... It’s the other driver’s fault!

Maria João Martins, 42, is a nurse with 21 years experience dealing with victims of road traffic accidents. She works at the Hospital Ortopédico Sant'Iago do Outão (orthopedic hospital), Setúbal, a destination for many recovering “poly-trauma” patients throughout the country. Visiting family recently in the Algarve, she made the time to talk to us about her research.

Algarve 123: What impelled you to study the “guilt feeling”?

Maria João Martins: “It was my own interest, which came from experience. I began asking myself about the people that kept appearing at the hospital, feeling guilty and apparently destroyed by the feeling that they’d caused harm, death even - and wondered how they would go from there? Were they simply feeling transitory guilt – brought on by the trauma, that unexpected moment of violence – or would their feelings effectively change something in their lives? In other words, I wanted to discover if the fact that people had been involved in accidents made them think, and in some way change their behaviour.

And what were your conclusions?

I can’t generalise, but in the universe of the 19 people that I studied, I concluded, unfortunately, that the feeling of guilt – although it may have been very intense at the time of the accident – softened and dissipated with time, and there was absolutely no suggestion that it prompted any effective improvement in drivers’ behaviour.

How so?

The study had two “moments”. I asked the volunteer patients involved to fill out a questionnaire, in which they described the accident, and the causes. On first reading of the results, the resounding majority of drivers blamed the “other one” (the person driving the other car involved). They also blamed external factors, like the state of the road, or the time of day. Later, I interviewed each one of the participants in the study. When confronted with specific questions to gauge possible feelings of guilt, they responded in the negative. But, when asked if they’d violated any traffic regulations, they’d agree that they had – because they’d reckoned it was safe to do so. When asked if they could see any personal characteristics/ ways of behaving that might facilitate accidents – being impulsive, for instance, or distracted – a number also agreed that they could. But they were adamant that they wouldn’t change, because they didn’t want to change. They liked themselves just the way they were.

Even if it means they pose a danger?

That’s precisely the problem. People in the main don’t relate danger, or the accident, with the way they’ve become used to driving. In other words, they don’t accept a link between the cause (of the accident) and everything that happened, with what they do/ what kind of driver they are.

Because no-one likes to admit they’re a bad driver?

Look at it another way: the act of driving these days is totally banal, commonplace. It’s almost socially impossible NOT to drive. If someone doesn’t drive it’s because they’re an idiot, or have some sort of problem – there’s always an “odd” reason for it. What’s “normal” is that everyone, at the age of 18, asks their father to pay for driving lessons. Driving has become such a basic act that people don’t see it for what it is: a highly complex process.

Is it more and more obvious that passing one’s driving test is simply not enough?

I think we get it wrong when we teach driving in such a way that we put the individual in a situation where he considers himself, the control of his vehicle and the execution of a series of traffic signs and rules. Driving should be taught from the viewpoint that it’s a collective process. Right now, there’s a real lack of a “civic component”. After all, we don’t drive in a desert – or places where there is no-one else. We drive in places where there are people, other vehicles, all sorts of climatic conditions - all of which can cause problems and limitations.

But still people think that the other person’s “guilty”…

The other vehicle is seen as the problem – the adversary. Imagine two people driving their cars. At a crossroads, one of them considers the other has done something they shouldn’t have. He hoots, shouts insults, gesticulates. If by chance the drivers stop their cars and discover they know each other, everything calms down. If they don’t, the other driver remains the enemy…It’s just like Professor Manual João Ramos says, there’s civil war on the country’s roads.

But what’s the conflict for a civil war on the roads? It’s individual?

Yes. People become invaded by their own egos. They’re possessed by the cult status that the car now has. They feel offended if their driving is in any way criticised as it goes against their self-image as being perfect, exemplary drivers. Truly, this is the situation I’ve found with so many people. Think about it: in the 19 people I interviewed, only two talked about “defensive driving”.

What do you mean by “defensive driving”?

The meaning here is “seeing things before they happen”. It’s the capacity to see things ahead of time and make allowances for them. But this is a capacity that one has to learn. In the meantime, society is far more interested in the cylindrical capacity of the car – its power is seen as a social asset, a status symbol, a sign of superiority. It’s only in the second or third place that the environment and other people in it are considered.

What do you see on the road?

I see traffic violations every day.

17 people are run over every day in Portugal. Doesn’t the pedestrian count?

Pedestrians have to be considered important. First because they are people. That goes without saying – and secondly because, whether we’re drivers or not, whether we have one car, ten or 20, there’s invariably going to be a time when we’re also pedestrians. No-one is born in their car – unless of course they’re on the way to the maternity ward. We learn to walk first. It’s a basic, physiological, biological characteristic of the human being. We are naturally pedestrians. Drivers? Well, that’s our choice.

From your experience, are our roads safe?

There’s a concept of road safety – a series of preventative strategies. But it’s just a concept. If you’re asking me whether the roads are safe, from my point of view, I would say, “no, they are not”.

What message would you like to leave?

I think driving should be taught differently. It should be presented as something that isn’t simply a process of “piloting” a vehicle. A pilot is all about himself, the road and the machine – but a driver isn’t a pilot. Also, I think that if we would lessen the selfishness of driving, maybe we’d make a difference. I support, for example, giving different penalties for the same violation depending on whether the driver was alone, or accompanied. All cars, with 2/ 4 or 5 seats, are collective forms of transport – and technically the driver is responsible for the people he or she carries. If you knew, for instance, that crossing over a solid white line on your own carried one penalty, but doing so if you carried passengers carried another – or if you were transporting children that the penalty would become exponentially higher, then either you would start driving on your own, or you’d begin to think more when you had your family, or other passengers, alongside you.