Attitudes, Habits, Feelings, and Emotions
Most drivers are aware of the affect that things like drinking and cell phone use have on their driving safety, while giving little consideration to other factors that can be even more distracting. Fatigue, stress, and our emotions have a serious effect on driving, causing serious impairments that we may not even be aware of. If you are worried, upset, frightened, depressed, or even happily excited, your driving skills can be as negatively impacted as they would be if you were engaged in an intense phone call or after having consumed several alcoholic drinks.
Many times we do have to drive after facing an emergency, for example, after being notified of the sudden illness or death of a loved one; or even after a confrontation with another person, such as a particularly upsetting incident at work. If you find that you must drive after your emotions have surfaced, here are a few things you can do to manage the emotion and make your driving safer for yourself and others on the road:
- If you are angry or upset or otherwise annoyed, whether due to something unrelated to driving or because of a driving incident, pull over or off of the road. Take a few moments to close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and relax. If the emotion is particularly strong, or take a short walk; just stay off of the road until you have time to settle down.
- If you find yourself drifting into worry, depression, or if you are thinking too closely about something that has happened, make a concerted effort to put it out of your mind until you stop the car. Use the energy to focus on your driving, and give yourself time to sort out the troubling issue when you do not have to drive.
- If it is a matter of feeling rushed, hurried or just generally impatient, give yourself some extra time before you start out. That will help you avoid getting even more frustrated with slower drivers or other things that are out of your control, such as heavy traffic or a back up due to an accident. Allowing for extra time means you won’t be as likely to start speeding. Also, remember to always, no matter how rushed you are, stop at railroad crossings and NEVER drive around the gates or try to beat an oncoming train.
Research has proven that human beings in the grip of negative (and sometimes positive) emotions have exhibited a distraction level even more serious than those experienced by cell phone users. Such emotions can cause otherwise excellent drivers to:
- Experience dimmed or otherwise impaired observation and reaction times.
- Fail to recognize situations, such as an abrupt slowing of traffic or debris in the road.
- Get to the point that they are unable to predict or to determine what the other drivers around us are doing.
- Make risky maneuvers and risky changes, such as cutting across several lanes of traffic to take an off-ramp, suddenly change lanes, or even to drive on the freeway shoulder.
- Lose the ability to perform driving skills that require precise timing or other subtle skills.
- Make a driver feel as though they are detached from the other drivers, vehicles, and conditions on the road.
Q: If you must drive after your emotions have surfaced, what can you do to keep control behind the wheel?
Answer: Take a few moments to close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and relax, take a short walk, give yourself time to sort out the troubling issue before driving, and Allow for extra time.
Road Rage
Road rage has been responsible for many accidents and even bodily injury, mainly due to an overreaction and personalization of driving situations. Aggressive driving (road rage) occurs when a driver becomes angry or irritated and fails to follow the rules of the road. An aggressive driver will intentionally aggravate or attempt to aggravate other drivers and in some cases will even cause bodily injury, property damage, or death to other drivers or individuals.
If something happens to make you believe that you could become the victim of another driver’s rage, here are a few things you can do to protect yourself:
- Remain in your car, and if approached on foot, roll up the windows and lock the doors.
- Even if you’re just talking with a passenger, avoid making gestures that another driver could interpret as hostile, rude, or otherwise negative.
- If you accidentally do something that annoys or upsets another driver, make overly-exaggerated expressions of regret, hold hand in a prayer gesture, mouth the word “sorry,” make a silly grimace, anything that will send the message that you acknowledge an error. This works very well to diffuse a situation.
Some tips on avoiding road rage:
- Plan your trip or schedule in advance and allow extra time in case your vehicle breaks down or in case of traffic congestion due to an accident, road construction, or rush-hour traffic.
- When caught in traffic, do not get angry. Try to relax, listen to music. Take into consideration that some traffic congestion is only temporary and you will soon be on your way.
- Do not confront other drivers or use obscene hand gestures.
- Do not cut into another driver’s lane of traffic. Use your turn signals to communicate your intentions to change lanes and change lanes when safe to do so. Make sure to turn your signal off when you have completed your lane change.
- Do not intentionally slow down or slam on your brakes or speed up to keep someone from passing or entering your lane of travel.
- Do not tailgate, follow at a safe distance.
- Always remember to drive friendly and report aggressive driving to the local authorities.
It has also been found that about 85% of the drivers who were surveyed said that the flash of anger and personalization the experience brought on could be defused and settled if the offending driver had simply acknowledged the error with a gesture of apology.
Keep your eye, mind, and thoughts on the road. Keeping emotions in control makes a huge difference in driving skills. But there are other things many drivers do that take their attention away from driving; refrain from eating, reading, map consulting, Internet surfing, applying makeup, or holding our pets while you are driving.
If you use a cell phone and find that you must talk, use a hands-free device while you are driving and keep the calls short and at an absolute minimum.
As long as you are moving, your attention should be on the road and traffic at all times, not diluted by distractions or strong emotions.
Alcohol and Other Drugs
Alcohol impairs driving. That fact is well known and generally accepted. What is less well understood is that impairment of the most important skills can occur at a very low blood alcohol concentration (BAC). The skills involved in driving a motor vehicle include psychomotor skills, vision, perception, tracking (steering), information processing, and attention. Data from laboratory experiments indicate that all of these functions are impaired by alcohol, although they differ in the extent of their impairment at any given BAC.
Legal intoxication occurs when the BAC in the bloodstream is .08%.
Alcohol affects the brain at even the slightest BAC level. The driver’s performance can be affected because of:
- Difficulty concentrating
- Fine motor skills are lacking
- Senses are dulled
- Poor coordination
- Drowsy
- Slow reaction time
- Impaired judgment
- Short-term memory
- Confusion
- Blurred vision /visual perception
- Unconsciousness is possible
- Decreased response to stimuli/surroundings
Illegal and over the counter drugs can also affect a driver’s performance. We will get more specific in a later chapter but the best rule is don’t take medications and drive, and never combine alcohol, medications and driving.
Attitudes, Habits, Feelings, and Emotions (continued)
Zero Tolerance Law
The number one killer of teenagers is driving under the influence. More than 4000 teens are killed and another 110,000 are seriously injured each year in car crashes involving alcohol. Not all have been drinking, but some are passengers or innocent targets of people who drink and drive. In a high school of 475 students, two are likely to be killed or injured in drunk driving crashes.
Physical Condition
In some respects drowsy driving is very much like drunk driving. When it comes to drunk driving, once someone has a blood alcohol level over .08, they are considered legally drunk. Studies have shown that a driver who has gone a day without sleep is very similar to a driver with a blood alcohol level of 0.10%, well above the legal limit.
The greatest proportion of drowsy-driving crashes occurs during the late-night hours. Factors that increase the risk of drowsy driving and drowsy-driving crashes:
- Sleep Loss
- Driving Patterns
- The Use of Sedating Medications
- Untreated Sleep Disorders: Sleep Apnea Syndrome and Narcolepsy
- Consumption of Alcohol Interacts With Sleepiness To Increase Drowsiness and Impairment
- Interactions Among Factors Increase Overall Risk
Physical and mental conditions can have a big effect on the way you drive. To protect your safety on the road, be alert to those physical states that may affect you and know what to do about them.
Eyesight conditions include poor vision, night blindness, difficulties with glare, and eye diseases (glaucoma, cataracts, etc.).
- Always wear your prescribed corrective lenses.
- Get regular eye exams.
- Schedule trips during daylight hours.
- Don’t wear sunglasses at night.
Hearing problems include difficulty hearing horns and other traffic sounds and emergency vehicle sirens. Be more alert visually, checking the mirrors every three to five seconds and looking around frequently. Keep the radio and the level of conversation low. If a hearing aid is prescribed, always wear it while driving.
Limited mobility can make it difficult to look around and to react to emergency situations. Install large, well-placed mirrors in your vehicle. If possible, drive vehicles with power steering and brakes for less muscle and joint discomfort.
Illness, and the medications that are taken for illness, can affect driving by lowering your attention level and concentration and slowing your response time. Avoid driving when ill if possible. Be aware of your condition and be extra cautious. Know the side effects of medication you take, and don’t drive if the prescription advises against it.
Knowledge of Driving Laws and Procedures
The responsibility for traffic safety begins with the individual driver. By keeping your vehicle in good, safe mechanical condition and keeping yourself in good condition and mentally alert, we can make the driving experience safe for everyone.
Be knowledgeable of driving laws, your surroundings, traffic signs, signals and road markings. Know what is expected of you, what the road and traffic conditions are going to be and arrive safely.
Understanding the Driving Task
When you slide in behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, you take responsibility for the lives of people around you. To be a safe driver you must know the rules of the road and respect them. You also must know and follow proper driving procedures. Just as importantly, you must have a good attitude. Courtesy and consideration are essential to good driving.
Professional drivers will tell you it takes more than basic skills to make a good driver. After mastering those skills, a driver still must learn the fine points of good driving—including the mental and physical conditions that affect performance on the road.
Driver error causes more than 90% of highway crashes. Your ability to drive safely depends not only on what you know, but how you feel and what you were doing before you sat behind the wheel.
Do not forget to take the test before you move on to the next chapter.
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