized then that I would have to try
harder to reform myself and to modify my behavior.
My second day out on the road was a little better. I would have angry
thoughts after someone cut me off without a "thank you" gesture but I
held back from my swearing because I thought "it's not a healthy reaction
for me and for my health." That thought really helped me. The rest of
the way I would think of the bad things getting angry could do to my
health. I would think about getting high blood pressure and working my
heart too much. And sooner than I realized, my anger would be gone. A
few more days of this, after I had mastered this technique, I needed to
try to stop the anger before I started to think bad thoughts about the
other driver. I had already almost accomplished the removal of my
swearing, though it hasn't yet been perfected.
Over a few days, I tried various ways of not letting the anger enter my
mind and to just drive as if I were happy and when these people would not
say thank you, my goal was to be oblivious to it and continue to drive as
if nothing were wrong. I tried just switching lanes to avoid the other
driver and I tried singing but realized that my voice would only get
louder as my anger grew. What else could I do?
One day, because I was in a good mood, I came across another driver that
just cut in front of me. Surprisingly, even to myself and I was the one
who did it, I just smiled and told myself, "that's okay, you must be in a
rush." And I just left it at that without getting angry. I realize that
the reason could have just been that I was having a good day. I didn't
really care what the other drivers thought. I just wanted to get home
safely and not get angry.
I wanted to see if that behavior would work for me once again. For the
next two days, I found that talking myself through it and making excuses
for the other drivers verbally really helped me not to become angry and
also suppressed my swearing and name-calling. I realized that it was not
just because I was having a good day. The technique really worked. For
me, it was not enough just to think it. Actually having to hear it
helped me not to become enraged for a little thing like not having
someone say "thank you" when I allow them to enter my lane.
As I was getting better at controlling myself, I tried to hide my anger,
but sometimes it just does not work. My words of anger and frustration
may not come out, but my facial expressions tell the person exactly how I
felt. But let's work on one behavior at a time. I really felt and still
feel that I am continuing to make progress, slowly but surely!
Because of this experience, I realize that knowing how to control my
behavior by using techniques as self-talking and modifying thoughts to do
so really could help an individual. Though different steps need to be
taken in different behaviors and depending how serious the behavior is
and how much one wants to change the behavior, I am convinced that
Traffic Psychology is a tool that everyone could use. All a person
really needs is the drive to change that particular behavior. But first,
one needs to realize that their behavior is an acceptable one. And as
they say, "Knowing is half the battle!"
Although this behavior will not be consistent at the beginning, I am
slowly trying. And sometimes, unfortunately, I will fall back to my old
habit of swearing out loud but I know better now. I catch myself before
I do any more damage to myself and to my passenger(s). I feel that it
makes me look bad in front of others and, to think of myself as such a
mean and angry person, I feel ashamed that it is possible for me, and for
any human being for that matter, to act and behave in this way.
Once I have finely finished and mastered this technique, I know I will
probably have to get rid of angry feelings completely, and I know that I
have to work on my facial expressions. Because, it's not only spoken
language that can tell a person how you feel, but one's body language has
just the same effect.
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