Car SafetyI. The focal point of the project: Road R

Car Safety
    Well, good afternoon. In today’s session I will be sharing some of the findings of my project from last term. First of all, a little bit about the background of the project. Our title, as you can see, is pretty straightforward: "car safety". But these days there’s a lot more to it than the usual injunctions about drinking and driving or speeding. I had been interested and horrified by several newspaper reports on what people call "road rage". (1) For example the famous incident of a man getting out of his car in a car park and hitting the driver of a van who had overtaken him earlier. It seemed to me that there were almost as many serious problems when cars were parked, i.e., cars were stationary, as when they were travelling at 90 miles an hour. So I decided to make this the focus of the project.
    Previously, according to a regional survey conducted by Drs. Arnold P. Nerenberg and R. Jerry Adams, over half of drivers in the USA suffer from road rage. The average number of incidents per road rager is 27. That means that most of us will encounter road ragers many times in our lives. Road rage can lead to injuries or even death. The U.S. Highway Safety Office has testified to Congress that tens of thousands of accidents each year can be linked directly to aggressive driving, including road rage, and it is now a leading cause of death for young children.
    For our research we depended mainly on talking to individuals, asking them questions rather than using written questionnaires. We stopped people at a selected garage on the motorway over a two-day period, and asked them questions about what they’d observed or experienced themselves. Our respondents were both men and women, but the women were just slightly in the majority. We were pleased by the public’s willingness to stop and chat to us... in the end we talked to a total of 135 drivers over those two days.
    So what were our findings? Well, as you can see, 93% of respondents had had some kind of problems. A surprisingly large percentage —(2) 24% had had their cars damaged in some way, but the main type of incident was being shouted at —79% had experienced that. 15% had experienced violence on their own persons. They’d actually been hit by someone. The police tended only to be informed when there was physical violence involved.
    So what strategies had people developed to ensure their own safety? Let’s have a look at the figures here. Well, first of all, it was quite striking that there were often distinct answers from the men and the women. It was mainly women, for example, who said one shouldn’t ever stop to find out how to get somewhere. Whereas it was men who said you should try to avoid looking directly at other drivers. It was women who said you had to tell someone when you were due to get a particular destination. Then, I had thought about that it would be mainly men, but both sexes made the point that it’s much safer to (4) get keys out well in advance as you go towards your car. Men were very aware that muggers or whatever might be concealed behind the car. (5) They also made the point that you should leave plenty of room when you park your car so you can make a quick getaway if you need to. Finally, locking doors at all times. Men didn’t think it was quite as important as women, but both gave it a high safety rating. Dr. Arnold Neremberg, a psychologist, says there is no excuse for the dangerous behavior exhibited on roads today. He labels road rage "a mental disorder". Road ragers need to admit they have a problem, although frankly, road ragers don’t consider road rage a problem.
    Besides self-protection skills, when road rage does happen at the very moment, something needs to be done. Maryland, like many other states, is working on the problems by stepping up efforts to crack down on aggressive drivers. (6) Hefty fines for dangerous drivers and speeders are on the front line against road rage. California is approaching the problem with technology. A new automated system being installed by the state automatically (7) takes photographs of the license plates of vehicles that run red lights. It even captures accident scenes for police review. A key factor in reversing the process is an apology. A road rager can become upset because you accidentally cut in front of him or her, or other reasons that were not intentional. Over 85 percent of road ragers said that they would drop the matter if the other (8) "careless" driver simply apologized. Instead, road ragers claim, (9) the "careless" driver seems to be unconcerned about what they just did and, therefore, needs to be taught a lesson. In a car, only one method is effective in conveying an apology: A sign. We have found that it is very effective in warding off anger. In fact, many drivers actually smile (10) when we raise a "SORRY" sign to them after we have accidentally done something wrong. We keep a "SORRY" sign in the map holder on the driver’s door and the passenger’s door. It could also be kept under the sun visor if it is fastened with a clip or rubber band so that it doesn’t hit you in the face when the visor comes down.
    To sum up, I have described the phenomenon of road rage, explained the findings of the survey, presented the strategies to ensure safety and self-protection skills. That’s it for today.