Preventing road rage aim of NW counselor
by Matt Diggs, Reporter

   Changing behaviors and attitudes toward driving is the best way to prevent road rage, a NW counselor told a seminar audience last week.
   That was the final message Larry Kimble delivered Oct. 15 in his road rage workshop on the NW Campus.
   “[Road rage] is an aggressive driver who engages in risky driving behavior to achieve goals,” he said.
   Kimble cited five basic reasons for road rage: The desires to make good time, to be number one, not to lose, not to allow other drivers into a lane and to teach other drivers a lesson.
   “Americans feel an urge to kill on the highways, but would never kill while walking in hallways or malls with pedestrian traffic,” he said.
   Kimble seemed to surprise some audience members with the finding that when behind the wheel, females are more prone to road rage than males.
   “A Michigan State study said that when women drive, they have a feeling of invincibility,” he said.
   Road rage manifests in four distinct stages, the counselor said.
   Stage one, according to Kimble, involves gestures, curses and grimaces as retaliation while stage two involves repeated and protracted exchanges of stage one behaviors by both drivers.
   A driver in stage three begins to use his car as a vehicle to harass the other driver, Kimble said. Stage four culminates in using a car or object of destruction to intentionally damage another driver or car.
   “Learning competing attitudes to offset the reasons for road rage and stopping yourself at stage one is the best way to prevent road rage,” he said.
   According to Kimble, five competing beliefs can offset road rage: “Make your time good … Courtesy enhances self-esteem … Be my guest … Live and let live and … Leave punishment to the police.”
   Drivers also can offset road rage physically, Kimble pointed out.
   “The use of deep breathing techniques can help counteract the stress created by stressful aggressive driving,” he said.
  Kimble began the workshop by asking the audience members to take the Larson Driver Stress Profile, explaining that the profile tabulates four subscales: anger, impatience, competing and punishing.
  The profile labels the driver as low-stress, moderate-stress or high-stress.
   “Anyone who is rated as a high-stress driver could benefit from counseling in the subject of road rage,” he said.
   He finished the speech by noting three statistics.
   “Each year over 20,000 Americans die because of aggressive driving. There are estimated to be close to two million episodes of aggressive driving each year. Eighty-three percent of commercial drivers will be involved in an aggressive driving incident,” he said.