How to Control Your Emotions on the Road

Along with fatigue, your emotions can have quite an effect on your driving capability if you are overly afraid, excited, worried, depressed, or angry-and you will be an unsafe driver unless you learn to control them.

If any of these emotions surface when you are behind the wheel, here are some things you can do to keep them in check:

- If you are angry or excited, give yourself time to calm down. Take a short walk if you need to, but stay off the road until you have regained control of your emotions.

- If you are worried, upset or depressed about something that is impacting your life, try to stay focused on your driving. Chewing gum or listening to the radio may help you here as well.

- When you feel impatient, allow yourself extra time when you are starting out on your trip. That way, you will be less inclined to go over the speed limit or do anything else that can result in getting traffic ticket or cause an accident. At a railroad stop, always wait for a train to pass in front of you. Trying to beat the train or driving around lowered gates is always foolhardy.

The effect your emotions can have. Researchers tell us that these negative emotions can have a distracting and even paralyzing effect upon our driving capability. Remember that they can:

- Dim or totally block our powers of observation, which are absolutely essential on the road.
- Distort or delay our ability to interpret anything that is happening around us.
- Reduce our power to judge and anticipate the actions of other drivers.
- Result in high-risk decisions and faulty judgment on our part.
- Prevent us from using those skills that involve precise timing.

Handling the "road rage" of others. If you sense that you are about to become the target for the anger of some other driver, here are some preventive measures you can take:

- Stay inside your car.

- Avoid any hostile action or gesture on your part that could be taken as a response by the other driver.

- To help diffuse situations like this, think about keeping a "SORRY" sign in your car and use it whenever you need to.