Report 1:
Studying the Online Generational Curriculum in Traffic Psychology
On the Road Towards a Safer Driving Environment


Table of Contents
Traffic Psychology = Analyzing Traffic, NOT!
Driving Personality Makeover - a Beautification of the Soul
Qualifications for a Driving Personality Makeover
Nobody's Perfect, Always Room For Improvement
Caution--Stop--Go
Learning To Be A Better Person Through D.P.M.
My Personal Comments
Future Generations

Traffic Psychology = Analyzing Traffic, NOT!


Traffic Psychology is not analyzing traffic, when I first heard the term traffic psychology, the first thing that popped into my head was analyzing traffic, NOT! After reading the generational students report like Jae Isa (G1), I found out that traffic psychology is a way of examing your thoughts and behaviors whenever you are in a "traffic situation". This includes driving a car, riding a bike, and even being a pedestrian. Caroline Balatico (G1) and Kendall Matsuyoshi (G1) had some good examples of being a pedestrian as well as a driver. As a pedestrian or as a driver, when you're in a rush you get irritated by slow people in front of you so you try to get ahead by going to the side and speeding up to the correct lane/sidewalk. This concept of trying to analize why you act a certain way whenever in a traffic situation is not an easy thing to do, but for the benefits it could provide, it is well worth it. It makes you think about your actions, behaviors that may seem normal could actually not be your true personality if you think about it.

Driving Personality Makeover - a Beautification of the Soul


A Driving Personality Makeover is a process that you do to make yourself more aware of your thoughts and behaviors when driving, which in turn could make you a better, safer, more cautious, courteous driver. You could say it is like an awareness therapy that is done by self-observations, as mentioned by Berna Collado (G2), for an evaluation of your driving behavior and changing those which are not good. I think most people who drive are in a different world, some of the behaviors you see coming out of drivers whenever in their cars are so different then when you see them in situations outside of their cars. They are aware that some improvements are needed in their behavior, so they start to anlayze it, rationalize about it, and improve on it. Sometimes people will deny that they have any behavioral problems when in a driving mode, they are like in their own separate world.

Qualifications for a Driving Personality Makeover


Driving Personality Makeover is for anybody and everybody, like Christine Huisman (G3) mentioned, everyone think and feels that they are the perfect driver and no improvements are needed but if we look closely, everyone of us can find something to improve on. Our behaviors are influenced by factors that we can control and cannot control, we must focus only on those factors that we can control, these could include things such as thinking happy thoughts to put ourselves in a better mood as mentioned by Curtis Nakao (G2), or like Jason Nakasato (G2) said being choosy about who our passengers are because that person could affect our personality.

If everybody did DPM, it would make this world a better place to live in because people will be considerate of each other, they would put themselves in each others shoes, and try to understand the other persons behavior. Like Brian Yucoco (G2) said, a change for the better makes a better driver which in turn could make you a happier person. If you need to boost up your self-esteem, this make-over would do just that and while you're at it, you could boost other people's self-esteem by trying to help them do their own D.P.M. There is a good step by step paln by Michelle Alonzo (G3) on doing D.P.M. on others. But one thing that we must always remember is that everybody is different, so what works for one person could not work for the other person. Michelle Ota (G1) goes further into this concept.

Nobody's Perfect, Always Room For Improvement


Who wouldn't want to improve themselves. Actually I know of some people who like themselves as they are, think no improvements are needed. Yaeh, right! I think anybody and everybody can improve in anything they do, why wouldn't they want to improve in this area, benefits could include less accidents, less stress which is said to be the causal factors in a lot of bad incidents causing harm to themselves or onto others either internally or externally. Just these two benefits alone should make anyone want to do a DPM. I would most definitely do a D.P.M., anything to better the world as well as boost my self-esteem.

Caution--Stop--Go


According to Nancee Aki (G2), doing a D.P.M. involves three steps. Using steps as a way to improve oneself helps to create that good, solid base as well as guide you along the necessary steps that should be taken. The first step in D.P.M. is to recognize that one has a problem, it could be from anything as speeding to not being a courteous driver. The next step is to analyze what kind of factors are contributing to this problem, factors could include anything that comes from the driver, say their personlity, stress, and also include other factors such as the weather, the amount of traffic on the road, etc. Knowing that one has a problem and trying to find the factors that could contribute to that problem, you can go to the final step of trying to alter that problem for the better.

Learning to be a Better Person Through D.P.M.


I agree with Shane Akagi (G1) that many of my actions in the car has been from imitating others as well as reacting to some of their behaviors. It's like the learning theory, we observe others and consciously, or unconsciously, we imitate some of their behaviors. If we take this theory and apply it towards a D.P.M. person who has gone through the steps or are going through it to improve themselves and then someone observes their controlled behavior, they could imitate that. It would be like a chain reaction, the improving of the self would just flow onto others and others and others and it would never stop because we keep getting new drivers everyday and also there is no end to improve oneself.

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My Personal Comments


I was so excited to learn that UH offered a class where they teach you how to use the internet...or so I thought the class was all about. I think it's kind of exciting in a way not to know what a class is all about, it makes it more challenging, you really have to pay attention to every little information that the professor gives you. It's almost like going to see a movie without knowing what the story line is. When this happens to me, I tend to get connected with the story, I'm so involved watching the movie that I block out everything around me, things like noises of people eating, talking, etc.

It's exciting to study the online generational curriculum in traffic psychology. It's neat to read other people's work, which includes their reports and their creativity in presenting their reports for others to see. Christy Forsythe (G3a) mentions in her report how we can learn from others through this curriculum and maybe even find out if we have any shared problems with anyone else and see how they solved it. This way of teaching is not restricted, meaning that it's not just a textbook with information about traffic psychology from experts in the field. This is information from actual people, writing it in their own style, and the information could be as new as the same day someone put it up for others to see, or it could be as old as the generational curriculum will become. I agree that using the online generational curriculum as a way to study traffic psychology allows you to get unlimited information as Anthony Chung (G3a) said.

There is one disadvantage to this way of learning for me and that was getting connected to the UHUNIX. There has been nights at home when I was all psyched to do some reading or work on my reports and I couldn't get connected, this was very discouraging for me but of course I would try agian in school which was almost always connectable except I have experienced some days when UNIX was down at the CLIC labs. If this happens to you, go to the Porteus Labs or go home and try to dial-in to UNIX because this usually worked for me.

I think the Generational Curriculum is great, I'm proud to be a part of it as it grows, I don't think it will stop growing as long as the computer is around. I just wish I learned about this way of teaching earlier, it could of helped alot in my other classes. I still have a semester left, so things I learn from here I know will help me then and in the future. I agree with Canaan Machida (G3) that this class has been the the most worthwhile class taken while at UH, as well as being an invaluable learning experience.

Future Generations


Exposing high school students to study in this approach will be such an advantage to them. The younger generations are the future generations and computers will be around probably more for them than it is for us. I think the sooner they learn, the better...that's why I think why shouldn't this approach be used for intermediate school students. The only problem I see with this is getting access to computers, especially in public schools where the funds are limited.

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