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Welcome to DrDriving.org
Kailua,
Hawaii
About
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DrDriving Letters and Answers
My
Congressional Testimony on Aggressive Driving Newspaper
Stories on Aggressive Driving Quoting Leon
James Online
Discussions of Controversial Driving Issues Collection of
Road Rage News Stories Around the World
Site Map || Search this
Site || About Road Rage News
Stories in the News from Google (2007) Cars, Drivers,
Passengers | and | Relationships, Marriage,
Romance Cats in the
News, Pet Psychology, Human Catheads, More...
Nearly 42,000
people die every year from
traffic crashes, sending four million more to
emergency rooms and hospitalizing 400,000, half
with permanent disabilities. On-the-job traffic
crashes cause 3000 deaths, 332,000 injuries and
cost employers over $43 billion, according to the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) and can reduce employee productivity
by 40 percent. In addition to the
emotional toll, on-the-job traffic
crashes annually cost employers about
$3.5 billion in property damage, $7.9 million in
medical care and emergency service taxes, $17.5
billion for wage premiums, $4.9 billion for
workplace disruption (to hire and train either new
employees or temporary employees) and $8.5 billion
in disability and life insurance costs.
Driving psychology in a lifelong driver education program tied to licensing and renewal, is the answer that will save most of this national and personal disaster. The articles below outline this solution. 400 billion aggressive exchanges per year in the U.S.Here is the way we figure it: 125 million (drivers on the road daily) X 1,000 (mini-exchanges between drivers during two commutes per day) X .01 (1 percent proportion of hostile or stressed exchanges) X 365 (days per year) = about 400 billion stressful or aggressive exchanges per year in the U.S. Sidewalk Rage || The Psychology Hypermiling || The Merging Debate || The Emotional Use of the Gas Pedal || Articles by Leon James || Definition of Road Rage || Territoriality: What the Car Says About You || The Great Rubbernecking Debate || Tips for Truckers from DrDriving -- How to Deal With Anger || DrDriving's Bookstore || |
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"Enforcement is
important, Mr. Chairman, but we really need to
study the causes behind road rage, and I'm looking
forward to hearing from our witnesses this morning
on ways in which we can identify and respond to
the triggers which lead to aggressive driving.
Perhaps we can incorporate some of these ideas
when we move to reauthorize ISTEA." "This committee
has been fighting and will continue to fight to
provide adequate funding so we can relieve
congestion, and that certainly will have a very
significant impact on reducing the aggressive
driving that we're experiencing in this country." "This committee
does not have the capacity to change the emotions
and the aggressive feelings of people out on the
highway, but we do have a responsibility and the
jurisdiction to try to change the environment
which causes that aggression, and that environment
is caused largely by congestion." "In 15 years, I've
identified many detailed psychological
components
of aggressive driving and have developed an
empirically-based theory of what causes aggressive
driving and what behavioral
techniques can be used to measure and
control it.
My research has
confirmed to some degree nearly every driver has feelings
of rage and thoughts of retaliation. For the
past year, the media has increased coverage of
road rage incidents, and people are asking
questions for which scientific data are not yet
available. Is aggressive driving increasing? Are
there differences or is it a universal epidemic?
What causes the increase in aggressive driving and
how
can it be controlled?
I think what's on
the increase is the amount of habitual road rage
we see today. I define habitual road rage as a
persistent state of hostility behind the wheel,
demonstrated by acts of aggression and a continuum
of violence, and justified
by righteous indignation.
Driving and habitual
road rage have become virtually inseparable.
Road rage is a habit acquired in
childhood. Children are reared in a car
culture that condones irate expression as part of
the normal wear and tear of driving. Once they
enter a car, children notice that all the sudden
the rules have changed. It's okay to be mad, very
upset, out of control, and use bad language that's
ordinarily not allowed.
By the time they
get their driver's license, adolescents have
assimilated years of road rage. The road rage
habit can be unlearned, but it takes more
than conventional driver's ed."
"the definitive book on the aggressive driving epidemic." To read excerpts || To order from Amazon.com"With strong documentation and easy-to-follow steps, Dr. James and Dr. Nahl show us how to adopt a more gently paced way to stop racing against time and people to get someplace and truly enjoy getting there. They show us how being a better driver helps us lead a better, happier, healthier life." Paul Pearsall, Ph.D. Author of The Pleasure Prescription and Toxic Success: How to Stop Striving and Start Thriving |
Children's Books at
Amazon.com || Songs About Cars
|| Asess Your Road Rage Tendency
||
Articles on this Site Free for your use
1. · My Congressional Testimony on the Psychology of Road Rage and Aggressive Driving
2. · Our Road Rage and Aggressive Driving Book -- Excerpts and Index
4. · A New Paradigm for a Global Lifelong Driver Education Curriculum
5.
· Two concept Papers: Instituting a
Program of Lifelong Traffic Safety Training
and Promoting
the Spread of Quality Driving Circles (QDC) for
Post-Licensing Driver Self-improvement Programs
6. · Lifelong Driver's Education: A New Socio-Behavioral Proposal
7. · Driving Psychology Principles
8. · Aggressive Driving is Emotionally Impaired Driving
10. · Driver Personality Survey Results: Driving With Emotional Intelligence
11. · Gender and Driving--Men vs. Women
12. · Driving Personality Makeovers
13. · Musings of a Traffic Psychologist in Traffic--Social Psychology of Driving
14. · Partnership Driving
15. · Philosophy of Driving
16. · Principles of Driving Psychology
17. · Psychology and Driving
18. · Violence and Driving--A Mental Health Issue
19. · QDC--Quality Driving Circles or Support Groups
20. · 3-Step Program for Changing Your Driving Habits
21. · Data On the Private World of the Driver (thoughts and feelings)
22. · What Drivers Complain About Arranged by Feelings, Thoughts, and Acts
23. · Common Aggressive Driving Habits and What To Do About Them
24. · Traffic Emotions Education Cards
25. · DrDriving's Rating of the Strength of Aggressive Driving Language in Legislation
26. · Common Driving Habits and What To Do About Them
27.· Cars, Drivers, Passengers and Relationships, Marriage, Romance
29. · Pedestrian Psychology and Safety
30. · Pedestrian Rage
31. · Bicycling Safety Information -- The War Against Drivers
32. · The Psychology of Air Rage Prevention With Compassionate Crowd Management Techniques
33. · Driving Informatics and Links
34. · Driving Information and Links
35. · Driving Topics and Web Links
36. · Driving Literature References
37. · Largest Collection of Road Rage and Driving Tips on the Web (1996-2007)
38. · 9 Zones of Your Driving Personality
39. · Acts of Kindness while Driving
40. · DBB Ratings--Drivers Behaving Badly Movie Ratings
41. · Distracted Driving: Cell phones, Multitasking
42. · Red Light Running
43. · Collection of Statistics, Facts, Advice, Tips
44. · Analyzing Newsgroups for Drivers--Student Reports
45. · Workshop Charts on Getting a Grip on Anger while Driving
46. · Music and Driving
47. · For Law Enforcement and Safety Officials: Aggressive Driving Questions and Answers
48. · Chart of Your Driving Personality
49. · Principles of Christian Driving Psychology
50. · Road Rage Overview
51. · Driver Personality Test
52. · Driving Vignettes
53. · Driving Cartoons
54. · DrDriving's Advice for Managing Your Own Road Rage
55. · Hawaii Road Rage and Driving Issues
56. · The New Driver Education for the Year 2000
57. · Collection of Road Rage News Stories Around the World
58. · Interview Answers on Road Rage and Other Rages for Various News Sources
59. · The Psychology of Parking Rage: Threestep Program For Prevention
60. · Driver Personality Test and Results
61. · DrDriving's Advice for AAA Members on Managing Your Own Road Rage
62. · Rage-Depression Survey Results for Age
63. · Rage-Depression Survey Results for Gender
64. · Rage-Depression Survey Results for Education
65. · Rage-Depression Survey Results for Age, Gender, Education
66. · Rage-Depression Survey Results: Notebook with Selections and Links
67. · Emotional Reactions to the September 11 Attack
68. · Pets Psychology and Rage-Depression -- Pet Loss Support, Human Catheads, More...
69. · Birds Stories The Social Psychology of a Backyard Aviary
70. ·
Songs About
Driving Cars on Roads and Highways
Teen Drivers |
Elderly Drivers
| Parking Rage |
Truck Drivers
| School Buses |
Emergency Vehicles
| Police and Legislation
| Boat Rage | RoadRageous Video Course
| Distracted Driving
| Bicycling | Motorcyclists and
Aggressiveness || Excerpts About Bicyclists
From Our Book ||
Surf Rage |
Emotional Spin Cycle
| Bookstore |
Road Rage Book
| Road Rage Articles || DrDriving's
Bookstore ||
What Your Car Says
About You
(click to go down to that Section)
Index
to Controversial
Issues Debated
including these topics:
Issues Part 1 -- Right Lane vs. Left Lane Feelings |
Tailgating | Social Responsibility
Issues Part 2 -- Driving the Speed Limit | PSA Radio Spots |
Car Phones | Automatic Pilot | DUI Counseling
Issues Part 3 -- Why I Tailgate | Coned Lane: When to Merge
| Social Responsibility
Issues Part 4 -- Road Rage | Driver Education | Driving
Personality | Stereotypes About Women Drivers
Issues Part 5 -- Merging When Lane is Coned | Continuing
Driver Education
Issues Part 6 -- Good Drivers' Association | Slay Your
Driving Dragon
Issues Part 7 -- What B.A.D. Drivers Do
Issues Part 8 -- Tailgating and Aloha Spirit Driving
Issues Part 14 -- Aggressive Drivers and Road Rage | New
Name "Crashes" vs. "Accidents" |
Issues Part 15 -- Princess Diana: The Road Rage Incident of
the Century: Day 1
Issues Part 26 -- Speed limits | DUI | Crosswalks |Traffic
calming methods | .
Index
to Controversial
Issues Debated || Search this Site
Drivers 'don't regret road
rage'
Nearly two in three drivers
have engaged in road rage in the last three years and nearly
all thought their behaviour was justified, a poll shows.
More than 10% of motorists
even admitted it could be good to be a bit aggressive on the
road.
And nearly 60% of the road
ragers said they had behaved badly after being annoyed by
the poor driving of others, the survey from Zurich Insurance
found.
From: The Press Association
April 4, 2008.
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jAI4WQu3eiCA1bHjcqIESg7gHFCA
Best Driver in the World
Blog: http://bestdriver.blogspot.com/
Check out the solutions.
One In Six Have Been Road Rage Victims
4/19/2008
- And nearly 300,000
have had cars damaged in road rage incidents, says
MoneyExpert.com
One in six drivers have been
victims of road rage incidents in the past 12 months, new
research from www.moneyexpert.com
* shows.
More than 7.4 million
motorists have been involved in confrontations with other
drivers with younger drivers the most likely to be on the
receiving end of other road users’ anger, the independent
financial comparison website says.
The survey found that nearly
300,000 drivers had their cars damaged as a result of road
rage confrontations – graphically illustrating the need for
insurance. According to the RAC Foundation some ten per cent
of drivers have been involved in an accident with an
uninsured driver.
Several motor insurers such
as Sainsbury’s Bank, which pays up to Ł1,000 compensation if
drivers are assaulted, offer cover for road rage as part of
their standard policies while others such as women-only
insurer Sheila’s Wheels provide counselling services.
Sean Gardner of
MoneyExpert.com, said: “Most of us will have lost our
tempers while stuck in traffic and can sympathise with the
sense of frustration felt by other drivers.
“But any sympathy goes out
of the window for drivers who take out their anger on
others. Shouting and swearing at other motorists is bad
enough but damaging other drivers’ cars is beyond the pale.
“Our study did not
thankfully find any evidence of physical assault but that is
perhaps more down to luck than anything else. The fact that
one in six of us has suffered from road rage is worrying.
And of course many of us may be guilty of road rage
ourselves.”
MoneyExpert.com estimates
that around one in twenty fully comprehensive car insurance
policies have a specific allowance for personal injury
caused by road rage. However there are often exceptions and
caveats, such as whether you caused the altercation and
whether you are related to your assailant.
The most common form of road
rage reported by motorists is tailgating – driving too close
to another car – or other forms of aggressive driving.
Around three-quarters of those who have suffered road rage
in the past year were tailgated.
Half of the road rage
incidents reported by motorists resulted in verbal
confrontation while four per cent saw cars being damaged.
Around 16 per cent of
motorists say they have suffered road rage in the past year
– that rises to 19 per cent of 18 to 34-year-old motorists.
Drivers aged 55 or over are least likely to be victims.
Drivers in the North of
England are more likely to be road rage victims with 18 per
cent reporting incidents while just 12 per cent of motorists
in London have been victims.
From: http://www.webitpr.com/release_detail.asp?ReleaseID=8303
What causes aggressive driving? Are men
and women equally aggressive?
By Dr. Leon James
The frustration-aggression theory states that when people believe that they are being prevented from achieving their goal, frustration will mount, causing an increase in the probability of an aggressive response .
However, frustration does not lead to an aggressive act in all situations, but is dependent on the other person’s ability to retaliate.
Aggression intensifies when frustration is unexpected, but weakens when the cause of frustration is perceived as unintentional or legitimate. (e.g., yielding to an EM vehicle’s siren)
Another cause of aggression is the need to reciprocate after being provoked by another person. This leads to retaliation practices. The need to retaliate leads to mental venting, which is a major cause of aggressive emotions and behavior.
Certain hormones, such as testosterone, have even been shown to influence aggression. Since men generally have higher testosterone levels than women, it follows that men are generally more aggressive creatures than women. (e.g., what is called “spouse-abuse” is mostly perpetrated by mean on women)
Social norms and practices allow boys and men to express more aggressive behavior than girls and women. Overt expressions of aggressive driving such as verbal road rage and vehicular pursuit are practiced by men more than by women.
Men are more prone to explosive feelings of road rage and retaliatory fantasies because they practice violent forms of mental venting or ruminating. Boys practice war games with each other and they spend more time with video games and virtual world experiences that are warlike and violent. Girls are more focused on relationship games they enact with each other. How people drive reflects their socialization as children and their social practices as adults. Some women can be more aggressive than the average for men. Some men can be less aggressive than the average for women drivers.
Both men and women are at greater risk on the road because of their practice of ruminating about driving incidents, drivers, roads, traffic, passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists, truck drivers, traffic lights and cameras, etc. These rumination topics prepare people to ruminate more in an endless spiral of escalating ruminations.
People mentally drown in their ruminations about daily traffic.
Avoid rehearsing the thoughts that justify the ruminations.
Argue yourself out of ruminating.
Men and women ruminate about different topics and situations. (research needed)
The antidote to ruminating driving is supportive driving.
Women are more likely to like, to accept, and to practice the style of supportive driving. Men are attracted to such ruminations as:
“You can’t let them get away with this kind of behavior.”
“You have to teach them a lesson.”
“You can’t let them walk all over you. They are a menace. Somebody has got to do something.”
“I can’t just be a wimp. I’m going to show them they can mess with me.”
See related
articles here ||
The Psychology of Sidewalk Rage
2010
Dr. Leon James (“DrDriving”)
Walking is not just getting from one place to another. A pedestrian does not just move through physical space, but at the same time through social space and mental space. Social space maps out normative paths, selecting some physical motion as allowable, and others as not allowable. Walkers suddenly stop as they seem mesmerized by their tiny mobile device. They are violating normative paths allowing themselves to compel nearby pedestrians in both directions to negotiate their way around the physical block.
These walkers are now navigating in mental space as they strive to avoid embarrassing and sometimes painful collisions with each other. Their mental space tends to be in a negative environment filled with dark clouds and screeching owls. Their mental space is now populated with screaming rageful thoughts portraying butchering fantasies. These inner realities break out into physical space where they are portrayed as verbal exclamations of annoyance, derogation and punishment.
Walking around with intolerance and disapproval produces emotional depression and moral corruption. The more negative are my mental spaces as a walker, the more stressful the walk and consequently, the more unhealthy. Although I have seen no evidence of research it is my opinion that the habit of rageful walking has become a major mental health hazard, and consequently, a major hazard on our physical health.
Today more people are expressing a variety of rageful behavior both in public, like road rage and air rage, and in private, like computer rage and office rage. My definition for sidewalk rage is the following:
Sidewalk rage refers to the experience of rageful emotions against other pedestrians who impede our locomotion or act threateningly without showing sufficient awareness of or caring for the other pedestrians.
It’s normal to experience sidewalk rage under certain conditions as when we come up against pedestrians at airports who are walking on the left and disrupting the flow of those who are moving along at a quick pace. See if you can recognize your own experiences in the following sequence of events:
The Effect of
Age, Gender, and Type of Car Driven Across
the States
by Dr. Leon James
(2001)
http://www.drdriving.org/surveys/interpretations.htm
Summary:
The pattern of results thus far lead me to the following
conclusions:
Aggressive driving is made
up of a syndrome
of
habits that stick together
with plenty of individual variation.
Young
drivers are more aggressive in all driving behaviors
than older
drivers; senior drivers are the least aggressive.
Men are more aggressive than women when they drive sports
cars and light
trucks (S-10, Pick-up, Ram, Ranger, F-150, Silverado,
Dakota, etc.); women
are more aggressive than men when they drive SUVs and luxury
cars. For
economy and family cars, it depends on the specific
behavior.
There appear to be three psychological categories of
vehicles people
drive: tough driving cars (sports, light trucks, SUVs), soft
driving cars
(economy, family), and special driving cars (vans, luxury).
Each of these
psychological categories has its own aggressive
driving syndrome that
distinguishes it from the others.
It is evident that aggressive driving is a cultural norm
that is generationally
transmitted
as a habit imbibed in childhood when riding with
parents and reinforced by repeated media
portrayals of drivers
behaving badly. To get us out of this, I propose a program
of Lifelong
Driver Education.
Eastbourne course will help women fight road rage
By Emily-Ann
Elliott 6/6/2008
Women drivers are to be
taught how to use everyday objects to defend themselves
against road rage maniacs. (...)
Publicity material for the
event on June 12 states: "As part of the course, volunteers
from the audience will be invited to take part in role-play
by a personal self-protection specialist and learn how to
beat the bullies behind the wheel and, if diplomacy fails,
how to use everyday objects normally found about one's
person for self-protection and to ensure a rapid escape from
a would-be attacker." (...)
Gail Taylor, marketing
manager of Eastbourne Motoring Centre, said: "Personal
safety and security are imperative for everyone,
particularly women today. "The menace of aggressive,
inconsiderate driving on our roads seems to be increasing at
the moment and we believe that all it takes is a little care
and consideration to avoid situations which can escalate
into the kinds of tragic incidents we have all heard about
recently. "We want women to enjoy their independence and
freedom and be able to travel safely and confidently on our
roads. "We hope that, by highlighting the risks facing women
drivers, the course will provide them with a wealth of
information and practical advice." (...)
From: http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/generalnews/display.var.2321526.0.eastbourne_course_will_
help_women_fight_road_rage.php
See also: Gender and Driving--Men vs. Women
Driving literacy
facts that every driver needs to know!
by Dr. Leon James
World wide, about 1.5 million people are killed in road
accidents every year -- that's 15 million killed on the
roads every decade. Road accident research has pointed
towards driver error in the majority of cases. In the U.S.
about 42,000 traffic fatalities occur every year and about
1.5 million injuries annually at a total cost of 200 billion
dollars -- that means in every decade we kill 420,000
Americans on the roads, injure 15 million Americans on the
road, and pay a whopping two trillion dollar cost in
repairs, injuries, insurance, and economic loss. Our
foreign oil dependence and domestic shortage would be solved
if we stopped using the gas pedal emotionally in traffic
every day.
Almost all of "driver error"
can be traced to insufficient emotional intelligence
training behind the wheel. All drivers can train themselves
to acquire emotional intelligence behind the wheel. We have
proposed that driver education start early in elementary
school when we can train young people to acquire respect and
compassion for others in public places -- pedestrians,
drivers, passengers, road workers, law enforcement. We
describe a threestep method for driver personality
makeovers. Every individual is raised to be an aggressive
driver and pedestrian through years of training on the back
seat of the car driven by parents and other adults -- road
rage nursery! Add up the years of daily television watching
and video gaming involving drivers behaving aggressively,
dangerously, and violently. By the time we start driving we
automatically drive aggressively, have competitive feelings
and intentions behind the wheel.
The threestep
self-modification approach can provide adult drivers with a
new supportive driver personality style, to replace the
aggressive driving feelings, emotions, intentions,
judgments, condemnations, and acts of risk and folly that
all of us experience and tolerate on a daily basis. Driving
is the most dangerous thing we do on a regular basis, and it
has the highest cost as well. We can change that.
Useful statistics
on car crashes and injuries
may also be found on these Web sites:
www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov
www.safecarguide.com/exp/statistics/statistics.htm
www.car-accidents.com/pages/stats.html
www.transport-links.org/transport_links/filearea/publications/1_771_Pa3568.pdf
Best solution for traffic woes? Eliminating the drivers
By Emily Mulhausen -
Columbia News Service | Saturday, May 17, 2008
(...) The best way to
eliminate congestion, some experts say, is to take the
driver out of the driver's seat. "We wouldn't have to deal
with people behind the wheel," said Dr. Jerry Schneider, a
University of Washington professor emeritus of urban
planning and civil engineering. "It would be a totally
hands-off, brain-off experience."
Driverless design concepts
include Personal Rapid Transit, which involves passenger
taxi-pods on rails; automatic highway systems that direct
driverless cars using magnetic guidelines; and dual-mode
systems with cars that can be driven normally on smaller
roads and for shorter distances, but could go driverless on
specialized electric rails, or "guideways," for high-speed
controlled travel.
"In the morning you would
drop the kids off at school, drive to the guideway, sit
back, read the paper, and automatically get off where you
want to go," said Kirston Henderson, the president and
inventor of MegaRail Transportation Systems, a dual-mode
company based in Texas. (...)
Indeed, increased efficiency
from higher speeds, standardized spacing between cars and
driverless driving could dramatically increase road
capacities. A normal highway lane can carry about 2,000 cars
an hour, Schneider said, while a dual-mode "lane" could
handle 15,000 or more. Traffic congestion is a "$78 billion
annual drain on the U.S. economy in the form of 4.2 billion
lost hours and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel," says the
Texas Transportation Institute in its 2007 Urban Mobility
Report, with the average rush hour commuter losing $710 a
year while stuck in traffic. (...)
But solutions that focus on
the physical aspects of traffic may be overlooking the real
problem.
"Congestion is often not caused by the road, but by the way
drivers are driving," said Dr.
Leon James, a psychology professor at the University
of Hawaii and a pioneer in the small field of traffic
psychology. When one driver in traffic makes a mistake,
tailgates, or changes lanes unnecessarily, hundreds of cars
may have to suddenly put on the brakes.
"We call it a
traffic wave," he said. "Everything suddenly slows to
a crawl, but there's no obstruction."
That, in turn, has a psychological effect. "Congestion
makes you feel frustrated and panicky," said James,
who recommends a program of lifelong driver's education to
help deal with the cognitive problems caused by driving. "Many
people are driving around in a constant seething rage."
(...)
From: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/05/19/lifeandtimes/z3911e14ab4f1274b8825744a005df393.txt
See also a Web
site on traffic waves.
Watch a a brief YouTube video called Shockwave
traffic jams recreated for first time
Site Map
||
Search this Site || DrDriving's
Bookstore ||
Moffat: Violent Heart:
Understanding Aggressive Individuals
Traffic accidents lead to
approximately 40,000 deaths per year in the US. The world
toll in 1999 was 1 million deaths and 40 million injuries In
2020, the worldwide death toll from traffic accidents is
expected to rise to about 2.3 million Road accidents are the
leading cause of death for males 15-44. Pedestrians and
cyclists accounted for 19.3% of all traffic fatalities in
the US and 13 Western European nations in 1992. of all
crashes: 85% are attributed to road user error
Directory of Topics in
Driving Informatics with Web Links Definition of Aggressive
Driving and Road Rage Children's Books at
Amazon.com || Songs About Cars
Brief Summary of How Driving
Psychology Explains
What is Aggressive
Driving
Aggressive Driving is a
philosophy (P), an attitude
(A), and a weakness (W).
You can remember this as AD = PAW.
Aggressive
driving as a philosophy
Road regulations and
civility do not apply to me some of the time.
Aggressive
driving as an attitude
Driving is a competition
for who gets through first. I am more entitled than others
-- me first. I can't be a wimp and let other motorists
take advantage of me.
Aggressive
driving
as a weakness
Aggressive driving is an
emotional weakness or a lowered
ability to cope with routine everyday exchanges with
other motorists. It is a lack or insufficiency of emotional
intelligence. It involves mental
venting to oneself behind the wheel, and social venting
to one's co-workers, friends, or any stranger who will
listen.
The PAW syndrome of
aggressive driving is part of the culture
of disrespect on highways. It is a world wide
phenomenon present in epidemic proportions
in every country studied so far. It is a generationally
transmitted
socialization habit and therefore is going to
increase and get worse with every subsequent generation --
unless we stop it through lifelong
driver education programs and quality
driving circles for driver self-improvement
activities tied to license renewal.
DDC 4, 5th edition includes two new 10-minute video sessions:
“Chain of Choices” looks at the choices
that each driver makes every day. Proper following distance,
common courtesy road rage, driver distractions are covered
along insight
from Dr William Glasser and Dr. Leon James on why people
choose the driving behaviors they do. View a short-clip from “Chain of Choices”
What is
Speeding? From National Public Radio --
Listen
to this program now online
Talk
of the Nation, June 7, 2007
· Most states are tough on drunk drivers, but it is actually
speeders who cause the most deadly car crashes. Yet, even
when they are caught, many speeders get off easy. Guests
discuss the psychology behind our desire to speed and why we
think nothing of going above the limit. Leon James,
professor of psychology, University of Hawaii; co-author,
Road Rage and Aggressive Driving
Judith Stone, president,
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety
Richard Retting, senior transportation
engineer, Insurance Institute of Highway Safety
From Wisconsin
Public Radio two programs on drivers and roads:
KHON Channel 2 FOX Television
Honolulu. Interview on the evening news with
Tina Shelton regarding the psychology of speeding vs.
breaking the speed limit. June 28, 2007. See
the video segment here.
How "real" is road rage?
Read a few news stories on road rage around the world from
DrDriving's Collection
Road Rage News Stories || Dr. Leon James in the
News
Road
Construction Rage -- see
news stories here.
What is Aggressive Driving? News clip for
Medics and FORSCOM military bases.
WHYY Radio PA Voices In The
Family 12/22/08 Traffic Psychology
It's Monday morning on the
Schuylkill expressway, and it is a very loud, frustrating
parking lot. And you... well you are speaking in a language
of expletives you never would say outside the comfort of
your car. This behavior has become acceptable, but most of
us wouldn't dare act this way otherwise. Or would we? On the
next Voices in the Family, Dr. Dan Gottlieb talks
with the author of Traffic, Tom Vanderbilt about why
we drive the way we do and what it says about us. Dr. Dan
will also speak with Professor of Psychology at the
University of Hawaii, Dr. Leon James, who specializes in
traffic psychology. Hear Voices in the Family Mondays at
noon, with a repeat broadcast Sunday at 6 a.m.
The
Psychology of Vanity Plates
Dr. Leon James
Professor of Psychology
University of Hawaii
2011
Also called “personalized plates” or “personal plates”. I see it as people’s attempt to fight the anonymity of the daily driving experience on roads and highways, and thus to try to re-humanize the driving environment that has evolved into something stressful and unhealthy, competitive and risky, frustrating, and anonymous. Personalized plates extend the current exploding mobile social networking movement and can be expected to increase and become more important in the immediate future of motorists, passengers, and pedestrians.
Several issues are involved in this cultural practice:
1. Content
2. Appropriateness
3. Cultural Meaning
4. Psychological Meaning
1. Content
a. it is a reference to a personal relationship (person, group, or place) that may be unintelligible to outsiders (solidarity, friendship, or opposite—insult, hate)
b. it uses a generally recognizable word or name to express support for it (social cause, political principle, place or location, company ad, etc.)
c. it commemorates along with some others a conference or event that ties them together
d. it presents a hidden message that others can decipher and appreciate (self-disclosure, wise advice, etc.)
2. Appropriateness
States filter license plate applications, rejecting or banning sexually explicit or religious and racial slurs.
3. Cultural Meaning
a. it is an act of self-expression through content and style of the vanity plate
b. it is equivalent to a “speech act” or act of declaring something publicly about oneself
c. (i) it is expressing and sharing humor (“It’s fun…” or “Let’s laugh together”, etc.), or expressing user generated semiotic ambiguity while driving (“See what I have for you today…”, “I can be charming and original…”, etc.)
(ii) it is promoting a particular variety of socio-political activism (“I support this…” or “I am against this…” etc.)
4. Psychological Meaning
a. willingness to pay more for the plates (indicating engagement and strong motivation)
b. mark of distinction through its uniqueness and inventiveness, either positive (“I am clever…”, “I can amaze you…”, etc.) or negative (mean attacks, intention to hurt)
Background Reading
Vanity Plates: Contest Entries and Awards
http://www-chaos.umd.edu/misc/
Vanity plate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_plate
How do you handle it?
email DrDriving@DrDriving.org
Here are some of the things people say.....
From: http://www.virginiadot.org/VTRC/main/online_reports/pdf/05-r6.pdf
EVALUATION OF THE LATE
MERGE WORK ZONE TRAFFIC CONTROL STRATEGY
Several alternative lane
merge strategies have been proposed in recent years to
process
vehicles through work zone
lane closures more safely and efficiently. Among these is
the late
merge. With the late merge,
drivers are instructed to use all lanes to the merge point
and then
take turns proceeding
through the work zone. Its efficiency has been tested on
only a limited
basis. The purpose of this
project was to determine when, if at all, deployment of the
late merge
was beneficial.
The late merge concept was
evaluated by comparing it to the traditional merge using
computer simulations and
field evaluations. Computer simulations included analysis of
2-to-1,
3-to-1, and 3-to-2 lane
closure configurations to determine its impact on throughput
and the
impact of factors such as
free flow speed, demand volume, and percentage of heavy
vehicles.
Field tests were limited to
2-to-1 lane closures, as recommended by state transportation
officials,
and examined the impact of
treatment type on vehicle throughput, percentage of vehicles
in the
closed lane, and time in
queue.
Results of the computer
simulations showed the late merge produced a statistically
significant increase in
throughput volume for only the 3-to-1-lane closure
configuration and was
beneficial across all
factors for this type of closure. For the 2-to-1 and 3-to-2
lane closure
configurations, the late
merge increased throughput when the percentage of heavy
vehicles was
large.
Field tests showed similar
trends with regard to throughput. Although throughput
increased, the increase was
not statistically significant because of the limited number
of heavy
vehicles at the site. More
drivers were in the closed lane, indicating a response to
the late merge
signs. Time in queue was
also reduced, although the reductions were not statistically
significant.
The authors conclude that
the late merge should be considered for 3-to-1 lane closure
configurations but not until
a sound methodology for deployment has been developed and
tested
in the field. For the 2-to-1
and 3-to-2 configurations, the late merge should be
implemented only
when the percentage of heavy
vehicles is at least 20 percent.
From: http://www.virginiadot.org/VTRC/main/online_reports/pdf/05-r6.pdf
Evaluation of 2004 Dynamic
Late Merge System (DLMS)
for the Minnesota
Department of Transportation
From: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/trafficeng/workzone/2004DLMS-Evaluation.pdf
The DLMS is designed to
utilize the best aspects of the Early and Late Merge
strategies. Through the use of technology, this DLMS traffic
control strategy can dynamically change its lane use
instructions based on the current traffic demands. This
alters the traffic control theory from an early merge
strategy under light traffic demand to a late merge strategy
during periods of congestion. The motivation for this
approach stems from a desire to make the roadways safer and
eliminate conditions where motorists typically exhibit
conflicting driver behaviors. (...)
Shorten Queue Lengths before
Work Zone:
By encouraging the use of
both lanes in congested conditions, the length of a forming
queue should be greatly reduced under the Dynamic Late Merge
System. If all drivers follow the posted instructions, the
queue length could be reduced by half, ensuring that no
vehicles would encounter the back of a queue before first
seeing the construction advanced warning sign.
Increase Traffic Capacity
through Work Zone:
Based on experiences from
previous studies, it is hoped that having a single merging
point at a defined location will increase the number of cars
through the work zone. Reduce Aggressive Driving: If no
other benefits are achieved, reducing the stress level for
drivers at the work zone could be beneficial enough to
warrant the use of the Dynamic Late Merge System. Recent
years have seen an escalation in the number of road rage
incidents and aggressive driving behaviors around work
zones. Impatient and antagonistic drivers have blocked other
vehicles from passing or have driven around queues on the
roadway shoulders or medians. Eliminating the causes of
these outbursts could stabilize the behaviors of already
frustrated drivers. (...)
The messages posted at the
three CMS locations were the same as those of the US10
deployment during the summer of 2003: furthest from the
taper “STOPPED TRAFFIC AHEAD” – “USE BOTH LANES,” next “USE
BOTH LANES” (...)
The
typically observed behavior when drivers encounter the
advanced warning signs of a construction zone lane closure
is for drivers to move out of the closed (discontinuous)
lane to the lane continuing through the construction zone.
Some drivers have even been observed to brake radically in
order to join the end of a queue forming in the continuous
lane after seeing the first static advanced-warning sign.
These early merging behaviors result in a long single lane
queue; a scenario with many dangerous driving conditions.
(...) The two advanced warning CMS farthest from the taper
alert drivers to the stopped traffic ahead and instruct them
to continue using both lanes.
Debating
the Issue
From: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=14656717
Quote: The usual signs are there for advance warning
of lane closure so get over as soon as you can.
No they are not. They are
there so you know which lane is closed and know which way
you have to merge and how far.
Quote: The signs you link
too are irrelevant to this topic
They are 100% relevant as it
is people doing as those signs advise doing what the OP was
complaining about.
Quote: They are 100%
relevant as it is people doing as those signs advise doing
what the OP was complaining about.
It is also obvious that
using all the road space available and letting everyone
merge smoothly at the merge point is more efficient and
reduces the length of the queue.
For your information the
sequence of traffic management signs at those works were as
follows:
"WHEN QUEUING USE BOTH
LANES"
Diagram 7072 "800 yds"
"WHEN QUEUING USE BOTH LANES"
7072 "600 yds"
7072 "400 yds"
"MERGE IN TURN"
7072 "200 yds"
So it's fairly obvious from
those signs that what they expect people to do when there is
heavy traffic is to use both lanes up to the point just
before the 200 yds sign where they are told to merge in
turn. Do you think those sign would be there if they wanted
people to merge at the 800 yds sign?
Quote: What's the point of
merging at 800 yds when there is still 800 yds of road ahead
of you? It sounds like common sense to me. It gets more
traffic through.
So everyone is at fault then
really, moving across too soon causes the arrogant drivers
to become impatient, and steam along the almost empty lane
at 70mph to overtake a few people.
Quote: No, only the
idiots who move across too soon causing stop-start traffic
three times longer than necessary are at fault.
Quote: I never drive
down the hard shoulder to jump ahead in a queue, since it's
illegal. But at impending roadworks, I will happily admit
that I drive down the outside lane and merge further up.
There is nothing illegal about it. I do not do it
aggressively, nor do I brag about it. I simply put my
indicator on and wait for someone to let me in - since
someone always will. Or I move into a big enough gap if
there is one. I fail to see the point in queueing for
something, when it's perfectly legal to do what I just
described. As someone already said, people are too English
about it!
I get annoyed when there are
roadworks with a sign indicating that a lane is closing so
many yards up the road. The traffic flow is slowed right
down by some berk 400 yards from the cones trying to cut in
20 cars from the roadworks, only because he/she is scared to
upset someone. Damn drive to were the road actually closes
then merge in turn.....some roadworks even put signs up
telling you to do so! Then you get the big lorry in the
closing lane picking a car next to it and matching its
speed......allowing 400 yards plus of empty road ahead of
it, jeez. Should be a fixed penalty fine for NOT merging in
turn and using the whole road in roadworks/lane closure
situations. At least the govt should make it clear/official
that its an offence or add it to the highway code
I AM ONE OF THEM. I AM A
BAD MERGER.
From: http://www.reetsyburger.com/2007/10/lets-go-all-wayto-merge-point.html
I have aggressively straddled two lanes with my car in order
to block late merges in construction zones. I get pissed
when people fly by me in the other lane AFTER I've already
merged.
I have shook my fist fiercely at people who refuse to merge
with everyone else a 1/2 mile before the merge zone....those
a*&holes!!!
LO AND BEHOLD. I was WRONG. And some people I met from
California and Pennsylvania were laughing at me as they
tried to explain that people in Minnesota and Wisconsin
simply don't know how to merge. They blamed it on Minnesota
nice....We see a sign that says the lane is going to
end, and we move over immediately cuz it's the polite thing
to do. RIGHT?
WRONG. I am changing my ways, henceforth, even though I know
the early mergers are going to get pissed.
From the Minnesota Department of Transportation
"ST. PAUL, Minn. — Fifteen percent of drivers admitted to
straddling lanes in order to block late merges in
construction zones, according to a recent study conducted by
the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
To address the more than 2,700 crashes and 18 fatalities
occurring in highway construction zones last year, Mn/DOT
commissioned a study to better understand the behaviors and
attitudes that trigger driving decisions in merging
situations as drivers enter a work zone.
'Our goal is to increase safety in work zones by reducing
the confusion and frustration drivers often experience when
merging,' said William Servatius, Mn/DOT's Office of
Construction. 'Many times crashes occur due to aggressive
driving, abrupt lane changes or sudden stops, so we want to
help drivers make good choices while traveling through our
work zones.'
In an attempt to minimize the problems discovered in the
research, Mn/DOT also conducted a month-long field study on
Highway 10 in Anoka to assess a new Dynamic Late Merge
System, a traffic control strategy to improve merging at
lane closures.
'The fully automated system using remote traffic microwave
sensors and a Doppler radar provides instructions to drivers
via changeable message signs on when to merge and how to
merge according to the current state of traffic,' said Craig
Mittelstadt, Mn/DOT's workzone safety specialist. 'For
example, if traffic is heavy, the system will instruct
motorists to use both lanes and take turns once they've
reached the defined merge point just before the lane
closure.'
This strategy often referred to as the 'zipper' improves
traffic flow, reduces conflicts and hopefully will decrease
the number of crashes when traffic demand exceeds the
capacity of a single lane closure.
'Basically, we want drivers to know that under normal
traffic speeds, they should try to merge early to avoid
unsafe merging maneuvers; however, when traffic is
congested, drivers should use both lanes all the way to the
definite merge point,' said Servatius.
'We can't completely rid the
roads from congestion in a workzone, but data from the study
revealed this method shortened queue lengths by 35 percent
and reduced lane changing conflicts,' said Mittelstadt. 'We
also hope for a decline in crashes and aggressive driving
behavior.'
Minnesota is one of the first states to use the Dynamic Late
Merge System and plans are to continue this research in the
upcoming construction season.
'People have been trying for years to research the proper
way to merge, but there are so many factors to consider,'
said Servatius. 'It's difficult to say what's the right
way - instead we're looking for the best way.'
Here is what looks to me
a sensible solution (says Dr. Leon James).
It is electronic signage
dynamically adjusted to the flow of traffic. From ADDCO
Smart Traffic Solutions (TM) at http://www.cotrip.org/its/ITS%20Guidelines%20Web%20New%20Format%202-05/Web%20Solutions%20Packages/ITS%20Solution%20Packages%20-%20Web%20Copy/Work%20Zone%20Safety/SMART%20Lane%20Merge.pdf
Please read their description of Dynamic Message Signs and
how they work.
From: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/welcome_to_the_morning_joust.html
Can't we all just merge?
The raging battle of I-690
by Hart Seely
(...) Still, at some point,
everybody has to merge. The state seeks to get it done early
on, far before the point of bottleneck. And as drivers on
the left are passing, scorning many chances to slide into
the traffic and instead going all the way to the front,
their counterparts on the right are boiling over. They were
there first. "Basically, what they're thinking is, it's
wrong to pass me. It's unfair," said Dr. Leon James,
co-author of the 2000 book "Road Rage and Aggressive
Driving." "They are reacting emotionally when they see a car
passing by. They sit there and rehearse in their minds all
the ways that they are being treated unfairly by these rude
drivers. The more their line slows down, the more the idea
is reinforced."
Our Road Warrior Ride
shotgun with reporter Hart Seely and experience the
heartache and adrenaline rush as driver is pitted against
driver and three lanes are forced to become one. Click below
to watch the video.
Watch the video here
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/welcome_to_the_morning_joust.html
(This is an excellent
example of self-witnessing behind the wheel. The video
brings out the actual dilemma as drivers experience it in
the merge dilemma)
A few comments by readers of
the Post Standard
Posted
by CNYexpert
on 06/08/08
The obvious answer - one I'm
amazed has eluded the DOT for all this time - is not to
announce that one lane will be 'ending'. Just put up signs
that both lanes will merge into one. Use cones to merge
everybody to the middle, then steer the one column wherever
you want it. As long as nobody thinks they are in the lane
that will continue to exist while others are in a lane about
to vanish, everybody will just keep driving and merge
one-to-one (with a few exceptions for the truly selfish).
They have done this on the 690E-481N connection a few times,
and traffic slows down but with no stoppage and no murderous
road rage.
Other states do it that way
and laugh at our problems.
++++++++++++
Posted
by freqflyer
on 06/08/08
Here in the Washington DC
area we have major traffic. We use the *merge at the end of
the lane* rule, it works perfectly.
+++++++++++++
Posted
by FairmntBob
on 06/08/08
There is no logic to the merge later to keep the line down theory. The bottleneck is the one lane, and only one lane can go through it. The sooner the merging is out of the way, the smoother the one lane of traffic can go through the one lane available, without extra stopping and going for merging. A single lane of 50 cars takes the same (or less, if there is last second jockeying) time as two lanes of 25 cars. It just looks longer. As to the line backing up farther back if the merging is early, that's a good thing because people can see the line and take an exit to avoid the mess!
People going up farther are simply cutting ahead in the
line... if you can't see that you aren't paying attention!
+++++++++++++++++
August 3, 2008
The Urge to Merge
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03traffic-t.html?_r=1&oref=login&fta=y&pagewanted=print
By CYNTHIA GORNEY
HERE IS THE CALDECOTT TUNNEL
PROBLEM. If there’s another person with you right now, you
may end up raising your voices as you consider it. I’m just
warning, is all. The last time I brought up the Caldecott
Tunnel Problem among friends, two people who had been a
happy couple for a long time started arguing, and then they
looked at each other as if something new and disturbing were
presenting itself, and when I got up to go, one of them was
pounding the table and yelling at her beloved, “But that is
so wrong!”
(...)
This is the point at which
the North American driving populace, as you know, cleaves
into two camps.
Two-thirds of us, according
to calculations I have made while brooding inordinately
about this inside my Subaru, are lineuppers, slowing rapidly
from 70 to 30 or 20 or whatever and taking our places —
courteously and patiently, as our mothers taught us to do,
respecting the broad tenets of social justice and the
primacy of fairness to all persons on the road, regardless
of income or ethnicity or car model or perceived level of
personal importance — where was I? Oh. Sorry. Taking our
places at the end of the line, I was saying, the long
two-lane line that has formed to the right, creeping toward
the mouth of our tunnel bore. There is still some empty lane
space beside us on the left, true, where the cones are
gradually closing those left lanes down. But people are
already lined up. If we passed them on the left to get in
farther ahead, we would be cutting the line.
One third of us, on the
other hand, zoom on by. For purposes of this problem, I
shall call these sidezoomers. (When I raised the Caldecott
Tunnel Problem with my father, who is 83, he startled me by
suggesting a longer label that included more bad words than
I believe I have ever heard him use at one time.)
Sidezoomers have a variety of strategies, each exaggerated
by the configuration of the Caldecott but replicated in
bottlenecks across the land: there are the ones who zoom by
a few dozen cars, angling in when they see a plausible
opening; and there are the ones who zoom all the way up, to
the very top of the cone-off funnel, at which point they
thrust their aggressive little self-entitled fenders toward
the lineup and nudge themselves in. And there are those who
opt for frontage-road sidezooming, which requires
maneuvering into the far-right highway lane in order to get
off at a certain pretunnel exit that dumps cars onto a
surface street alongside Highway 24. They zip along that
street and get back on 24 at the next entrance, slipping in
ahead of the bumper-to-bumper highway lineup they just
bypassed. So now they’re cutting the line, too, but from the
right.
And that very last exit lane
before the tunnel, also on the right? You can’t get back
onto the highway once you’ve exited there, but if you’re a
sidezoomer you can slide into the empty exit-only lane,
still on the highway but pretending you’re leaving, and then
you drive and drive right past all the lineuppers until
whoops, now at the last minute you’ve changed your mind and
you’re not exiting at all; you’re sneaking back into the
line.
(...)
So I started consulting
professionals on my own: traffic engineers, the highway
police, queuing theorists. The learning curve, it must be
said, was robust. I hadn’t known queuing had theories. But
of course it does, mathematicians and business-operations
people have to work them out, the heart-attack patient gets
in ahead of the sprained ankle and nobody has a problem with
that, and anybody who has been to Europe intuitively
understands what one engineer meant when in midsentence he
said to me, “perfect England,” meaning culturally mandated
compulsive queuing, and, “perfect Italy,” meaning culturally
mandated compulsive nonqueuing. I learned about the father
of modern queuing theory, an early 1900s Dane whose specific
who-goes-first challenge was the new Copenhagen telephone
system, which required callers, disembodied but queued
nonetheless, to be moved along in a way both maximally
efficient and acceptable to all. I learned some of the ways
a crush of traffic is and is not like a crush of opera fans
outside Lincoln Center — the speed factor,
the isolating qualities of an auto’s steel bubble, the
coarsening effect of no-eye-contact anonymity. I learned
that Officer Sam Morgan, of the California Highway Patrol,
occasionally uses the term “cranial-rectal inversion” when
referring to drivers of especially poor judgment, which was
one of the most satisfactory things I learned all summer,
come to think of it. I asked each professional the same
questions:
1. If you were inside your
personal vehicle, approaching a bottleneck that offered you
the options of lineup or sidezoom, which option would you
select?
2. For practical purposes —
maximum vehicle flow, minimal hang-up — who’s right?
A University of Washington engineer named Bill Beaty, who was one of the first traffic scholars I located, has come up with his own bottleneck-behavior labels: Cheaters and Vigilantes. He disapproves of both. When I acknowledged belonging to the choleric wing of the vigilante order, he was unyielding but sympathetic. “That’s just human,” he said. Beaty is a proponent of the third-way prescription, which I’ll get to in a minute; he’s an electrical engineer, not formally trained in traffic flow but so interested in it that for a decade he has kept up a link-filled Web page, amasci.com/amateur/traffic/links.html, connecting to scores of diagrams and scholarly papers and discussion groups, a whole subuniverse of people preoccupied with the physics and psychology of traffic. (You can click from Beaty’s page to a comic Italian animated traffic short, a German traffic-flow simulator that twitches and rotates and a live-cam shot of one nasty section of Seattle’s I-5.)
(...)
Nearly every time I asked
one of the traffic people to assume the role of the great
vehicle arranger in the sky, remote-controlling each of us
bottleneck drivers as if we were so many video-game
characters, the reply went as follows:
FIRST, EVERYBODY REMAINS
UNRUFFLED, without abrupt changes of lane or speed, as the
lane-drop comes into view. Everybody takes three deep,
cleansing breaths — all right, the experts didn’t say that,
but they meant to — and considers both the imminent needs of
everybody else and the system as a smoothly functioning
whole.
Then everybody begins to
slow, not too much, all in concert. All cars remain in their
lanes, using all the real estate. (On the question of
frontage roads and exit-only lanes, the experts waffled;
those are arguably part of the real estate, they agreed, but
they are meant for a different purpose, and this scenario
relies upon everybody buying into the same rules. So no
frontage-roading or fake-exit-laning, unless there’s a sign
specifically instructing otherwise.) People in the narrowing
left lanes refrain from shooting ahead, while people in the
right through lanes — this is hard to swallow, for those of
us inclined toward vigilantism, but crucial — leave big
spaces in front of their cars for the merging that is about
to commence. We resist the freeze-out-the-sidezoomer urge.
We prepare to invite them in.
Finally, at clearly marked
or somehow mutually agreed upon places, everybody starts
conducting beautiful “zipper merges.” That’s the technical
term — one-two, one-two or one-two-three, one-two-three — as
indicated by the roadway configuration. The process has now
worked at its ideal efficiency/equitability ratio: if all
have behaved correctly, the tunnel passage has been both
benign and, relatively speaking, quick. Personal sacrifice
has been called for, to be sure. The former sidezoomers have
sacrificed the pleasure of high-speed bypass, also known as
I Beat Out the Stupid Sheep Just Now, Ha Ha (less truculent
rendition: I Want to Get Home More Than I Care About
Strangers Whose Faces I Can’t Even See). The former
lineuppers have sacrificed the pleasure of
self-congratulatory umbrage, also known as Hmph, Good Thing
Society Has People Like Me. Together we have all ascended to
the traffic decorum of the army ants, who as Vanderbilt
observes are among the earth’s most accomplished commuters,
managing to get from one place to another in large groups
without cutting each other off, deciding their time is more
valuable than everybody else’s, or — apparently this is the
fast-lane domination method for certain traveling land
crickets — eating anybody who gets in the way.
(...)
Cynthia Gorney teaches at
the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of
California, Berkeley. Her most recent article for the
magazine was about Spanish-Language advertising.
Traffic Waves by Beatty
Explained
Inquiry into Violence
Associated with Motor Vehicle Use
Government of Australia
Final Report April 2005
Key concepts: Road Violence,
Road Hostility and Selfish
Driving.
Selfish driving involves time urgent or
self-oriented driving behavior, which is committed at the
expense of other drivers in general, but which is not
specifically targeted at particular individuals.
The Committee came to the
conclusion that road violence is not caused by any single
factor. Rather, an act of road violence is the result of the
complex interplay of a number of factors. In the Committee’s
view, road violence is no different from other forms of
violence even though the involvement of motor vehicles can
increase the potential for physical harm. The model shown on
page 186 (Figure 10.1) of the Final Report explains the
Committee’s understanding of the interaction of the various
factors involved. In any road violence incident there will
be a chain of events starting with a triggering event.
Person related and situational factors play a role in the
interpretation of the triggering event that in turn play a
role in how an individual will react to the trigger that may
result in a road violence incident taking place.
The Committee believes that
this model can assist in analyzing the effectiveness of strategies and
initiatives relating to violence associated with motor
vehicle use.
See the full report here: Inquiry
into Violence Associated with Motor Vehicle Use
These stunts, which can earn a driver a seven-day vehicle
impound and license suspension as easily as a street race,
can include:
1.
Doing a "wheelie" on a
motorcycle
2.
Doing donuts
3.
Passing another vehicle
and remaining in the oncoming lane longer than necessary to
complete the pass
4.
Driving a vehicle with
someone in the trunk
5.
Not having the driver
sit in the driver's seat
6.
Preventing other people
from passing
7.
Interfering with other
vehicles by cutting them off or causing them to stop or slow
down in circumstances where they would not normally do so
8.
Intentionally driving
close to another vehicle, pedestrian or fixed object (this
includes tailgating)
9.
Turning left in front of
oncoming traffic as soon as the light for both directions
changes to green
10. Driving a motor vehicle at a
rate of speed that is 50 km/h or more over the speed limit.
From: http://www.miltoncanadianchampion.com/opinions/article/177452
Younger drivers with the
longest commutes are most likely to react to an aggressive
or rude driver. Those with the longest drives are the most
likely to make an obscene gesture.
- Men and women react the
same ways when it comes to road rage.
- Road-rage inducing
behaviors that commuters see every day include talking on
the cell phone (88 percent), driving too fast (59 percent)
and tailgating (56 percent).
- Eating and/or drinking, a
common road rage trigger, is seen by 49 percent of drivers
daily. Motorists in Baltimore, New York and Tampa (57
percent) see this daily.
- The most text-message
happy drivers are in Denver, Houston, Miami and Phoenix,
although overall 38 percent of commuters see texting every
day.
- Twenty nine percent of
those surveyed say they see drivers multi-tasking by
putting on makeup, shaving or reading while driving. They
say they see it most often in Tampa (40 percent) and least
often in Cincinnati (20 percent).
To get the survey results,
Prince Market Research, an independent marketing research
company, conducted 2,512 interviews between Feb. 4 and March
23. The survey has a margin of error of 2 percent.
From: http://www.wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=1403674
State takes on aggressive driving to change
habits
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_569279.html
By Mike Cronin
TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, May 25, 2008
Local and state law
enforcement, health department and nonprofit officials have
created Smooth Operator, a $2 million state-funded program that seeks to
modify bad behavior on roadways and save lives.
"Sixty-five percent of
traffic fatalities in the state are due to aggressive
driving," said Jay Ofsanik, a PennDOT spokesman. (…)
Pennsylvania's approach is
part of a nationwide movement toward attempting to define
and prevent aggressive driving. State and federal officials
don't agree on what defines aggressive driving, but
generally agree it's a combination of driving behaviors that
include speeding, weaving, passing improperly and
tailgating.
Smooth
Operator went statewide last year, said
David Pritt, a PennDOT spokesman. Seven Western Pennsylvania
counties receive an annual share of $740,000 to pay for
police to work overtime several two-week periods a year and
specifically look for aggressive drivers. The next period is
scheduled for June 23-July 6. The most recent was April
6-20. (…)
Aggressive
driving
is a habit, Pritt said. "It's different than road
rage," Pritt said. "Aggressive driving is being done on a
daily basis. Road rage, like shouting profanities at another
driver, is a description of what occurred during an
incident."
Thirteen states have
aggressive driving laws, said Matt Sundeen, a transportation
analyst with the Denver-based National Conference of State
Legislatures. Georgia and Indiana levy the harshest
penalties, where people convicted face fines up to $5,000
and jail time of up to one year.
In Pennsylvania, an
aggressive driving bill introduced in October by state Rep.
Anthony Melio, a Bucks County Democrat, remains in
committee. If passed, the law would levy a $300 fine on
drivers who endanger a person or property by violating two
or more traffic rules, such as passing and disobeying
traffic signals. (…)
Neighboring Ohio and West
Virginia do not have aggressive
driving
laws. Officials there, as in Pennsylvania, try to
change driving habits through stricter application of
existing laws or education.
U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall,
D-W.Va., supports an education
campaign to battle aggressive driving.
"Laws alone have a limited
effect in changing human behavior," said Rahall, vice
chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee.
Speaking from experience, Leon
James, a University of Hawaii professor who
specializes in traffic
psychology, said perhaps the best way to reduce
aggressive driving is through personal responsibility.
Twenty-six
years ago, his wife and his wife's grandmother told
James that his driving bothered them. So James started
carrying a tape recorder to record
his thoughts while he drove.
"I learned you have to have
an attitude of latitude," James said. "You have to be more
tolerant of what other people do. Be less critical and
judgmental. Because what they do, you do."
Road rules
How
to respond to an aggressive driver:
• Do not
make eye contact.
• Do not
"argue with your car."
• Yield to
the other driver in a dispute over who has the right-of-way.
• Let
tailgaters pass you.
• Watch for
tailgaters to pull in front of you too quickly.
• Always
think: "What can I do to make this situation safer?"
How to stop
driving
aggressively:
• Try to
change one thing every day.
• Do not
race another driver.
• Give
yourself enough time to get to a destination.
• Don't
tailgate.
• Go with
the flow and speed of traffic.
• Don't get
in the car to drive when angry.
Sources: J.J. Miller, AAA
safety adviser; Leon
James, University of Hawaii professor who
specializes in traffic psychology
Calif. cell phone laws at a glance
Jun
29, 2008 By The Associated Press, AP
From: http://www.examiner.com/a-1464769~Calif__cell_phone_laws_at_a_glance.html
Here is an overview of the
two cell phone laws that take effect Tuesday in California:
- Drivers under 18 are
prohibited from using a wireless telephone, pager, laptop or
any other electronic communication or mobile service device
while driving. They cannot talk on a cell phone, even with a
hands-free device, nor can they text-message. They will be
allowed to make calls in an emergency.
- Drivers 18 and over must
use a hands-free device when using their cell phone while
driving. Text-messaging is not specifically banned for
adults, but the California Highway
Patrol said they can be cited for negligence under
existing laws.
There is no grace period for
violators. Beginning Tuesday, anyone seen driving while
holding a cell phone to their ear will be subject to base
fines of $20 for the first ticket and $50 for subsequent
tickets, plus additional fees that will more than triple the
fine.
The California
Department of Motor Vehicles will not assign a
violation point to motorists' driving records.
Drivers of all ages - with
or without a hands-free device - can use their cell phones
in an emergency.
See also: Distracted
Driving
Original: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/08copsli.html?ref=nyregionspecial2
The New York Times By STEWART AIN
Published: June 8, 2008
Stopping Aggressive Drivers
From on High
(...) The Long Beach police
have begun cracking down on speeders and reckless drivers
with a novel approach — stationing an officer in a
utility-truck bucket 25 feet in the air.
The officer radios
information on traffic violators he spots to three officers
on the ground. Instead of pursuing the violators in a police
car, the officers stop all traffic and then “surgically
extricate” them from the traffic, Lieutenant Tangney
said.(...)
There were 24 fewer
accidents during the first three months of this year even
though the project did not begin until February. That was a
10 percent drop compared with the same period a year ago,
Lieutenant Tangney said. At the same time, he said, the
department’s 45 patrol officers have issued about 400 more
traffic summonses, a 20 percent increase. (...)
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Aggressive
driving, rapid acceleration and braking can affect fuel
mileage. By avoiding such behavior, you can see savings up
to 30 percent. That could be a savings of more than $1 per
gallon. See original
article here
From: http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=508227
Hypermiling: the new way to save money on the road
Rob Barrett finds driving a new kind of challenge. That's
because the Eden Prairie dad is coasting along using a new
driving trend: hypermiling.
"You take a two thousand pound car, you accelerate to 60
miles per hours. That's like a thousand joules of energy,"
Barrett said. "You just throw it all away by putting on the
brakes."
Instead, Barrett -- like other hypermilers across the
country -- rely on a technique of coasting and little
accelerating. They also use the standby techniques of
driving the speed limit and keeping their tires inflated to
the right pressure. The trend is getting traction,
especially with rising gas prices. "It's only going to go up
and it's not going down. If I can use half as much it's just
great," he said.
Barrett estimates he's gone from 27 miles per gallon... to
40, using his 1999 Acura Integra, not a hybrid. That's 50
percent better gas mileage, which is saving him money.