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Transcript

Mini: Backseat Driving · Why We Do What We Do

0:03
Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we Do what we Do. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to Why we Do what we Do Mini. I'm your
0:18
Speaker 1: host Abraham and I'm Shane. We are a psychology podcast.
0:23
Speaker 1: We talk about the things that humans and non human
0:25
Speaker 1: animals do and why they do them. And on Monday's
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Speaker 1: we release these short episodes where we do a quick
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Speaker 1: dive into a topic, hopefully quick, and we get out
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Speaker 1: of there and go about your day. So we're shooting
0:38
Speaker 1: for I think you know, we had a nice string
0:40
Speaker 1: of like short ones. We're around like ten to twelve minutes.
0:43
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot for us being done with this one
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Speaker 1: and fifteen, which means I need to keep my preamble
0:48
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Speaker 1: of this discussion. I feel like there's more to say.
1:01
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1:02
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Speaker 2: This is a shorter one, there is also a longer one.
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1:15
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, yeah, thank you for that. And then
1:17
Speaker 1: if you're joining us for the first time, I hope
1:18
Speaker 1: you enjoy this. If you're a returning listener, thank you
1:20
Speaker 1: for coming back. And you know we'll get through that
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Speaker 1: stuff more in more detail at the end, so we'll
1:26
Speaker 1: jump in. Okay, ready, Yeah, let's do it and go okay.
1:30
Speaker 1: In America, a lot of people own cars. Some believe
1:34
Speaker 1: it's because we have embraced the personal car as a
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Speaker 1: symbol of our value of independence. Some believe it is
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Speaker 1: because we have pretty weak public transportation and infrastructure. Some
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Speaker 1: believe the car companies have made it their mission to
1:46
Speaker 1: push the agenda of owning one or more personal cars.
1:49
Speaker 1: And some believe that it is because our country is
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Speaker 1: just gigantic and that's just one way that you can
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Speaker 1: get around in a way that works for your schedule
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Speaker 1: and mobility. Probably all of those are true to an extent,
2:00
Speaker 1: but that is where we find ourselves in the era
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Speaker 1: where in the United States, so so so many people
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Speaker 1: have a car or more than one car.
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Speaker 2: Yes, the point is that many of us get behind
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Speaker 2: the wheel of a vehicle nearly every single day, and
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Speaker 2: we often do so with passengers. Sometimes those passengers feel
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Speaker 2: the need to, to varying degrees coach the behavior of
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Speaker 2: the driver. And these are not people who are learning.
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Speaker 2: These are drivers who are experienced. So why are some
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Speaker 2: people backseat drivers? How does this affect driving? And how
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Speaker 2: do drivers actually feel about it?
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Speaker 1: Yeah? So, as the one thing I did forget is
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Speaker 1: I didn't mention we were talking about backseat driving as
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Speaker 1: a thing. We've talked about driving and other capacities and
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Speaker 1: we're talking about it in this capacity now. All right,
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Speaker 1: So backseat driving? What is it? It has come to
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Speaker 1: refer to any instance in which a passenger is providing,
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Speaker 1: usually unsolicited and often unwanted, advice and criticisms of the
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Speaker 1: driver's behavior. Although called back seat quote unquote, it really
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Speaker 1: just refers to any passenger. They might also be in
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Speaker 1: the front passenger seat, but just to refer to like
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Speaker 1: somebody who is a passenger offering quote unquote, offering providing
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Speaker 1: this unsolicited feedback and guidance and coaching that is mostly
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Speaker 1: unwanted and unnecessary.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's go look a couple of different ways It
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Speaker 2: can be criticizing the driver's decisions, telling them when and
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Speaker 2: where to turn, complaining about speed, whether they're going too
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Speaker 2: fast or too slow, gasping, flinching, exclaiming and reacting semedely
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Speaker 2: to strong breaking quick turns, or being closed to things,
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Speaker 2: pressing imaginary brake pedals, advising which lane to be in,
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Speaker 2: telling the driver when the lights turn green, interfering with
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Speaker 2: the music, swearing at, gesticulating toward or commenting on other drivers,
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Speaker 2: reading road signs as they pass, engaging in road rage
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Speaker 2: on behalf of the driver, waving at other drivers to
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Speaker 2: go as or as a thanks, holding their hands over
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Speaker 2: their face, or disagreeing with the navigation system, among other things.
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Speaker 1: Yes, if you were doing some of those things, you
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Speaker 1: might be a backseat driver. A chance, you know you're
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Speaker 1: a backseat driver, but there's also a good chance that
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Speaker 1: you don't. But if you find yourself doing those things
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Speaker 1: when you're not the person driving the car, then you
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Speaker 1: might be a backseat driver. H many backseat drivers. Essentially,
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Speaker 1: So we talked about, you know, this is why we
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Speaker 1: do what we do. That's our show. Yeah, and many
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Speaker 1: backsat drivers cite as their reason for doing this a
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Speaker 1: desire for control and relatedly a sense of fear about
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Speaker 1: being a passenger and something bad happening. Now, I do
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Speaker 1: think it's worth pointing out like being quote unquote in
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Speaker 1: control is kind of a nebulous concept. That is, when
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Speaker 1: you start really trying to scrutinize, it difficult to pin down.
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Speaker 1: So let's do our best to understand what that means here.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we'll can interpret this to mean that
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Speaker 2: for some people that in a hypothetical situation in which
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Speaker 2: things go poorly, the person would feel that a they
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Speaker 2: did speak up and did what they could to have
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Speaker 2: mitigated the outcome, or b that if they didn't speak up, then.
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Speaker 3: They are somewhat to blame for the outcome.
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Speaker 2: Right, So it's more like being an active participant in
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Speaker 2: the situation which they find themselves in, rather than being
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Speaker 2: in total control of the.
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Speaker 1: Situation or like being a victim of the situation. You know,
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Speaker 1: it's like the feeling like they have a responsibility there,
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Speaker 1: if you will, to some extent being charitable.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 1: Alternatively, control could mean that they prefer the outcome to
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Speaker 1: have the outcomes of situations be directly related to their
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Speaker 1: specific actions when they approach an intersection at which they
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Speaker 1: are turning, their physical movements guide the car along the
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Speaker 1: path they wanted to travel. When someone else does this,
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Speaker 1: they're still trying to as passengers control the car's path, speed,
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Speaker 1: and direction, although they're now doing so through vocal prompts
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Speaker 1: instead of physical movements. So they're just their need to
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Speaker 1: have their actions dictate the events as they take place
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Speaker 1: right now.
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Speaker 2: Some people have grown up with backseat driving and so
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Speaker 2: learned or believe that this is how you're supposed to
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Speaker 2: behave as the passenger in the car with others. I
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Speaker 2: have met these people. Abraham has also met these people.
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Speaker 2: Some may even they might be a little frustrated with
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Speaker 2: others don't reciprocate their passenger feedback, like you know, I
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Speaker 2: think this is probably rare to non existent, But I
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Speaker 2: imagine there are some folks that are like pretty irritated
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Speaker 2: that a driver's not listening to what they're saying.
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Speaker 1: Or alternatively that like they want people to also be
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Speaker 1: a backseat driver to them when they're driving. I don't
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Speaker 1: think that. I don't think that there's very many people
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Speaker 1: who wants to. Matter of fact, I think the number
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Speaker 1: is basically zero. There's probably one person who wants to
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Speaker 1: have someone who's shouting over their shoulder, sure at what
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Speaker 1: they're supposed to do. Maybe two, but like there's not
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Speaker 1: very many, but it might exist, right, Okay. Some may
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Speaker 1: have grown up around situations in which they were dependent
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Speaker 1: on to constantly be giving backseat coaching in many aspects
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Speaker 1: of their lives, and a car is just one of
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Speaker 1: those places, meaning that like they are someone who grow
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Speaker 1: up expected to be jumping in to tell people what
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Speaker 1: to do, to like sort of lead and guide and
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Speaker 1: have things be under their direction. And that might be
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Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons, but like, let's just say
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Speaker 1: you imagine you grew up in a household with somebody
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Speaker 1: who has some kind of impairment or disability, and that
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Speaker 1: that person then depends on the one of the children
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Speaker 1: household to sort of take control and tell them what
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Speaker 1: to do and what things to do and when to
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Speaker 1: do them. And so like their life both in the
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Speaker 1: car and out of it means like they're just sort
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Speaker 1: of telling people what to do all the time, and
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Speaker 1: that's how they grew up.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then some people like I know that, like
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Speaker 2: in my family, we've got backseat drivers that like the
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Speaker 2: mess of the music. But I'm so thankful that I
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Speaker 2: don't have somebody who wants to just turn the radio
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Speaker 2: station just to ads. Okay, and so we're back and
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Speaker 2: we're talking about how people grew up with backseat driving situations.
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Speaker 2: So far, we've talked about people growing up and watching this,
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Speaker 2: some people expecting this. So some people do it because
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Speaker 2: they are backseat drivers, because they feel like they're being helpful.
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Speaker 2: They're attempting to provide guidance to assist the driver in
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Speaker 2: their taxing burden of navigating roadways, which they evidently cannot.
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Speaker 3: Do without the aid of this particular passenger.
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Speaker 2: So we need a navigator to get through to get
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Speaker 2: to the Starbucks.
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Speaker 1: And without that navigator, we just don't just never make
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Speaker 1: it from point A to point B.
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Speaker 3: Sure.
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Speaker 1: Also, remember that one of the reasons that people do
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Speaker 1: this is that, to some extent it works. They will
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Speaker 1: often say something that you're about to do anyway, and
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Speaker 1: then you do it. So from their perspective, they said
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Speaker 1: a thing, and then it happened the way that they
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Speaker 1: said it, or else it might affect your driving behavior
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Speaker 1: in other ways, such as causing you to slow down
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Speaker 1: or speed up, or change lanes. If for no other
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Speaker 1: reason than to make them shut up, although ironically this
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Speaker 1: will make them do it more, and so again, they
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Speaker 1: are likely to do this backseat driving thing because it works.
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Speaker 1: It's effective, right.
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Speaker 2: And there's also the quote unquote illusion of control effect,
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Speaker 2: in which people believe that it caused certain outcomes essentially
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Speaker 2: through force of will. So when surveyed, many believe that
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Speaker 2: if they were in control their vehicle, they would be
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Speaker 2: able to prevent an accident from happening, even when that
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Speaker 2: accident isn't their fault. Thus, many people believe that their
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Speaker 2: driving behavior is better than that of their driver, and
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Speaker 2: therefore the driving advice is needed.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, because then they would be able to prevent bad
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Speaker 1: things from happening. Now, to be fair, there are lots
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Speaker 1: of horrifyingly bad drivers out there, and it is possible
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Speaker 1: that for in some of these or many of these instances,
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Speaker 1: the criticizems are well founded and necessary and actually helpful
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Speaker 1: in some cases, probably not even many, I think I
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Speaker 1: said many. Probably not many In a few, small, tiny
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Speaker 1: handful of cases that might be the case.
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Speaker 2: Sure, sure, but I think it's important to talk about
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Speaker 2: what it looks like for the driver themselves, right, so
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Speaker 2: we know as drivers that there's going to be those
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Speaker 2: backseat drivers, those passengers that are going to try to
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Speaker 2: give us advice. But I'm sure that we've all experienced it,
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Speaker 2: and I'm sure that we've been annoyed. But you know,
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Speaker 2: the beautiful thing about human science is that we like
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Speaker 2: to study things, and.
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Speaker 3: So we studied this, right.
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Speaker 2: True, So a survey of over two thousand drivers returned
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Speaker 2: that the overwhelming majority of people report finding backseat driving
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Speaker 2: quote supremely annoying.
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Speaker 3: I love that metric, by the way.
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Speaker 1: That was the actual thing that they reported.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to do more studies where
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Speaker 2: I'm measuring on a level of like mildly annoying.
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Speaker 3: To supremely annoy how annoying? Something that is right? That's
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Speaker 3: my favorite. Now.
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Speaker 2: Now to put it bluntly, drivers pretty universally hated backseat driving.
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Speaker 2: Hate it, find it supremely annoying, and they hate it with.
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Speaker 3: A capital H.
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Speaker 2: They find an annoying, disrespectful route of notus, dangerous, frustrating,
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Speaker 2: and insulting.
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Speaker 1: The driver will point out that one a lot of
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Speaker 1: coaching that they get as about things they are already
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Speaker 1: doing or about to do anyway. Two, it communicates a
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Speaker 1: lack of trust in the driver, which commun a variety
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Speaker 1: of things. But I think we can intuitively understand that sentence,
10:30
Speaker 1: yeah and three it is actually distracting to them when
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Speaker 1: they're trying to drive.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 2: So the way that we think about it is like this.
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Speaker 2: If you feel that we need as much guidance while
10:39
Speaker 2: we're driving, you have to you absolutely must believe that
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Speaker 2: we are causing fatal accidents about every thirty seconds all
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Speaker 2: the way between point A and point B. Every time
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Speaker 2: we drive ourselves somewhere, you would be calling us frantically
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Speaker 2: throughout our drive to ensure that we haven't killed anybody
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Speaker 2: else and myself included, since the last time you called.
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Speaker 2: And we just want to make sure you're safe, right,
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Speaker 2: So you shouldn't even let us behind. I'm the wheel
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Speaker 2: of a car without some advice guru to help us
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Speaker 2: along the way, like there should be somebody who is
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Speaker 2: just a perpetual passenger making sure that we're being safe.
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Speaker 3: If you assume that we're such bad drivers.
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Speaker 1: Well, and if you assume that we need that much coaching,
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Speaker 1: like you can't possibly believe I drive myself to work
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Speaker 1: safely without killing myself and everyone else around me. The
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Speaker 1: whole way there. If you think I need that much
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Speaker 1: coaching while I'm driving, Yeah, exactly, And if you do,
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Speaker 1: let me get behind the wheel like you're calling me
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Speaker 1: constantly to ensure that I haven't killed those people or
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Speaker 1: myselfs all the way there because you think that I
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Speaker 1: need that much. All right, Things that you should actually
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Speaker 1: know about backseat driving things. Backseat driving is actually believed
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Speaker 1: and understood by many researchers to cause more accidents than
11:41
Speaker 1: it prevents. I want to say that one more time
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Speaker 1: that make sure it sinks in. Backseat driving is likely
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Speaker 1: to cause more accidents than it prevents. Various agencies warn
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Speaker 1: that distracted driving accounts for a significant amount of traffic fatalities,
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Speaker 1: and that people receiving backseat driving criticisms are more likely
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Speaker 1: to miss or run stop lin source stop signs, fail
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Speaker 1: to see other cars in traffic, more likely to drive
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Speaker 1: at unsafe speeds, drive too close to other drivers, and
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Speaker 1: to make mistakes. So the great irony of backseat driving,
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Speaker 1: particularly when the motivation of the backseat driver is to
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Speaker 1: prevent accidents from happening, is it actually is likely causing
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Speaker 1: more accidents than it is preventing.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So the general recommendation is not to never speak up.
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Speaker 2: There are times when the driver legitimately isn't paying attention
12:26
Speaker 2: or miss something vital, and in those moments it is
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Speaker 2: better to help than to watch some preventable disaster play out.
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Speaker 3: Like if you.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely need to speak up, then speak up, but otherwise don't.
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Speaker 1: Well, it's worth saying that. Like, if you're the driver,
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Speaker 1: one way to help reduce backseat driving is to drive safely.
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Speaker 1: Consider that you might be making some mistakes and some
12:45
Speaker 1: advice could be helpful and set you on the correct path. Like,
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Speaker 1: it's not that all feedback when driving is not helpful,
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Speaker 1: it is being judicious and applying where needed.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also worth considering if you are the backseat
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Speaker 2: driver dispensing advice, consider how needed it really is or
13:01
Speaker 2: like you know, I always like to ask the question,
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Speaker 2: is this helpful right some? What have you believe that
13:06
Speaker 2: you cannot control your reactions? Well, you do when you're driving,
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Speaker 2: and you don't go shouting off road instructions when you're
13:12
Speaker 2: not in a car, So yes, yes, you can control
13:15
Speaker 2: yourself in that particular context. Ask yourself, is this criticism
13:19
Speaker 2: really truly needed right now? And if you have to
13:22
Speaker 2: think about it, it probably isn't.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, if you had time to even have that
13:26
Speaker 1: conversation with yourself, probably wasn't. Yeah, I think again, noting
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Speaker 1: the situation that you're currently in, Others recommend as far
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Speaker 1: as managing the relationship between the driver and the backseat driver,
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Speaker 1: having on a podcast or some music that can distract
13:41
Speaker 1: the backseat driver, getting them to engage in a conversation
13:44
Speaker 1: where they're doing most of the talking. This will keep
13:46
Speaker 1: them occupied and allow you to then subsequently drive safer.
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Speaker 1: So anymore, Like my experience with this is such that anymore,
13:54
Speaker 1: when I see poor driving on the road, I just
13:57
Speaker 1: assume that that person has a bad backseat driver screwing
13:59
Speaker 1: them up. I'm like, that explains it to me, Like
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Speaker 1: are they drunk? No, just a bad backseat driver telling
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Speaker 1: them things that are not unnecessarily unhelpful and distracting.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that a lot. I like that framing.
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Speaker 1: So, anyway, this is a little bit long. Actually, we
14:15
Speaker 1: kind of right at our point here perfect we did. Okay, Hey,
14:17
Speaker 1: all right, anything that you would like to add or
14:19
Speaker 1: anything that we should say before we wrap this one up.
14:22
Speaker 3: No, I think that covers this one.
14:23
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I'll do the quick things. Yeah, you join
14:25
Speaker 1: us on Patreon. That really helps us out. You get
14:27
Speaker 1: bonus content at early episodes, ad free episodes, behind the
14:30
Speaker 1: scenes things, and a cool group of people. I will
14:33
Speaker 1: also shout out your name on our full length episodes
14:35
Speaker 1: when we get to the end of our conversations on
14:37
Speaker 1: every episode, which is always a fun thing to hear
14:39
Speaker 1: your name shouted out. You can reach us to tell
14:41
Speaker 1: us your thoughts about backseat driving or experiences with us
14:43
Speaker 1: by emailing us directly info at WWDWWD podcast dot com,
14:47
Speaker 1: and you can reach us on the social media platforms.
14:50
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to our patron supporters and to
14:52
Speaker 1: my team of people without whom I could not make
14:53
Speaker 1: this podcast happen. And of course thank you all for listening.
14:57
Speaker 1: I think that's what we have to say about this,
14:59
Speaker 1: so we'll go ahead and let you get about your
15:01
Speaker 1: go about your day. This is Abraham.
15:03
Speaker 3: And this is Shane.
15:04
Speaker 1: Why we do what we do? Minie is out.
15:07
Speaker 3: Bye.
15:08
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why we Do what We Do.
15:11
Speaker 1: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
15:13
Speaker 1: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com.
15:17
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening and we hope you have an awesome day,