Traffic Psychology in Germany & U.S.

 

Jekyll/Hyde Driver:

 

Highway scene. One car is a male driver with a pleasant face. He's visualizing this: He's in traffic on the same highway, but he's driving an oversized, armored, battle-ready car, and his face looks fiendish.

 

Psychologists in training can learn a lot from investigating practices in other countries.  Today, we are looking at Germany.  A particularly fascinating field in Germany is Traffic Psychology.  Evidently, this field has a more public presence in Germany than in the U.S.  For students that are interested in this field, lets hear from some experts on what Traffic Psychologists really do. This post will look at Traffic Psy via German and U.S. resources.

 

 James (2008) of University of Hawaii defines Traffic Psychology as "refer[ring] to the knowledge one acquires about how to use behavioral principles to modify one's own style of conduct in traffic situations including driving, bicycling, walking, and other forms of locomotion in shared spaces. A common activity in traffic psychology is to attempt to modify one's old driving persona to a new and better driving persona. The more you become an expert traffic psychologist the more thoroughly you can alter your traffic personality," (para. 1).

 

In order to get a better idea for this field, here is are several links:

The Psychology of Parking Rage: Three-step Program For Prevention: 

http://drdriving.org/rages/parking.htm 

Principles of Driving Psychology: 

http://drdriving.org/articles/principles.htm

Driver Personality Test:

  

http://drdriving.org/surveys/driver_personality.htm

 

To see the full website, visit http://drdriving.org/  (author-Dr. James of Univ. of Hawaii)
 

 

EUROPE: For students in Europe, especially Germany, the following site would benefit you for pursuing a career in Traffic Psychology:

 

 http://traffic-psychology-international.eu/?page_id=28

http://www.bdp-verband.org/psychologie/faq_recognition.html

Information on postgraduate education in Europe for Traffic Psychology

 

 

U.S.: Here is a link for students in the United States:

 

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/traffic/tpintro.html#origins

                                                        Reference

James, L. (2008). Traffic psychology and driving psychology. Retrieved July 9, 2015, from http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/traffic/tpintro.html