🚀 go-pugleaf

On 29 Jul 1998 04:02:56 GMT, Rahul Dhesi <c.c.eiftj@06.usenet.us.com> wrote:
>In <slrn6rsqiq.la2.joelga@pebble.org> joelga@pebble.org (Joel Garry) writes:
>
>>If Rahul had his way, an LLB would somehow let [ tailgaters ] know they
>>are doing it, so they would stop.  I consider this unrealistic.
>
>Tailgaters do whatever it takes to get the next vehicle to change lanes.
>If it became clear to all motorists that the only way to persuade the
>guy ahead to yield was to NOT tailgate, then the intelligent ones would
>stop tailgating.  
>
>The dumb ones, who don't care if the next vehicle, probably would not
>learn.  Any statements in which I talk about tailgaters learning
>anything should assume a certain minimum amount of intelligence.

I knew I could get you to admit to a bad assumption if I persisted!  :)

I make light of it, but it really is a fatal assumption to your idea of
using social pressure in the form of LLB to modify tailgaiting behavior.
I take it you are using "intelligence" here in the sense that the 
tailgater would "learn" not to tailgate by being rewarded with going
faster if he doesn't.  There are several problems with this.  First,
there is no information that such is the case being transmitted to
the tailgater.  Even granting that your advocacy could generate a
huge educational campaign with bumper stickers and so forth, so people
in general know about it, how does the tailgater know that any particular
LLB event or group of events will let him go faster if he backs off?  It
is contrary to what he sees - someone in front of him who doesn't appear
likely to get out of the way.  Second (and I really don't want to get into
a huge learning theory argument here, but) it violates most theories of
learning.  The result (and behaviorism is but one theory, this applies
to all theories) that you are looking to elicit is extinction - you want to
stop the behavior.  The basic theoretical problem you haven't dealt with
is the tailgaters reward system.  From his viewpoint, you are reducing his
reward, whatever it may be (and of course, it could be a _lot_ of things).
This will not have the result of extinction, but rather increasing his
stimulus towards getting the reward.  This is part of the reason that
fear or control based training systems don't work near as well as reward
based systems.  Third, they're dumb tailgaters, they don't have the
minimal intelligence not to tailgate.

>
>>...Don't make things worse by
>>enraging them, or assuming they are _not_ ignorant. Frankly, I don't 
>>understand why Rahul's assertion doesn't lead to the same conclusion:
>
>>    "Any idiot can avoid automobile accidents that are his own fault.  It
>>     takes skill to avoid accidents that are the *other* person's fault."
>
>It's true that in isolated cases you can enrage a tailgater by ignoring
>him and not yielding.  But in the majority of cases he's annoyed
>already, and there is no way to make him not annoyed.  The instant you
>yield to him he moves up and is annoyed by the next vehicle ahead of
>him.  The only way to not annoy him would be for all vehicles in the
>lane to simultaneously move to the right.

<sarcasm> Gosh, next thing you know people will be saying the left lane 
is the passing lane and people should flash their lights to pass. </sarcasm>
<sarcasm not meant for Rahul but for those who have advocated those things
in ca.driving>

>
>>To belabor the point:  It can be difficult to divine motivation, so you can
>>only observe behavior.  Unfortunately, the safety nuts have to define
>>speeding as an aggressive behavior, which muddies the waters.  Plain old
>>10mph over is not overt aggression in my book.
>
>Within some limits, almost no speed can be considered aggressive
>provided you stay in your lane and maintain a safe following distance
>from the next vehicle.  Aggressive driving invariably involves either
>repeated changing lanes or tailgating.

We're agreed on that.  Now we just have to convince those who would abuse
statistics.

>-- 
>Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@spams.r.us.com>
>a2i communications, a quality ISP
>   "Life is an obstacle course.  Get used to it."

jg
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