The psychology of driving

[rliu]

Stumbled upon a Dutch report which was published by an air pollution research consultative body. I have made a blog post and linked to the original paper. Be interested to hear what we all think.

http://liuruiorp.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/on-car-ownership.html

 

[ianrauk]

Stumbled upon a Dutch report which was published by an air pollution research consultative body. I have made a blog post and linked to the original paper. Be interested to hear what we all think.
l

Can you copy and paste your blog into this thread so we can read here.
Thanks.

 

[rliu]

On car ownership


http://www.iapsc.org.uk/document/0606_Kroon_combined.pdf

I will simulatneouly aim to summarise and comment on this paper.

The paper tries to anwser from a psychological perspective why:
* Why do most car owners use their car when in many cases it would be more cost-effective,
sensible and feasible [in The Netherlands about one in three car trips] to
go by bicycle or public transport?
* Why are car owners prepared to spend such large sums of money on their cars at
the expense of the basic needs of themselves and their families, and why do they
drive so uneconomically?
* Why do most car drivers think that they drive far better and more safely than the
average car driver in their country?
* If 90% of Dutch people are prepared to make an effort to preserve the
environment, why are 70% not prepared to use their cars less (despite a bicycle
fleet twice the car fleet)?
* Why does the ‘social-dilemma paradigm’ (Vlek et al 1992) play such a dominant
role in car use?
* Why are politicians apparently so unconcerned about the fact that over 40,000
people die in road accidents in the European Union every year and about a
million globally?
* Why do most transport researchers neglect the role of psychological motives for
car ownership and transport choices, despite their dominance in the car culture
and in car marketing?

As early back as 1902 the German writer Otto Julius Bierbaum described travelling by car as 'the ultimate expression of the freedom of movement.' As Sachs explains in a 1984 paper, the car restores the late C19/early C20 well off and nobility to the privacy and self determination of their own transport, which the other recent technology the train does not afford them. Early or historical traffic laws often afforded cars priorities over other users of the road.
The exclusivity and status symbol of car ownership began to be diluted by the emergence of the Ford and Volkswagen philosophy. Since then which brand of car you owned began to say a lot about your position in society.
The car is also an instrument of physical power. Films and TV often portray cars being used to hunt down or escape from enemies, and this carries over to the driving styles of everyday motorists.
The speed and comfort of travel afforded by the car plays to our instincts as hunter-gatherers. Humans have an inbuilt craving and penchant for being able to travel, seek pastures new that may afford greater and better things. It also allows us to claim space far afield from our homes. When we go on a driving holiday we can take a lot of our possession in the car, and when we park in a new town we are able to claim space by placing objects to which we have attachment and ownership.
The feeling of having power and the competitive nature of sharing roads with others leads us to experience a personality change when behind the wheel. As Alfred Adler (1929) and others have explained, the greater the desire for power, the less human behaviour is motivated by community interests and empathy with others. Hence why efforts to introduce speed limits, increase petrol or other vehicle related taxes or increasing motoring offence penalties provokes such bile in certain individuals - it is the most direct and irritating state interference in the freedom of the individual. As a result, despite the huge numbers of casualties caused by cars globally, driving is far less regulated than controlling a train, an aeroplane or a ship.

 

[TonyEnjoyD]

Wow, I am now brain-fecked.
I shall await CC responses that my poor brain can handle (and the dyslexia)

 

[TonyEnjoyD]

Interesting though!

 

[400bhp]

I looked at that paragraph and thought I couldn't be arsed to read it.

That's a summary

 

[gaz]

TIL - as a human I like to spread out and place my belongings in new places to claim space by putting them in places far away from my residence. I see the car as a status symbol and I drive it fast because that is what they do in the movies. Driving a car is taken over by out competitive nature and the restrictions of taxes and rules are there to stifle the bile individuals who drive like idiots. Road use is not as heavily regulated as other forms of transportation.

 

[Miquel In De Rain]

The exclusivity and status symbol of car ownership began to be diluted by the emergence of the Ford and Volkswagen philosophy. Since then which brand of car you owned began to say a lot about your position in society.

I can see that because some of them tend to be the biggest knobbers.

 

[fossyant]

I looked at that paragraph and thought I couldn't be arsed to read it.

That's a summary

+1

 

[screenman]

The exclusivity and status symbol of car ownership began to be diluted by the emergence of the Ford and Volkswagen philosophy. Since then which brand of car you owned began to say a lot about your position in society.

I can see that because some of them tend to be the biggest knobbers.

What makes a knobber, normaly I find that most peoples perception is that if somebody is financially better off then they must be knobber. I hasten to add that is not my idea.

 

[Jimmy Doug]

What makes a knobber, normaly I find that most peoples perception is that if somebody is financially better off then they must be knobber. I hasten to add that is not my idea.

What makes someone a knobber is his/her behaviour. Look how many knobbers there are driving old bangers with spoilers, turbo stickers and holes in their exhaust.

 

[Miquel In De Rain]

What makes a knobber, normaly I find that most peoples perception is that if somebody is financially better off then they must be knobber. I hasten to add that is not my idea.

Not necessarily.I probably have as much money as people who have posh cars but it just means I don't want to buy one.They think their cars makes them look important.Of course this doesn't apply to everyone.

 

[rliu]

My main interest in the study was how well entrenched using and owning cars is in modern society. As the bullet points at the start point out, despite the rising cost of petrol compared to dwindling incomes, people still take their cars for short distance journeys or non essential journeys. In your typical suburban family there are normally at least 2-3 cars parked outside. I just think it reflects the individualistic society where we just avoid being around other people at every opportunity. Teenagers want to have their own cars and not have to share a car with their parents as soon as possible. This may be an irreversible thing and as cycling can be an even more individual mode of transport than driving it maybe a bit of a hypocritical point to make as a commuter cyclist on a cycling forum. But if people do prefer their own individual form of transport and admittedly the freedom that affords, it would just be so much better for their own health and for the environment if people just gave up their inbuilt attachment to cars.

 

[lulubel]

There are 5 paragraphs, but they don't have line breaks between them or a few spaces at the beginning of the first line, so it looks like a block of text.

Poor layout aside, I agree with most of what you've posted. The big thing, I think, is that car ownership has become endemic in western society. It's considered the norm, and there's also a perception amongst (probably) the majority that if you don't own a car, you're "nobody".

Cars have been status symbols for a long time. More recently, they've become expressions of an individual's personality.

Why do people use their cars for short journeys rather than walking or cycling? Because if they're seen using another form of transport other than their own car, people will think they don't own one, and therefore look down on them. (I doubt you'd find many people who would actually give you that answer, though.)

 

[BentMikey]

Now let me start by saying how I love driving, and that I rather like lots of supposedly-uncool-to-cyclists cars.

That being so, I do acknowledge that car culture has a bad side. This bad side includes not only the above, but also the fact that so many of motoring's costs to society are hidden and delayed costs. If they were immediate and visible costs, then driving wouldn't be nearly so popular.