Emotional Driving

Emotions can have a large effect on your driving. You shouldn't drive when you're feeling any extreme emotion. Here are a few things you can do to prevent yourself from driving while you're feeling very emotional:

If you're upset in any way, whether it's because of something to do with driving or not, find a safe place to pull over or off the road and take a few minutes to calm down and relax. You might also consider taking a short walk to cool off.

If you're feeling depressed or worried, or if you're just thinking too much about something that happened, make an effort to get it off your mind until you stop the car.

If you're feeling rushed, hurried, or just generally impatient, give yourself more time before you start driving. Better time-management will help you avoid getting even more impatient with slower drivers or other things that are out of your control, such as heavy traffic or a back up due to an accident. Also, the extra time means you'll be less likely to speed.

Research has shown that people in the feeling of extreme emotions, whether negative or positive, have exhibited a distraction level even more serious than those experienced by cell phone users. Such emotions can cause otherwise excellent drivers to:

Experience impaired observation and reaction times.

Fail to recognize dangerous situations, such as an abrupt slowing of traffic or debris in the road.

Become unable to predict or to determine what the other drivers around us are doing.

Take greater risks, such as cutting across several lanes of traffic to take an off-ramp, suddenly change lanes, or even to drive on the freeway shoulder.

Become unable to perform driving skills based on precise timing.

Feel detached from the other drivers, vehicles, and conditions on the road.