by Sharon Jones

Source - CC0 Licence

Wherever we go we are plagued by bad driving. Either we have undergone a stressful driving test which has set us up for a lifetime of being overly defensive on the road or we stop caring what other people are like on the road. When we look at something like bad driving, it's not necessarily about the skills we learn over time it's also about the psychological errors that we all face as individuals. With this in mind, what are some of the most interesting psychological problems we all have when we are behind the wheel?

We Think We Can See Everything Around Us

When we consider our senses it can blindside us to an extent. Because our senses get far more information than what our brains can process we can fail to appreciate how much information we miss. This attributes to a false sense of security while we're out on the road. Our attention spans vary wildly when we're out on the road, especially when we've had a drink. And when we have some form of alcohol and we think that it hasn't impacted our abilities, this is when we become too confident. You only have to consult DUI attorneys like Matthew Leyba to get an idea of how so many people that get involved in an accident have a false sense of security and bloated confidence. When we think we can see everything around us we become cockier behind the wheel.

We Don't Care When We Are Being Aggressive

When we experience someone being in our rear-view mirror and driving dangerously close to our bumper, in some respects this can make us feel that we should do it to others, almost like a sense of peer pressure behind the wheel. And when we start to bully other people in a way that we wouldn't do if we were face to face, this becomes a habit that's harder to undo. The most interesting aspect of this is that people that are more aggressive behind the wheel aren’t as sensitive to punishment. 

We Think Everybody Else Is The Problem

This is known as the “fundamental attribution error.” Whenever we have a near miss we will blame the other drivers rather than ourselves. At the same time, we will excuse our own mistakes blaming it on situational issues but also we can overestimate our own skills behind the wheel. If you are someone that thinks you are exceptional behind the wheel you might be the 80% to 90% of people who believe they have an above-average ability when this is unlikely to be the case. On the other side of the coin if you think you are a terrible driver it's unlikely that you are as bad as you think you are. And it's something that we all need to consider when we blame everybody else. We wouldn't do it in real life so why are we doing it behind the wheel?

The psychology of being a bad driver is an interesting one because we need to look at our own abilities before anybody else is. But when we start to have a false sense of security behind the wheel this becomes a habit that's harder to undo.