I have heard it all, and I am sure you all grumble with each other about it:
All of our streets and highways are filled with dumb drivers. How did they all pass the driving test?
Rush hour in most major cities can be a nightmare. Everyone supposedly got their licenses and supposedly know the rules of the road, but all of us get frustrated – and sometimes angry – when another driver does something we don’t think is right.
[Image courtesy of Flickr user boegh via a Creative Commons license]Often certain driving behaviors contribute to car crashes such as these. Annually, an affiliate of AAA produced a survey of the “traffic safety culture” in America, and it appears that some people have blind spots for certain behaviors when they are doing them themselves.
We are, individually, the best drivers on the road. It is everyone else on the streets who can’t drive.
We may laugh about that, but it seems that attitude is pervasive in terms of how we perceive ourselves and others when on the roads. In short, a certain annual survey seems to suggest some indifference, or actual hypocrisy, among drivers when it comes to traffic safety.
Traffic Safety Culture
In America, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, affiliated with the American Automobile Association, takes an annual survey of drivers to come up with what it calls a Traffic Safety Culture Index, which is supposed to take the pulse of highway driving, risks, behaviors, laws and regulations and general tolerance or intolerance for those behaviors.
The 2014 report came out recently, and let’s just say that our general attitude I wrote about above, pretty much came out in this survey. The AAA called it an “indifferent” attitude, but I could characterize it as denial. Not the river.
The results?
It’s everyone else who drives bad. I don’t drive bad.
Oh really?
A Little Overlap Much?
We’ll just take a look at three behaviors and the results of the survey as participants were asked questions about their own behaviors as well as behaviors of others. First, we look at texting or using e-mail while driving:
Eighty-four percent (nearly 17 in 20) of respondents considered texting or e-mailing while driving as an “unacceptable” behavior.
That’s the good news. However …
When asked about their own behaviors in the previous 30 days, more than a third (36 percent) of respondents admitted to reading a text or e-mail while driving, and 27 percent acknowledged typing such a message while driving.
Now, I am no math major, but it seems that there were at least a few people who overlapped there – judging a behavior as unacceptable, while doing it themselves.
Here is another example, addressing excessive speed in residential neighborhoods:
Almost two-third of respondents (65 percent) considered residential speeding as an unacceptable driving behavior, but more than two of every five (about 44 percent) admitted to doing such a thing in the previous month.
Again, not a math whiz, but if I use an abacus, I do come up with that the 44 percent who did it is larger than the 35 percent of people who said it was an acceptable behavior. So again, a little overlap there.
And finally:
Regarding the question of driving while tired or drowsy, more than four in five respondents (81 percent) called it unacceptable, nearly three in 10 (29 perceent) admitted to doing such in the previous month.
Again – even if the 19 percent of respondents who said that sleepy driving was OK, and all of them had done it in the previous month, that still leaves about another 10 percent of the population who did it yet thought it was unacceptable behavior.
So I ask you – are you in denial, or just a hypocrite?
I am not writing this to be judgmental. I am writing this to hopefully open your own eyes to what you are doing as a driver. If there are certain behaviors that you believe are unacceptable or unsafe, check your own behaviors and habits – are you practicing what you preach?
If everyone does a little self-reflection on this, chances are good that if we shake off the hypocrisy or the denial, that our roads will quickly become even more safe. And after all, I certainly have a stake when it comes to safety, right?
You all better be nodding your heads. I know where you all live.