CHANGING BEHAVIORS: COMMUNITIES VS LAWS

I have already blogged about changing driving speeds in my former neighborhood in the blog entitled: It Takes A Neighborhood To Change A Speed Limit."  In that blog I recalled an experience getting a speed limit lowered as I was told by the traffic engineer to first get my neighbors to drive slower and then when they document this they will lower the speed limit sign.  I remember him saying "you don't really think that people will drive slower because of the speed limit sign indicating a lower speed?"  Of course, I did.  I then talked to my neighbors about the number of young children living in our neighborhood and they agreed to drive more slowly and they did!

An opinion article in the August 15, 2014 New York Times by Tom Vanderbilt was entitled "A Psychological Speed Limit," focused on how to change driving habits of people in New York City to reduce [eliminate?] traffic deaths in the city.  Mr. Vanderbilt also reports that just lowering a speed limit does not change the behaviors of drivers.  He then educates his readers about the severe consequences of driving 5 or 7or 10 mph over the speed limit.  A 10 mph increase will increase the liklihood of a pedestrian dying from 45% to 85%.  This underscores the importance of driving more slowly and actually supports the idea that an "appropriate" speed is actually even less than 25 mph.  Mr. Vanderbilt also notes that travel time is only increased a small amount by driving slower [which we maybe aught to change to driving more appropriately or considerately or wisely or ?]. Mr. Vanderbilt then reviews ways to get people to change their driving habits. These include lower speeds on speed limit signs, speed bumps and the speed camera. The latter two are effective with the camera being the most effective.  However, the stated goal of "Vision Zero" representing zero deaths by motor vehicle in NYC is not achievable by any of these methods.  It may be achievable by the method I unwittingly employed in my former neighborhood.  

So, how would that work.  Well, we only need to change the reward.  People in my neighborhood chose to drive more slowly to get the reward of helping to make our neighborhood safe for children.  Even drivers without children chose to do this.  Studies have shown that people drive more slowly if there are fewer lanes of traffic or trees lining the street or bike paths.  If there is a median divider, or if the street is one way people will drive faster.  So, people are capable of adjusting their speed based on what seems appropriate or the right thing or ?.  Now we need to help people see that it is appropriate, etc. to drive more slowly even on multilane, one way streets.  People will change their behaviors based on what other people do as long as they are observing what others do and not having othrs tell them what to do. Therefore, one strategy in an effort to achieve "Vision Zero" would be to educate people about why a slower speed is appropriate and the right thing to do and encourage them to chose [they must chose for themselves] to drive more slowly and see what happens....give it a try.  And then for these people to share their experiences with others...not tell them what to do. The city government in NY might even set up a website for people to submit their experiences so it functions like a place for reviews of the lower speed limit.  We [humans] seem to trust reviews when we don't have the chance to talk directly to people.

I believe that we all want to do the right thing. We also want to belong and have friends and not be alone.  So if more people are driving more slowly and saying that they feel it is the right thing to do...more people are likely to join them.  Just ask my neighbors.

WE ARE STILL CREATURES OF HABIT

I have written before about our being creatures of habit.  I keep being reminded of how important this is when I am are trying to change behaviors [my own].  My brain is very good at maintaining patterns of behavior/thinking/feeling.  It seems to be able to do this effeciently with little energy output and seemingly almost automatically without my having to ask it to.  This is one of many amazing things about our brains.  It can store information that we tell it to [often apparently not fully aware that we are doing so].  Then it retrieves it when we need it to.  Our brains monitor us constantly and can virtually instantly access a specific stored memory to fit the occasion.  But what if we want to change this stored memory?

Our brains do not change these patterns on a whim or casually.  If this were to happen, our brains might take our change in breathing as a command to change the stored pattern that supports our breathing and then we could be in big trouble.  So, some of our behavior patterns are critical to our living.  Actually, studies have shown that we drive a car without activating our frontal lobes, relying on stored memory. In fact, if we have a head injury we often have a great deal of trouble driving as our brain is automatically focused on trying to fix the impact of the injury and it is harder to access our stored memory patterns.  So, it seems that we can perform complex activities [driving a car] using stored memory with our brain comparing what is happening to stored information and adjusting what we do without our having to process new information about what is happening, as we drive.  That is very efficient and quite amazing.

However, what if we want to change a pattern?  Well, presumably we do it frequently by giving our brains clear messages about what to change and why.  This works if we are calm and not feeling any stress about the change.  If we are feeling stressed and want to change a pattern but are still uncertain about it, our brains take this as a vote not to change the pattern.  

So what to do.  Well, it may be clearer now why some patterns are hard to change and why we act in certain ways even though it is not in our best interests.  To change patterns, we must give our brains [ourselves] a clear message that we are serious about the change and why.  It helps to tell our brains this outloud [really!].  It also seems necessary to have the change be a big one, not a little change, as our brains will treat little changes as no changes.  So, to change patterns of behavior, we must committ to a big change in our behaviors and then see what happens.