Monday, April 26, 1999
Psychiatrist counsels aggressive drivers to break the cycle
It's not the other motorist you're angry with, he says
There's something about the power and protective steel bubble of a car that makes most of us a little more aggressive.
I'm not talking about road rage — when drivers become so upset that they physically assault someone else.
I'm talking about the more common “aggressive driving.”
We're all familiar with the moves. A car cuts off another car. The second driver tailgates the first offender.
Or a driver thinks the guy behind him is too close. He starts hitting his brakes.
Running a red light. Honking to make someone go faster.
Shouting. Swearing. Obscene gestures.
I know my blood pressure rises when someone tries to cut me off for no apparent reason or blows through their red light while I'm entering the in tersection on my green light. Gridlock aggravates these situations even more.
Most of us aren't going to resort to physical violence. But aggressive actions prompt reactions on the road.
Let's look at the facts.
When Traffic Safety Management pollsters recently talked to drivers, they found:
• 5 percent cut off another drivers.
• 9 percent prevented others from passing.
• 13 percent make obscene gestures.
• 16 percent have run a red light.
• 22 percent have made a dangerous lane change.
• 30 percent have resorted to shouting or swearing.
Dennis O'Grady calls that aggressive driving “human rage.”
“It's not rage directed at a road,” he says, drawing some laughter at a small group of aggressive drivers gathered at a Barnes & Noble bookstore just north of the Warren County line.
The Dayton-based psychologist says the increasing incidents — or our reaction to other drivers' mistakes — are really about pent-up anger: We're getting rid of aggression that's built up in other parts of our life — work, home, school.
“When people are in a car, they think: "I'm invulnerable. I'm anonymous,'” Dr. O'Grady says. “It's an emotionally stupid behavior. It gets you into trouble.”
It can get drivers and their passengers hurt or killed.
When the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety looked at more than 10,000 violent aggressive driving incidents between 1990 and 1996, it found at least 218 people died and 12,610 more were injured.
There are better ways to handle anger than taking it out on innocent drivers we don't have a grudge against.
“Our society is addicted to bad expressions of anger,” Dr. O'Grady said. “I'm here to challenge that.”
Try to make the car a calming environment, a cocoon, Dr. O'Grady says.
Listen to tapes.
Find a radio station that has calming music. Listen to noninflammatory talk radio.
Meditate. Pray.
Think about a creative work project.
“We're carrying a lot more resentment than we realize,” Dr. O'Grady says.
And that steel bubble we call the car isn't as protective as it sometimes feels.
Tanya Albert's Commuting column appears each Monday in the Metro section. Contact her at 768-8389; fax: 768-8340; mail at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202 or by e-mail at: tmalbert@enquirer.com
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