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Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of Highway Warfare
Do you drive with stress and frustration? Do you frequently complain about other drivers or get involved in hostile interactions with other motorists? Are you afraid for your teenage drivers in this climate of highway warfare? We're in the midst of an escalating epidemic of aggressive driving, which eats up 250 billion dollars a year in economic cost and causes the misery associated with 6 million injuries every year. Now the government has declared war on road rage with tough new laws that can land people in jail for behaviors they're used to doing every day.Traffic psychology educators Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl trace the aggressive driving problem to its roots in childhood when child passengers imbibe their parents' aggressiveness towards other motorists and their cynicism towards regulations and the law. By the time teenagers begin to drive they've been exposed to years of media portrayals of the fun and excitement of aggressive driving with no serious consequences. The authors argue that road rage and aggressive driving are common traffic emotions experienced by the vast majority of drivers.This authoritative book-the first to synthesize the subject of aggressive driving-presents conclusions of recent studies, highlights citizen activism, and summarizes legislative and police initiatives. Besides vivid anecdotal evidence and personal stories of typical road rage incidents that we have all experienced, James and Nahl present self-tests that readers can use to estimate their own road rage tendency, and they prescribe activities to help every driver learn self-improvement and self-awareness skills behind the wheel. The authors outline their innovative three-step program to help people transform themselves from aggressive to supportive drivers.This book redefines driver education for all drivers, including commercial drivers and truckers. Our traffic emotions need to be trained, the authors stress, and they provide the explanations and activities needed to strengthen critical thinking about road events.
298 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 6, 2010
This book was way over the top for me. I couldn't even finish it because it made me want to puke. I was rolling my eyes the first 100 pages and then I got to the Emotional Intelligence chapter and couldn't handle any more.
The message the book is trying to convey is essentially brotherly love and peace, which I can appreciate; however, if I seriously want to help myself be calmer behind the wheel, this book ain't gonna do it for me. It's way too pollyanna to be realistic. For example, if somebody wants to get in front of you when you are in a line of traffic, you're supposed to say to yourself, "We're all in a hurry, but there's room for one more. Go ahead, be my guest. Sorry I can't let the whole line in." Although I appreciate where they're going with this, it's just ridiculous to think that somebody that really gets upset behind the wheel and feels competitive behind the wheel is going to be thinking this statement or even able to think that with a straight face when it happens.
I need a book that tells me the logistics behind why you should keep your cool behind the wheel. Tell me stats and facts that will make me understand what I really "gain" by driving like an ass. For example, tell me something like, if you wait until the last second to get into a line of traffic instead of waiting with everybody else, that I will only save, on average, 22 seconds. Information like THAT is going to help me weigh the stress of waiting to the last second versus getting to my destination 22 seconds sooner. Doesn't seem worth it when you see the numbers.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but this book was just too unrealistic for me to apply it to my life.
The message the book is trying to convey is essentially brotherly love and peace, which I can appreciate; however, if I seriously want to help myself be calmer behind the wheel, this book ain't gonna do it for me. It's way too pollyanna to be realistic. For example, if somebody wants to get in front of you when you are in a line of traffic, you're supposed to say to yourself, "We're all in a hurry, but there's room for one more. Go ahead, be my guest. Sorry I can't let the whole line in." Although I appreciate where they're going with this, it's just ridiculous to think that somebody that really gets upset behind the wheel and feels competitive behind the wheel is going to be thinking this statement or even able to think that with a straight face when it happens.
I need a book that tells me the logistics behind why you should keep your cool behind the wheel. Tell me stats and facts that will make me understand what I really "gain" by driving like an ass. For example, tell me something like, if you wait until the last second to get into a line of traffic instead of waiting with everybody else, that I will only save, on average, 22 seconds. Information like THAT is going to help me weigh the stress of waiting to the last second versus getting to my destination 22 seconds sooner. Doesn't seem worth it when you see the numbers.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but this book was just too unrealistic for me to apply it to my life.
January 9, 2025
I had to DNF this book at 38%, so it’s a bummer that GR forces me to mark it as “Read.”
Anyway, 2 stars because there is -some- helpful info to be gained from this book, but the majority of it is common sense. When I got as far as I did, I realized that this book, published in 2009, doesn’t at all reflect the behaviors of drivers and driving in 2025.
While it discusses road rage, it seems to focus more on “my way or the highway!” behavior (pun intended) as the sole reasoning behind road rage. My problem is not impatience or obsessive control - it’s fear.
People are seemingly less aggressive these days and more idiotic: consistently on their phones and other distracted driving, running red lights, cutting corners, not checking their blind spots, lack of signaling, oblivious pedestrians… the list goes on. I was hoping this book would (eventually) address this, but it never did, as far as I got, anyway. It was more so about “forgiveness” and “understanding” — hard to be understanding when these careless drivers nearly, or inevitably, cause accidents. And then insurance rates go up, fraud can occur, or worse, actual injury or death.
This has resulted in me being a hyper-defensive driver (and yes, a very frustrated one at that), and even dreading the act of driving these days. Because I don’t know if the moment I let down my guard (and be that “cheery, helpful neighbor” this book wants me to be), that I’ll become indebted, injured, or killed, because no one wants to pay attention to the road, or take accountability for their actions.
And road raged drivers are the -least- of my worries; at least when they’re not chasing someone down and pulling out weapons. And this is coming from a former California resident. Irresponsible drivers, IMO, are far more common than angry ones, it seems. And it really needs to be addressed.
Anyway, if you’d like to read a book on road rage behaviors and the like, I’d recommend seeking out a more current book as it will be more aligned with whatever year you’re in (presumably in or after 2025, Lol), as it will be more contemporary with road behaviors and habits of the time. There’s -always- going to be road ragers; but with AI, self-driving cars, cell phones, etc. becoming more prevalent than ever since 2009, this book could use a newer edition on coping mechanisms with regard to irresponsible drivers.
Anyway, 2 stars because there is -some- helpful info to be gained from this book, but the majority of it is common sense. When I got as far as I did, I realized that this book, published in 2009, doesn’t at all reflect the behaviors of drivers and driving in 2025.
While it discusses road rage, it seems to focus more on “my way or the highway!” behavior (pun intended) as the sole reasoning behind road rage. My problem is not impatience or obsessive control - it’s fear.
People are seemingly less aggressive these days and more idiotic: consistently on their phones and other distracted driving, running red lights, cutting corners, not checking their blind spots, lack of signaling, oblivious pedestrians… the list goes on. I was hoping this book would (eventually) address this, but it never did, as far as I got, anyway. It was more so about “forgiveness” and “understanding” — hard to be understanding when these careless drivers nearly, or inevitably, cause accidents. And then insurance rates go up, fraud can occur, or worse, actual injury or death.
This has resulted in me being a hyper-defensive driver (and yes, a very frustrated one at that), and even dreading the act of driving these days. Because I don’t know if the moment I let down my guard (and be that “cheery, helpful neighbor” this book wants me to be), that I’ll become indebted, injured, or killed, because no one wants to pay attention to the road, or take accountability for their actions.
And road raged drivers are the -least- of my worries; at least when they’re not chasing someone down and pulling out weapons. And this is coming from a former California resident. Irresponsible drivers, IMO, are far more common than angry ones, it seems. And it really needs to be addressed.
Anyway, if you’d like to read a book on road rage behaviors and the like, I’d recommend seeking out a more current book as it will be more aligned with whatever year you’re in (presumably in or after 2025, Lol), as it will be more contemporary with road behaviors and habits of the time. There’s -always- going to be road ragers; but with AI, self-driving cars, cell phones, etc. becoming more prevalent than ever since 2009, this book could use a newer edition on coping mechanisms with regard to irresponsible drivers.
December 25, 2007
I made it seventy pages before closing this one for good. Nonfiction writers in sociology really have their work cut out for them. Keeping the reader interested with information that is both, common knowledge and common sense, has to be difficult at best.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews