The Toronto Transit Commission won the American Public Transportation Award for eighteen of the last twenty-one years, according to M.L. Friedland (see J. Peter Rothe Challenging the Old Order: Towards New Dimensions in Traffic Safety, Transaction Publishers, 1990, p.101). This feat was apparently accomplished by encouraging the 300 drivers to participate in a "safety bingo" that rewards drivers who stay out of crashes and tickets with small but desired prizes such as a television set. An important feature of the safety bingo is the grouping of drivers into divisions. When a driver gets into a crash the entire division is penalized relative to the other divisions. This creates strong peer pressure to maintain driving alertness and to stay out of trouble. There are two principles to be learned from this experience.

First, a positive incentive system is more desirable than negative punishment methods.

Second, peer pressure is a potent force that can strongly influence people's behavior.

RETHINKING DRIVER EDUCATION

For the past 28 years, our research on the thoughts and feelings of drivers has uncovered several startling facts.

• drivers regularly experience hostile emotions and violent fantasies
• drivers are unaware of their errors and style of driving
• drivers resist change and lack the skills to change or to improve
• drivers are not taught to deal with their own emotions in traffic and lack the skills for self-control in traffic situations
• drivers live in a conflictual or cynical mental state, accepting traffic regulations in an ideal sense, but rejecting them in an actual sense (e.g., speed limits, blood alcohol level, signaling regulations, parking violations, moving violations, required maintenance, seat belt use, child restraints, etc.) Our rational mind supports these as necessary for the public good; but our lower mind desires to make excuses for our transgressions. We drive in this fog of conflict, with the result that we regularly break the traffic laws and engage in either risky or aggressive driving, or both.

These are then the behavioral problems that face our nation of 180 million drivers as we cross the millennium and begin our second century of car society:

• hostility
• lack of awareness
• resistance to change
• lack of emotional intelligence
• and cynicism towards authority.

Traditional methods of driver education have developed in response to the type of driving that characterized the first century of car society (1896-1996). This gave rise to several important concepts:

• the driver's license regulated by a government agency
• driver education in high school (or its commercial equivalent)
• traffic regulations and enforcement efforts (sobriety check points, cumulative penalty points, fines, license revocation, jail, court mandated remedial driver training, community service)
• safety engineering in highways (lights, speed limits, signage, federal standards) and in cars (seat belts, airbags, new automatic braking, etc.)
• award systems (insurance premium adjustments based on driver record)

Important improvements have been made in each area. First, we have license renewal procedures and graduated licensing procedures. Second, driver education in public schools has evolved a curriculum based on safety education and awareness of traffic regulations. The safety program has filtered down to elementary schools with police officers participating along with citizen groups such as MADD, SADD, GRADD, Designated Driver Program, and others. Third, the laws have become more numerous and the enforcement methods more sophisticated, including photoradar and satellite positioning equipment.

Despite these efforts, safety experts were incapable of managing the driving behavior of motorists as more and more of them came on the scene, much faster than we could build roads for them, with the result of congestion, stress, and the carnage of millions of drivers. As we begin our second century of car society an increasing realization is dawning. We don't know how to face this new challenge in an orderly fashion. Driving has become a runaway problem, and it is only now that we are becoming aware of it. Until now we thought we could solve it through the three concepts that worked before: the driver's license, driver education, and traffic enforcement. But they're not working effectively enough to reduce the killing of 40,000 (forty thousand) people every year, and the injuring of 2 million people every year, to the cost of 200 billion dollars, every year. Further, there are indications that aggressive driving and dangerous risk taking are on the increase, not decrease. So it is obvious that a new approach is needed to take care of the runaway driving problem that threatens to spoil our hard won advances through a technological civilization. We need to rethink our driver education approach.

Our research on drivers for nearly two decades has led us to formulate a new body of knowledge about driving behavior, which we call Driving Psychology. The first century paradigm of driving was based on the notion of instructing drivers in safety and regulations. But highways became the national killing fields, taking over 50,000 lives a year through the decades of 50's, 60's, and 70's. Despite vast improvements in the design of cars and highways, and in emergency medical services, the fatalities leveled off at around 40,000 deaths per year, while the number of injured people keeps climbing (over 2 million last year among more than 5 million crashes). Safety experts have operated with two explanations for these tragic results. One can be called risk adjustment and the other road rage.

Experts feel defeated by the disconcerting tendency of drivers to increase dangerous forms of risk taking when engineers and doctors make things safer for them. For example, drivers who buckle up feel they can drive faster because they're safer. Drivers who are crash protected by air bags, are lulled into less alertness or caution. Straight unobstructed stretches of highways encourage speeding. Radar devices and GPS allow people to break speed limits more easily. When crowded highways allow us to elude detection by police, we commit more infractions. When they install four-way stop signs, motorists fail to obey them. And so on. Safer cars and safer roads are incapable of counteracting the greater number of mistakes drivers commit as a result of multi-tasking for which they do not have the skills. Since risk taking increases as new safety devices are introduced, the accident levels will not go down. This is the first account.

The second is called road rage, and is the idea that stress and the frustration of daily commutes sometimes get so intense that drivers become emotionally insane on a temporary basis and snap. They then become primitive savages engaged in killing each other. Or, if not killing each other, at least behaving in an aggressive and hostile manner, enough to loose control of themselves and acting dangerously. The overall result is the increase in collisions, and the maintenance of fatalities at the current level despite improvements in safety and increased surveillance.

While these accounts may be accurate descriptions of what is happening, they are not true explanations of why they are happening. For instance, to meet the increasing challenges of congested commutes, driving instructors have created the "defensive driving" course. Drivers are given principles of caution so that they learn to anticipate what the other driver will do in critical interactions. It was not predicted that defensive driving will, in some cases, turn into "offensive driving." It was discovered that defensive driving involved the idea of suspicion and distrust of other drivers, since you never knew what atrocious mistakes they can make. So you had to stay on your guard. Suspiciousness fed by cynicism easily turns into aggressive driving. Defensive motorists driving around in a suspicious atmosphere has now become the norm.

Here are exerps of a recent news story by Steve Sebelius that illustrates how we've come to think about the driving problem:

Metro Police Lt. Joe Greenwood, who supervises the 85 motorcycle-mounted traffic officers, says Las Vegas drivers aren't any worse than their counterparts in other places. Rather, he says, bad driving is about time pressure. "People are in a hurry. People are wanting to get to their destination, so they're taking risks," Greenwood says. "I think it's a matter of people knowing what they're supposed to do and just don't do it." Greenwood says many accidents are caused by motorists running red lights, making left turns without yielding to oncoming traffic and following other drivers too closely, resulting in rear-end collisions. Efforts by cops to educate drivers, like the radar trailer that contrasts a driver's actual speed with the posted limits, aren't really working, Greenwood says. As a result, police ought to be handing out more tickets, he says.
Breen says she favors restrictions on teen licenses, such as the limits proposed in Assembly Bill 552, which would have banned teens from driving friends for the first four months they have a license, and from driving at night (except for work or school) for the first year. In addition, she says, she favors mandatory testing every two years for drivers older than 65 and annual exams for drivers 75 and older. But such measures can't take the place of more cops on the street, she says. "They [voters] want more traffic police until they get a ticket, then they complain bitterly," she says. "The reality is what you need is more police to give you a ticket when you're 15 mph over the speed limit

Nevada's Legislature approved Assembly Bill 457 this session aimed at aggressive driving, which is defined as speeding coupled with running a red light or stop sign, passing on the right, unsafe driving, following too closely or failing to yield the right of way all in a one-mile stretch. Violations are misdemeanors and people convicted of the crime can be sentenced to traffic school and a 30-day license suspension. Another offense within two years results in a one-year suspension.

Aside from opening more roads, local traffic engineers have little to say about curing bad driving. Sometimes, drivers do bad things on good roads, and there's nothing that could be done to prevent it, White says. "Sometimes, some of the decisions they make, we can't design for," he says. So then what? "We're trying to talk it up around here, how important it is to drive courteously," he says.

"I think people are not trained in this country at all," says Ken Kruger, president of the All-American Driving School and of the Nevada Professional Driving School Association. At least one study has shown, Kruger says, that school-based drivers' education is ineffective in teaching driving skills. "I think the high schools ought to drop driver's ed," he says. "It's a subject they should not be teaching. They're wasting people's time and money." Kruger maintains the only way to teach driving skills is to repeat them until they become a habit. Driving simulators are a good way, but they're too expensive to purchase, so in-car training becomes a necessity. Original here.

Here are exerps from a proposal sent to me recently by a driver who was struck by the following comment I made in an interview:

"ROAD RAGE is the inability to let go of the desire to retaliate and punish the other driver. How it is expressed, depends on personality and situation." Dr. Leon James

His proposal illustrated the directions that the old paradigm solutions might take: AUTOMOTIVE VIGILANTISM

How about channeling and diverting that vigilante urge? How about a variation on the 1-800- "How's My Driving" stickers for truckers? How about a toll-free phone number which motorists can call to report the license plate numbers of aggressive drivers? So that rather than respond in kind, motorists have some non-violent recourse to "punish" the other driver. These license numbers could be made available to insurance agencies, who I'm sure would want to know about dangerous behavior in their covered automobiles.

This proposal has a couple of interesting positives:
1. it doesn't require proving *who* was driving at any point in time. The insurers cover the car itself, no matter who is driving.
2. there is no invasion of privacy required -- the insurance company already knows the license numbers of the cars they cover.
3. The database can be made public, it's only a list of plate numbers. The insurance companies need *never* publicize their use of the database if they don't wish to, but they can still factor the information into rates which they quote.
4. Parents are plausibly more interested in perusing this database for the plate numbers of cars which their children might be driving.

And a couple of possible negatives:
1. it can be abused for other purposes. Someone might call to complain about the driving of an estranged spouse, lover, boss, or co-worker. This could be countered by correlating the phone number of the caller with the reported plate number, and disqualifying multiple reports from a single calling number.
2. there is not necessarily any repercussion against the offending driver. It all depends on whether his insurance company scans the database. But perhaps the symbolic action would be sufficient to defuse the retaliatory urge on the part of the offended driver.

It's clear to us that we need a new paradigm of driver education for the coming generation of drivers, and we need as well a workable solution to keep training the current multi-tasking drivers. This solution is a Lifelong Driver Education program driven by the motto:

Driver Education Never Stops.

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	Web DrDriving.org

OPERATING Quality Driving Circles (QDCs)

Small groups of 5 to 10 drivers meet together regularly, and discuss their driving life, influencing and learning from each other. There are two types of QDCs: Face-to-Face and Virtual. Face-to-face QDCs can be based in the family, the neighborhood, or the workplace, where brief meetings can be held at lunchtime or during breaks. It's important to make the meetings regular and to keep an attendance record as a way of motivating members not to skip. Prizes, diplomas, awards, and public commendations are encouraged to keep members involved. There ought to be a rotating chairperson for an agreed upon period, to call meetings and safeguard records. There is no limit to how long a QDC goes on. The longest lasting QDC will receive national recognition. Annual QDC conferences and QDC Newsletters, both national and local, are desirable. The national QDC activities will be coordinated through this Web site.

Virtual QDCs are Web based and coordinated through this site. Members are not physically present but they communicate electronically through this interactive site, as well as directly with each other, by chat room, email, internet phone, regular telephone and mail.

The Quality Driving Circle CURRICULUM

The curriculum of QDCs consists of these instructional tools:

1. TEE CARDS (Traffic Emotions Education) May be accessed here
2. RoadRageous Video Course Description of Modules may be accessed here
3. Activity Sheets for driving personality makeovers to be practiced by all members
4. Self-assessment Surveys to monitor one's driving style (see TEE CARDS and Test Toolkit)
5. Check-lists of driving behaviors to keep track of (see TEE CARDS)
6. Logs or Diaries to record self-observations
   Reminder Cards to guide trip by trip planned exercises (see TEE CARDS)
7. Audiotapes for listening while driving to facilitate behind the wheel exercises
8. FactSheets or Bulletins about national driving statistics, news, and alerts
9. Agreement forms for Partnership Driving and other help-each other arrangements
10. Data Record Forms to summarize the activities of members intended for the national QualityDriving databank (see below)
11. Scenario Analysis of road rage incidences in the news to teach emotionally intelligent choices
12. Games and Musicals to teach driving psychology principles
13. CARRtoons and Instructional Vignettes May be accessed here
14. Activities to do with children in the car (see CARRworkbook)
15. Diplomas, Awards, and Commendations to be given to members for encouragement
16. Certificates of Participation to reward excellence in driving (e.g., getting lower insurance rates)

National Quality Driving Circles
QDC DATABANK

All QDC participants are encouraged to contribute their self-observation records to the Web based National Quality Driving Circle Databank. A generational library of self-witnessing reports thus accumulates and forms the basis for change. The self-witnessing reports are prepared by members according to models and instructions. They include

• thoughts and feelings behind the wheel
• driving personality makeover projects using behavioral techniques of self-modification
• checklists, surveys, and inventories to help keep track of changes and patterns in one's driving

QDCs may also be a good vehicle for the Courts who are always looking for driver re-education programs more effective than watching driving safety movies, or doing unrelated community work. The dynamic power of groups to influence individual behavior is well known to social scientists. We should be using this power for re-educating aggressive and emotionally impaired drivers.

QDCs are principally cultural motivators for a value change. QDCs are re-education delivery mechanisms for changing aggressive driving into supportive driving. But they also are the best source of continuous data for tracking the level and intensity of aggressive driving. Trained volunteers tape record themselves in traffic and later analyze the data, using approved checklists for the presence or absence of certain emotions, and their intensity. These data would be a measure of the level of aggressiveness or stress that drivers regularly experience on that stretch of road, and the nature of these emotions and thoughts, so they may be dealt with on a public basis. These data would be anonymous and published on a regular basis.

OBJECTIONS TO THE NEW DRIVING PARADIGM

The following excerpts from a recent letter illustrates the kind of objections and difficulties that will be raised about lifelong driver education through universal QDC participation.

(begin quote here)
I know you're trying to find a cooperative, constructive way for everyone to just get along, and that's commendable, but by doing that, you're trying to do more than address road rage, you're trying to fundamentally change the nature of late 20th century America. That's a tall order. My suggestion, and others from "the old paradigm" is motivated by a pragmatic approach to working with, influencing, nudging, the existing social order towards a better end. If you have to turn everything upside down, it will take a lot longer and may not happen at all.
First of all, I think your proposals for "aloha driving" and QDCs are pleasantly idealistic. I see you've quoted Swedenborg in your signature, and I think I understand where you're coming from. And I do agree that the larger issue of violence in American society is closely coupled with our problem with "road rage." In other countries, drivers are far more "rude" and "aggressive" on the road (and I have to use the scary quotes, because it's our cultural context standing in judgments of theirs), yet the driving does not escalate into violence. I'm speaking of cities like Mexico City, Lisbon, Venice, Rome, Bombay.

So I agree that it would be a good thing all around if people could be encouraged to relax, loosen up, chill out, cool it, aloha. Peace, alright?

On the other hand, the concept of QDCs, like support groups, or salons, or other communitarian movements (or self-improvement itself), is almost quaintly liberal, urban, and disconnected from the larger trends of de-urbanization and individualism that are presently pervading our society. You might be able to (I'm sure you could) sell a self-help book titled "Stop Road Rage: start here" and people might do a little introspection into their own behavior, but I really don't believe that groups of people will formally involve themselves in other people's lives (or vice versa) for the sole purpose of improving their driving habits. Oh, some people would participate, sure. Just like some people participate in support groups, or salons, or church small groups, or reading circles, etcetera. But I don't see how it could become a sufficiently large movement to change society. I think it will remain permanently on the fringe. This has nothing to do with "would it work if people would participate?" I think it would. This is just "would people participate?" And absent coercion, I don't think they would.

The only way people would participate on a large scale is *if* large numbers of people could be convinced that their *own* behavior should be improved. That road rage and aggressive driver aren't "some other idiot", but they are the product of each person's "idiot within". But Leon, if you can create that kind of large-scale self-awareness, you won't need QDCs -- you will have already ushered in the New Jerusalem.

When there is a paradigm shift in science, like the one Einstein brought about, there is a period of overlap between the old and the new approach during which the supporters of each paradigm can't see each other's valid points. Out of this struggle emerges a new understanding and a new acceptance of what seemed unacceptable or unimportant before. I believe that we are now going through such an overlap phase between the old paradigm of driving and the new paradigm of the acceptance of the idea that driver never stops throughout the career of the driver.

Driver training never stops because the complexity of driving continues to increase. It doesn't just stay put. Your driving skills must be continuously updated and confirmed. First, because of how the automotive environment advances and evolves:

longer and more crowded commutes
a greater diversity of drivers and why they are on the road
multi-tasking behind the wheel (phone, radio, GPS, voice e-mail, mobile office, etc.).
 

Second, because of the declining physical functions with age, and
the tendency to slide back into the savagery of the old paradigm driving ("reptilian driving").

The AARP sponsored program known nationally as 55+ Alive has met with success and approval by insurance companies who offer drivers premium reductions for attending the 6-hour course. My suggestion would be to use the structure of this organization that's already in place to encourage graduates of 55+ Alive to join QDCs on a permanent basis. (end of letter)

THE CURRENT COST OF THE DRIVING PROBLEM

The following table summarizes the cost/benefit analysis of the old and new paradigm in driving. These are the factors that will determine the rate of acceptance of lifelong driver training and universal QDC participation.
 

The transformation that needs to take place from negative driving to positive driving is illustrated by the following 10 driver competence skills. People in the negative driving mode are stuck in negative mental quagmire we can call "reptilian driving" because the person behind the wheel is acting out a symbolic image of the cave man mentality. Positive driving is emotionally intelligent because when motorists are in that mental state, they operate more rationally and with greater self-control.

Please note that the actual words in these examples may not fit your style of thinking-to-yourself, but try to figure out what each example stands for, and see if you can think of the exact words you would use when in that frame of mind.

Not everyone wants to join a Regular QDC. There are workable and creative alternatives.

Virtual QDCs (Asynchronous) do not involve face-to-face contact and they increase the variety and distance of possible groups one can belong to. People can belong to both Face-to-Face QDCs and Virtual QDCs, if they so wish. You can also belong to more than one QDC.

Dyadic QDCs, like long term Partnership Driving, are easy to set up between the driver and regular passengers.

Family QDC is an excellent and powerful alternative.

Individual QDC. People can also do most of the QDC curriculum exercises on their own. However, doing them alone requires an unusual degree of self-motivated supervision to overcome loss of interest or resistance to change. Meeting in a group context empowers the members to each other's motivational involvement. Involvement is partially contagious. Involved members try to persuade less involved members to stick out.

Court mandated QDCs may be powerful methods for motivating and supervising problem drivers.

School QDCs allow the grouping of younger and older children together so that there may be a positive generational influence and connection. They also prepare the next generation of drivers to accept and support QDCs. See also CARR: Children Agianst Road Rage.

Professional QDCs for drivers of trucks, police and emergency vehicles, race cars, engineers.

Senior QDCs for the elder drivers.

Other TEE Cards here

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By Alan Sipress / Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- Keith Brown likes to sit in traffic. On a typically bad day along the Washington Beltway, it takes him an hour each way to travel between Temple Hills, Md., and his job in Reston, Va. It's an hour-and-a-half on a worse day. He's done it for eight years, and he's not ready to give it up. "As strange as it sounds, I'd rather have an hour-plus commute than a five-minute commute," said Brown, 42, a seemingly sensible computer programer. "In the morning, it gives me a chance to work through what I'm going to do for the day. And it's my decompression time." Some road warriors may question his sanity.

Yet others immediately understand Brown's affection for the peace and solitude offered by the journey between a job crammed with deadlines and a home where his 4-year-old son often lies in wait with his own computer frustrations. Indeed, research indicates that a significant portion of commuters actually welcome the time they spend in their cars. The time offers many drivers a rare space over which they have total control, a breather in the breathless pace of work and home, phones and the Internet. In a survey of drivers across the country for American Demographics magazine, 45 percent agreed that "driving is my time to think and enjoy being alone."

Steve Barnett, an advertising executive who has tracked the behavior of commuters, calls it "road Zen." Sandwiched between escalating job pressures and the demands of domestic life, commuters often exploit their drive time to settle into a relaxed mental state, according to Barnett, a senior partner at OgilvyOne. "It centers them. It's just the opposite of road rage." Some experts say this attitude helps explain why many motorists would be unwilling to pay tolls that could relieve congestion and shorten their hours on the road. No doubt many commuters in congested metropolitan areas such as Washington see only exasperation, grief from the boss and late fees at day care when they get caught in traffic. But even in this region, a considerable number of drivers cherish "the chance to be quiet and meditative" provided by their daily trips, said Brad Edmondson, a former editor of American Demographics. "A lot of people enjoy driving alone, particularly those who live in households with at least two people and work in offices with a fairly large number of people. It's only between two hectic situations that you find some breathing space," said Edmondson, who introduced the survey results during his keynote address at a recent conference of the Transportation Research Board, an arm of the National Research Council.

The findings showed that equal proportions of men and women enjoy their time alone in the car but that distaste for driving increases with age. Although more than half the respondents ages 18 to 34 said they enjoyed the solitude of their drive time, only one-third of those older than 55 did. When the workday ends for Julie Koontz, 33, she is grateful for the drive home from Reston to Warrenton, Va., though it takes an hour. "At the end of the day," she said, "I'm pretty stressed, and it gives me a chance to leave work behind."

The proposition that commuting is not universally reviled has won further support from economists Clifford Winston, of the Brookings Institution, and John Calfee, of the American Enterprise Institute. In a study to determine how much drivers would pay in tolls to alleviate traffic and thus reduce their commute, the researchers concluded that motorists are far less negative about the time they spend in the car than experts had believed.

‘Road rage’ is learned, expert says

'Driver education starts in kindergarten and before,' says Leon James
By Susan Kreifels, Star-Bulletin

Mom and dad, watch your behavior in the car. If you're guilty of "road rage," your kids are likely to take after you when they get behind the wheel.

That is one of the most significant findings by "Dr. Driving" -- Hawaii's own Leon James, a professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.

"Those who remember parents as more aggressive drivers are more aggressive themselves, like swearing and tailgating," James said.

"It's not as some people describe it -- something happened and they snapped, or other drivers push them to be hostile. We've been taught to do it."

James, an expert on road rage who testified last year before Congress, just completed analyzing

e-mail questionnaires filed by 1,095 respondents across the nation in December and January.

That followed a survey of 1,040 drivers done four months earlier.

Sgt. Clyde Yamashiro, with the Honolulu Police Department's Traffic Division, said people who display road rage give all kinds of excuses for their behavior. But Yamashiro said he "semi-agrees" with James.

"It could be considered learned behavior," Yamashiro said.

James said schools should start teaching children from their first day about how drivers and passengers should behave on the road and how to manage anger.

He wants to start a new organization called CARR: Children Against Road Rage.

"Driver education starts in kindergarten and before, when they start riding with parents in cars and observing them," he said.

Adults also need "serious self-training," James said, and to support one another in "quality driving circles."

James believes adults would take time out from their busy lives to join such activities if they knew the risks they drive by every day: About 5 million Americans have been involved in collisions for each of the last few years, and 40,000 to 44,000 of them died.

"Every year, we're killing on our roads as many (U.S.) soldiers as died in the Vietnam War."

In 1997, Hawaii saw 131 auto deaths, he said.

"We are undergoing amazing risks we don't realize," James said. "Driving has become too serious and dangerous an activity that we do every day. You don't want your children to grow up and be like you.

"You want to reduce your driving stress, switching from an aggressive driver to a supportive driver. Then, suddenly, driving becomes a pleasure again instead of frustrating, plus it reduces risk."

Original story here

Mr. D, thank you for mailing me the copy of an article by Washington Post writers Patricia Davis and Leef Smith titled "A Crisis That May Not Exist Is All the Rage" (November 27, 1998). I will be happy to comment on it, and it's very thoughtful of you to send it. I agree with the basic history line the article depicts, but I do not agree with the conclusion that road rage may not be real.

The Washington Post article is posted here:
washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/traffic/roadrage112998.htm

The main problem with the article is that it doesn't make the connection between road rage and aggressive driving. Let me look at the issue from both their and my perspective. From their perspective, if you are focusing EXCLUSIVELY on road rage batteries and shootings, though these violent acts have been on the increase (12% per year -- but estimates are disputed), nevertheless the absolute number of such events, or about 1,200 annually throughout the nation, is miniscule compared to the number of drivers on the road every day (125 million). It is extremely small even when compared to the number of injuries per year (about 4 million), and small compared to the number of fatalities per year (around 40,000). From this perspective, and looking only at the 1,200 road rage shootings and batteries, there is no "epidemic" and there is no big change from before. That's the point of the article, as I read it.

From my perspective, this view is less informative and real when considering that what people have been complaining about (over 50% of the drivers surveyed) is not violent road rage shootings and batteries. Instead, people have been complaining about aggressive driving habits of drivers in congested traffic environments. My road rage survey on the Web indicates high percentages of drivers admitting to forms of behavior that are both illegal and intimidating and dangerous to others: running red lights, tailgating, cutting off, yelling and making obscene gestures, and generally not cooperating with one another and not feeling any compassion for one another. This is the problem of aggressive driving and this has gotten worse, as shown by many surveys, and many different types of surveys, as well as by law enforcement records around the country.

Is road rage an overused term? I don't think so, though some people do. I think road rage is fine because it accurately expresses how drivers feel. Their emotions are angry, hostile, intense, impulsive, and irrational. This is common for drivers of our generation, and we are breeding the next generation of aggressive drivers right now, as our children riding with us, observe us and imbibe our attitude behind the wheel. When they get to sit behind the wheel, they will just start where their parents left off. Aggressive driving laws have been passed and more are being introduced every month somewhere, which include definitions of aggressive driving. One Bill now in the Washington State Senate provides jail term and fines for "the aggressive driving crime," defined as three infractions within 5 miles, as observed by a police officer.

In my view, law enforcement is necessary and useful, but not sufficient to take care of the aggressive driving problem. In my expert testimony to Congress in July 1997, I proposed a socio-cultural solution under the title Lifelong Driver Education. Since in real life driver education starts when we are infants being driven around, it's important to teach affective skills to children early:: what highway attitudes they should have, how to behave on streets and parking lots so we don't infringe upon the rights of others, and how to be good passengers when being driven around. Then in intermediate school, they can move on to cognitive issues of driving: judgment, map reading, predictability, signs, lane switching, communication among drivers, yielding, and so on. Finally, in high school, they get hands on sensorimotor training on maneuvering a vehicle safely. After getting the graduated license, all drivers can join small groups called QDCs or Quality Driving Circles in which they encourage and supervise each other's driving personality makeovers and lifelong self-improvement activities for drivers. A more detailed plan of the Lifelong Driver Education program I propose, and a description of its content, is given in the article available here.

Those who don't wish to join such groups (either neighborhood based, or workplace related, or private, etc.) may do the activities on their own, or through other techniques such as Partnership Driving and Children Against Road Rage and Youth Against Road Rage organizations. QDCs for older drivers would focus on their problems, and so on. QDCs will also teach drivers how to acquire new skills needed as more and more gadgets are introduced in the car as part of normal driving: car phones, GPS displays, voice e-mail, office dictation, and other gadgets and tasks drivers are going to be involved in the new century ahead. QDCs are excellent vehicles for such new self-training activities.

Along with Lifelong driver education and QDCs, we also need to focus on media portrayals of driving. One proposal is to develop DBB ratings (Drivers Behaving Badly) to focus people's attention on this potential source of aggressive norms where violence and recklessness are condoned, even minimized as to risk and morality.

So, I think we need to recognize driving as a major social problem of our generation. Only a socio-cultural and generational society-wide attack on the problem can solve it. What a challenge! But I think that the solution will be beneficial to our society as a whole, since it will make us into a more compassionate, less violent society.