Introduction

by Dr. Leon James

We designed this survey to give us information on DrDriving's main claim, namely that road rage is a "culture tantrum" and by which we mean that we are all aggressive behind the wheel at some time, some drivers less than others. To us this looks like a cultural norm, a habit we learn from childhood through parents, cartoons, commercials, movies, and the general car-talk that people like to use when it comes to driving automobiles.

We love automobiles and we've just completed our first century of car society. There is nothing wrong with loving cars and talking about them, and fussing with them, and paying out big money for them. At least I think there is nothing wrong with that. It's our culture, our tradition, our convenience, our freedom, our romance -- see my analysis of car songs.

But things have gone wrong in an extremely important and critical way and we must immediately address this problem which has reached epidemic proportions and is threatening our traditional love of cars and our loyalty to car society. Think about it:

Every year in the US this is happening on highways with vehicles driven by people:

·       40,000 (forty thousand) dead

·       6 million crashes, each one with consequences (medical, psychological, economic, spiritual)

·       250 billion dollars in cost to society (medical, lost wages and productivity, repairs, funerals)

·       trillions of negative exchanges --
between the 177 million drivers who get into big time fights (1200 each year--shot or battered), and of small time fights (insulting each other, scaring one another, hating one another and breathing revenge dozens of times in a half-hour commute)

Society's response has been to initiate

·       more "aggressive" law enforcement initiatives and new legislative initiatives to give police more effective methods of identifying unsafe driving violations. This includes drunk driving laws.

·       the increasing use of electronic surveillance systems on highways such as the Road Rage Vans in the State of New York that are equipped with video or other high tech equipment to record and crackdown on aggressive drivers who violate highway regulations.

However many people feel that we can't keep increasing this kind of activity to saturation point without fundamentally altering our democratic society -- especially because the fatality rate nationally has remained at around 40,000 and the injury rate at around 6 million, annually.

It's essential therefore to tackle the problem through a generational effort that involves a grassroots movement for lifelong driver's education through various means that are available to us.

In my testimony to congress as expert witness on aggressive driving, I have specified and recommended several approaches, including:

·       driver's education K-12

·       QDC groups for lifelong driver improvement involvement by every driver

·       monitoring and influencing the media for modifying their current style of portrayal of drivers behaving badly.

We need parents to be involved with their children to prevent them from growing up as the next generation of aggressive drivers. We need civic organizations and membership clubs such as CARR and YARR, CASAD and SADD, and MADD and the others now active.

We are in need of a fundamental resurgence and extension of driver's education and the value of personal driving standards. I think this is happening already due to the aggressive driving epidemic. The phenomenon is worldwide. And yet it is such a new social problem that we don't know much about it in an internal way, that is, from the perspective of the thoughts and feelings of drivers behind the wheel.

It's very important that we collect data on the thoughts and feelings of drivers, not just their visible actions. The overt, visible action is always preceded by internal events, namely, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, knowledge, emotions, moods. Driving psychology is this knowledge. We all need driving psychology in addition to safety education.

Survey data do not tell us the same thing as cumulative self-witnessing monitoring within a QDC. But they are indicative of how people perceive the issues and how they try to cope with them. Surveys tell us about

·       how drivers reason

·       what conclusions they reach

·       what their intentions are

·       what they are inclined to do

·       what they oppose

·       and so on.

They allow comparisons across geographical locations and across population segments, as well as across time, to see changes that might occur in one location.

More in our book excerpts || See also: Articles on Aggressive Driving and Related Topics

HOW TO USE SURVEY RESULTS

1. As an indication of the probable scores one would find in the population of the United states and Canada.

This use applies to all the statistically significant findings in this sample. It does not apply to the non-significant ones (they can flip flop because it's too close to call). Significant results are marked by asterisks (**) indicating that there is more than 95% probability of the comparison being accurate

Opinion polls with random samples at the national level of around 1000 respondents usually yield an error rate of around 3%. This sample of a little over 1000 respondents similarly has an error rate of around 3%.

2. As a source of hypotheses on the dynamics of aggressive driving.

I explore several of these hypotheses for the Hawaii sample. Others may come up with additional implications I no doubt have overlooked. Research studies on aggressive drivers can use these results to set up similar tests elsewhere and compare them. Reporters and other individuals writing and speech making about aggressive driving and road rage, can use these data as indicative of what's happening in their geographical area in comparison to others..

See also: AAA Foundation Research on Aggressive Driving

3. As a departure point for surveying aggressive driving issues in your own geographical area.

This may be of interest to citizens, reporters, and safety or law enforcement officials.

Quoting a Recent Article

AAA: Americans acknowledge aggressive driving
5.14 a.m. ET (914 GMT) July 1, 1998
WASHINGTON (AP) — The American Automobile Association says one in four Americans admits being an aggressive driver.

That amounts to 45 million aggressive drivers and represents a bigger problem than "road rage,'' a better known but different pattern of driving behavior. In road rage incidents, drivers attempt to harm others with their vehicles. Aggressive drivers, by AAA's definition, simply drive without regard for others' safety.

The survey, released Tuesday, was based on telephone interviews in April with 942 licensed drivers across the country. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Some 25 percent of those surveyed said they had driven aggressively in the past year, and 32 percent of those said they did so several times.

When asked how they were being aggressive, 58 percent of the respondents cited speeding, and 23 percent said they changed lanes excessively. About 11 percent said they tailgated another car, while a similar number said they ran a red light or stop sign.

Thirty-nine percent said they coped with traffic congestion by changing lanes excessively or running red lights and stop signs.

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