Miami drivers not raging - just confused

By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2007-05-24

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Most likely, Miamians, if that's what inhabitants of Florida's tourist mecca call themselves, are paying little attention to winning the "worst road rage city in North America" accolade for the second straight year.

When they won it last year, Miami Herald reporter Larry Lebowitz shot back with an accusation that the survey that gave them that title was "nothing more than a well-executed ploy by a little-known automobile club in Norwalk, Conn., called AutoVantage, to drum up some publicity in its quest to lure paying customers away from AAA."

What irked Lebowitz most was the 'road rage' part of the title. "Road rage is bloody. Road rage is criminal," he wrote in last year's article. "Getting p.o.'d because the moron in front of you is too busy yammering on the phone to see that the traffic light has changed from red to green - it's aggravating, but it's not road rage."

Of course Lebowitz is right. When Drivers.com hosted a major online conference on road rage and aggressive driving back in the fall of 2000 the difference between rage, aggression and just plain old bad driving was a hot topic. Many safety experts bemoaned the fact that the media use the term 'road rage' more as a tool for hype than as a description of reality on the roads.

At any rate, Lebozitz maintains that the AutoVantage survey was superficial. Prince Market Research, who conducted last year's survey for AutoVantage, interviewed only 100 people in each of the 20 major metro areas surveyed nationwide, he wrote. The small samples make the results suspect, he added.

Miami's different

However, maybe there's another reason not to take the survey too seriously. Miami, with its latin culture, throngs of tourists and thriving business life, is one of the most exciting cities in the U.S., but this diversity makes it prone to greater traffic friction.

Harmony in traffic comes when all road users are "playing to the same music," with common understandings of rules and appropriate behavior. That's hard to do in a city with more than its share of aging drivers, drivers in rented cars who aren't sure where they're going, decaying infrastructure and appallingly bad road signs, signals and pavement markings.

Following this years second-in-a-row 'road rage' win Miami Herald readers were given a little survey of their own. They were asked to agree or disagree with the AutoVantage survey. However, one of the options they could check off was probably more on target than the rest. It read - "Unfair. South Florida roads are chock full of out-of-towners whose bad driving is not our fault."

That could be a good partial excuse but it smacks of finger-pointing as a justification for Miami drivers' poor rating . What's more realistic is recognition of the unique challenges of a city with a very difficult road culture.

Changing Miami

If Miami wants to change its driving image it could do worse than to call Larry Lonero of Northport Associates.

Lonero and his colleague Kathryn Clinton are the authors of a survey completed some years ago titled "Changing Road User Behavior". In this comprehensive review of all the efforts over the years to change driver behavior, the authors came to the conclusion that any real changes to driving behavior and road culture would involve a comprehensive strategy with a variety of targeted programs, and lots of follow-up.

Not politically easy to do, Lonero concludes. Governments at all levels, he reckons, have a tendency to push simple, high profile programs that get media splash and give an impression that something is being done rather than really achieving.

"Driving behavior is powerfully influenced by driving culture," Lonero says. "This is made up of the common practices, expectations, and informal rules that drivers learn by observation from others in their communities and that shape their behavior."

"Driving cultures vary from region to region and even from community to community," Lonero explains. Drivers pick up information from observing others but also from media buzz about thousands of issues and events. A driving culture can be changed, he believes, if drivers educators, trainers, police, media and safety organizations coordinate their efforts and create a carefully planned and sequenced series of programs aimed at influencing behavior.

There have been successful cultural changes, when these requirements are met, he points out. He cites seat belt use and drunk driving as examples.

However, Lonero points out, the entire effort would require a broad front of partnerships and a long-term commitment.

Getting all of Miami's road users on the same page would require identifying target groups, tailoring messages for them, testing, evaluating - a concerted effort that would in itself be as pervasive as the roadway culture it is intended to achieve.

In short, a huge commitment, not necessarily of dollars but certainly of effort, persistence and especially collaboration.

That's Lonero's dream, but for now he doesn't see much of it. Most of the responses to road rage and driver misbehavior he sees these days seems to be more of the "seen-to-be-doing-something," smoke and mirrors variety.

"It's hard for organizations and bureaucrats to cooperate," he says. " Unless there is a perceived crisis, there is not usually enough political will to force organizations into giving up some of their autonomy and their, necessarily weak, individual programs."

That last part has always been the bane of road safety advocates. With natural disasters and wars siphoning off public energy and political will, the situation on roads slips by under the radar, year after year.

Ed. Note: Apart from the huge toll in stress from driver aggravation and rage, the death toll on U.S. roads is about 43,000 per year - far outstripping wars and hurricanes.

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