I was surprised to find that a little change in wording when asking
people to change made the whole difference in the world. Instead of
asking them if they wanted me to help them "change" their bad habits while
driving, I used the word "adjust". I would say that we are all perfect
drivers in our own eyes and I would just like to help "perfect" their
driving skills even
more. With this change of wording I finally found two brave souls to
participate in my study. The first person was very reluctant to
pariticipate but decided to do it when I asked her using my different
line of questioning with the new words. This person is my wife. She asked
me not to mention her name while doing this assignment because she didn't
want her name broadcasted all over the internet and around our God
forsaken earth. I will just refer to her as my "Wife" or Subject A. The
second
subject is a person who I car pool with every now and then. He was even
more reluctant to change due to his job; he is a taxi driver. I thought
this would be a great opportunity to help someone in a field that is
stereotypically known to have horrible drivers.
This person is my neighbor and will be refered to as Mike or Subject B.
I first asked my wife if there was a certain driving behavior that
she wanted to change. At first she didn't feel there were any. I then
suggested some of her behaviors that I thought of as negative. She was
surprised to hear that the list was so long. After a period of
resistance we finally came to an agreement. She has a big problem of
planning ahead when it comes to exiting a freeway. She always waits for
the last minute and becomes a big road hazzard. The worst part about her
problem is that she spends the most of her driving time in the fast lane.
This
means that she has to come all the way to the far right exit lane. The
big problem is that she dosn't start switching lanes at least 1 mile
before exiting. Usually she starts to make her moves at about the 1/4
mile mark or much less. She ends up cutting everyone off that won't let
her pass. Many drivers on the road know when another dirver is making a
last minute move and tend to rebel by not letting that driver into their
lane in front of them. Another big hazzard that she causes is that she
ends up crossing solid white lines that are on her side of two lanes.
Many of the freeway ramps here in Hawaii are dangerously being used as
multi exit and entrance ramps which constitutes a traffic hazzard. Most of
these
ramps don't allow drivers to enter when comming near the end of these
ramps so that the drivers that are trying to enter the freeway can do
so. A "no change lane" indication is directed by a solid white line. My
wife doesn't seem to ever see these solid white lines and constantly
crosses it when exiting a freeway. Again, this is due to her last minute
planning.
I explained to my wife that by doing this she is being a road
hazzard. Many accidents occur on Hawaii's multi on/off ramps. I asked her
how
she felt when doing these last minute changes. She admitedly said that
she can always feel her heart racing everytime she needed to exit a
freeway. My wife feels that since she drives a car with more power than
the average car on the road, she has a lot of time to get to the ramp. I
reminded her of her many instances that she missed her off-ramp because
she waited until the last possible moment to exit. I told her that
this behavior adds to the
already high stress in her life. She is always a nervous driver and not
a very confident one to start with. Her driving record has a few
blemishes which include both accidents and moving violations; this has
added to the high costs of our insurance premiums.
I asked if she would adjust this certain behavior to be less of a
traffic hazzard
so she wouldn't indanger her life or the lives of other drivers and
passengers like me or our son. I also reminded her that she builds up
unnecessary stress that is very unhealthy. I mentioned that we could
save a lot of money not paying the high insurance premiums that we have
to pay
and on the gas that she wastes when she has to go all the way down to the
next off-ramp to exit and backtrack to her initial destination.
We then dicussed what were we going to do to help adjust this
negative driving behavior that my wife has been doing for so long. She
mentioned the fact that she didn't think she could change this behavior
since this has been her style of driving as long as she can remember. I
then had her think about a few thing that could help her change. I told
her to put herself in the seat of all the other drivers and how they feel
having their lives indangered by a car that is forcing itself into their
lanes. I then asked her to think of some reasons why she didn't want to
adjust her driving. She responded by saying she has always done
everything at the last minute. Being aware of this behavior, I then told
her that it may be time to not just make an adjustment in her driving
behavior but a lifetime adjustment in her life. She responded by saying
that I was right but wanted to make these adjustments just one at a
time. I made her realize how angry and frightened everybody else felt on
the road and in
her car when she does these last minute moves. I mentioned that driving
isn't just a process where one just points their car in a certain direction
and guides it by steering, but a constant thinking process. I made it
known that she has to be thinking about whats going on around her at all
times. To help her, I put a red sign near her dashboard that reads "STAY
ALERT" to remind her to start changing lanes at least a 1 mile or more.
Everytime we would have to go out together, I would always make sure
that we would take her car to make sure she was the one who would end up
driving. At first she resisted by saying that this whole thing is silly
until she noticed the reminder that I had made for her. She was kind of
glad to see that I was serious about this whole adjustment exersise. It
took a few trys for her to get used to planning ahead. Everytime she
would wait until the last minute, I would give her a friendly reminder to
look at her reminder on the dash. At one point after doing such a great
job at planning ahead she showed some resistance when she mentioned one
of the reasons why she doesn't like to plan ahead. She mentioned the
fact that the slow lane moves too slow. I responded by saying the speed
is a big factor in many accidents and by driving slower she can avoid the
hassle of becoming involved in one. I continued to say that it was
better to
drive relaxed than stressed out and also she was less of a danger to
everybody
around her and inside of the car. I constantly praised her everytime she
executed good moves on the road and constantly reminded her whenever she
would forget. I made sure to mention to her that the "beast" in her was
finally going away. We started this driving behavior modification in mid
April 96 and has been going on until now (May 7, 1996).
The result has been a positive one. Even thought I don't know what
she does when she is alone, it is noticable that she has made some
adjustments to her driving (at least when I am around). Whenever she has
to exit the freeway, I have notice that she now plans way ahead without
hardly thinking
about it...as she was doing when she was changing lanes like a maniac.
She has also concluded that the change was a positive change since now
she notices other people doing exactly what she used to do.
My neighbor Mike has been a taxi driver for last three years. He
does this job full time and attends The University of Hawaii in pursue of
a B.A in liberal arts. Mike and I are about the same age (27) and we
have been car pooling on and off for the
last year. I always noticed that he had many bad driving habits but
never said anything since he drives profesionally. I asked him if
he was aware of the dangerous style of driving he does, he claims that he
was very aware of it. When I asked
him if there were any habits in particular that he wanted to change, he
responded by say yes. He showed no resistance when naming a few of his
bad driving habits until he mentioned that it would be almost impossible
for him to change due to the competitive nature of his job. Taxi drivers
are well known to do totally illegal moves on the road like stopping in the
middle of a flowing lane to grab a customer (especially in Waikiki). He
admits to pariticipating in such a dangerous behavior but resisted any
adjustment to it. He claims that he would not be able to earn the
majority of his "bread and butter" because picking up clients that are
"wave downs" (people who wave a taxi down instead of making a telephone
reservation) are usually charged more than clients with reservations. He
resisted to the point were I decided that I didn't want to play around
with anybody's livelyhood and the money that keeps them sheltered and
fed. After going through a brief imaginary list of driving behaviors
that he wanted to change, we finally agreed on one that he was willing to
modify.
Since Mike is originally from New York City, he learned a certain
behavior that is not practiced very much here in Hawaii. This behavior is
the
constant use of the horn while sitting in traffic. Mike says that when
working the night shift on the weekends in Waikiki, he tends to get
flashbacks of the traffic in New York. He adds that the biggest problem
are the hundreds of young punks (both male and female), that cruise down
Kalakaua Blvd., back up Kuhio Blvd., and back down Kalakaua Blvd., in one
big silly circle. This "cruising" problem has been correlated to higher
teenage crime in the Waikiki area on weekend nights. Mike gets so
frustrated when he has to spend most of his time fighting traffic instead
of earning money from potential pick-ups. The traffic slows him up so
much that at times when reponding to a call, he will arrive late and lose
his customer to another taxi that the clients "waved down". He ends up
honking his horn beligerantly as if he was back in New York which has
resulted in many
conflicts with other drivers due to not being used to hearing someone
honking at them. Here in Hawaii, this is seen as a hostile gesture
towards another driver.
Instead of having have to tell him some reasons why he should adjust
his behavior, he took the liberty of telling me why he needed to adjust.
He has had the experience of another driver comming out of his car and
approaching him right in the middle of traffic. This other drivers
intention was to do phisical harm to him. Luckily he has a C.B. radio in
his car and radioed for help. Luckily nothing happened to him during
that incident. His main motive to adjust was to make sure this kind of
incident wouldn't reoccur sometime in the future.
I could only go out with 3 nights due to the fact that he was
illegally transporting a non-paying passenger around which is against his
company's policy. For the sake to this assignment, he let me ride with him
for 4 hours at a time, while working his 8-10 hour shift, on a Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday night during the last weekend of April 1996.
On Friday night, I had to get a feel of what goes on at his job so
all I did was mainly observe. I told him to drive as if I wasn't in the
car and do the normal driving behaviors that he usually does. He was
right when he said that he has a problem with honking. He does it more
often then I thought. Other drivers would constantly look at him as if he
was some kind of manic.
We discussed how we were going to modify his behavior and decided
that he should carry relaxing musical tapes with him to help him relax.
I noticed that the honking is an overt response to the stress that would
build up inside of him. I felt that if I could make him relax, he would
be able to modify his driving behavior. Everytime he would feel like the
stress was building up, I told him to pop a relaxing tape in his tapedeck.
The next night (Saturday), he displayed much resistance. He would
forget to put the tape into his tapedeck and would still use his horn.
This is when I decided to do something that is illegal; I disconnected
his horn (a broken horn is a saftey hazzard in this State>. This resulted
in a positve adjustment. After 2 and 1/2 hours
of trying to use his horn, he finally started to concentrate on adjusting
his behavior. Since the horn was no longer operative, his hand was either
putting a tape into his tapedeck or pushing the search button on his
receiver looking for relaxing music station. I reinforced the behavior by
praising him on the excellent job that he was doing.
On the last night I was with him (Sunday), he had a "out of sight out of
mind"
attitude when it came to his horn. He felt that until I reconnected the
horn, it was as if it wasn't there at all. I waited until the last hour
that I was
with him to reconnect the horn. I quickly did this when he stepped out
to use the restroom. With half an hour to go, I praised his willing to
adjust or modify his behavior and told him his horn had been connected
for the past 1/2 hour. In the last 1/2 hour he used his horn once but
caught himself when he did it. I told him that he had accomplished a lot
just by being able to catch himself whenever he felt like honking his
horn and I positivily reinforced his good behavior by giving him another
good
comment. He said that he would keep working on modifying his behavior
and if all fails, he would disconnect the horn himself if needed.
After doing these two assignments, I have concluded that any driver
can make a driving personality adjustment if they are willing to do so.
The modification process has to start with the driver internally. They
have to
want to change. It helps when there is assistance by an outside helper,
but this is only functional when the driver lets you help them and
doesn't resist. No one
likes to be forced to modify there driving behavior and will naturally
resistance to anykind of change brought among them by an outside force.
Resistance to traffic psychology one of the most natural things that we
will do since each of us thinks of ourselves as being the best driver on
the road.