To: Toni Coleman,

Transportation Reporter

With respect to the experiment of shutting down the city's ramp meters to see the effect:

What would be your educated assessment on what's going on, how people are reacting to not having meters? What can we expect in the coming weeks with the meters shutdown?

As driving psychologists, we predict that people's attitudes toward the experiment will vary over the weeks in accordance with their individual experiences. During the first week of the experiment, drivers who were against the use of ramp meters and now that they're shut down experience no noticeable change in traffic, will stiffen their opposition and will feel negative towards DOT officials who are seen as the promoters of the useless ramp meters. The intensity of the anger and rejection depends on the degree of frustration previously experienced while waiting for ramp signals to let them enter. Waits can vary from less than a minute to over 15 minutes. An unhappy feature of the traffic control device that adds to frustration is its indiscriminate use. Imagine drivers sitting there for 5 minutes while there's no traffic on the highway, especially when these drivers are going to be late for work. For all of the drivers who have accumulated frustration levels, the shut-down experiment provides a measure of relief.

Ramp meters are control devices because they are meant to override a driver's wishes for the benefit of everyone. Officials measure their value in terms of averages--average commute time, average accident rate, average satisfaction level, average frustration level. In reality, most of the drivers are not at the average--half of them are below the average and half are above. This means that many motorists actually experience far above average figures in frustration, commute time, and driver hostility. There is a tendency to attribute the cause of one's problems to things in the environment, and in this case many stressed drivers finger the ramp meters. Since they are control devices, they override the driver's impulse and desire to keep moving. For drivers under pressure, waiting is much more difficult and stressful than moving slowly. In this sense, ramp meters add stress even if they speed up traffic.

If this experiment shows that the ramp meters are not related to accident rates, then it would make sense to repeat the experiment on a regular basis, perhaps three times a year in different seasons. This will provide more adequate data, and it will ease the stress and frustration of many drivers who oppose the control devices. Turning them on and off is more likely to diffuse the cumulative frustration of many who continue to oppose them.

The mental law in social psychology called "cognitive dissonance" describes how people change their explanations for events that impact their feelings and values. In this case, turning the ramp meters off affects their daily commute experience. The explanation people create for what happens to them under this condition is designed to agree with or reinforce their prior values. Those who favor the ramp meters are against the experiment because they firmly believe that accidents and injuries will now occur that would not have happened. The hierarchy of people's values determine which explanation they prefer and believe to be true. For many drivers, the value of reducing accidents takes priority over reducing commute time and waiting at ramp meters. However, people who are strongly opposed to ramp meters will choose alternative explanations, for instance, that accident rate is determined by weather or by how risky and foolish the drivers are.

A positive aspect of the experiment is that it is used by many people as an opportunity to rediscover community on the highway. Traffic binds together thousands of people into a common fate. In this case people wrote that for the first two days of the experiment drivers were nicer, more alert, more patient, and more of them left earlier than usual. We talk about how drivers can rediscover the positive aspects of driving in our new book, Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of Highway Warfare (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2000). The key to reducing stress and aggressiveness is to train yourself to accept positive rather negative explanations for traffic events.

Leon James and Diane Nahl,

DrDriving.org

October 18, 2000