The Driving Doctor: Unworry? Unhurry

Tuesday,  September 6, 2005

Nearly 50 years ago, a sociologist named C. Northcote Parkinson proposed a theory of human behavior he called Parkinson's Law: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." 

In his whimsical book of the same name, Parkinson explained that anyone who has, say, a full day available to perform a task usually will take longer to complete it than someone who has only a few hours. 

My observation is you can apply a variation of the same concept to driving: The more you hurry, the more time a trip will seem to take. On the other hand, the less you hurry, the shorter the trip will seem.

It might sound nonsensical, but the best way to stop feeling harried and hurried on the road is to stop feeling harried and hurried. 

I discovered this some time ago, and it works. 

I used to hate sitting at stoplights -- something I probably inherited from my father. They all seemed to take forever to change from red to green. Then one day I was headed into the city to conduct an interview and was trying to brush up on some background material about the interview subject. I kept the material on the front seat beside me and every time I had to stop at a traffic light, I would pick up the pages and scan through them as quickly as possible, thinking I could put all that wasted time to good use.

It turned out that no sooner did I pick up the papers that it seemed the light would change almost immediately. For the first time I could recall, I actually became aggravated because the red lights did not seem to last long enough. I have observed the same phenomenon many times since.

In other words, when my perception was that red lights slowed me down, I felt frustrated whenever they held me back, but when I wanted to use those times to complete a task, the time seemed to evaporate.

Einstein was right -- time is relative.

This is not to say you should carry reading material in the vehicle to occupy your time at traffic lights. For one thing, instead of becoming frustrated by being stopped, you will end up becoming frustrated because green lights are interrupting your reading. For another, if you get too engrossed and stop paying attention, you will hear unpleasantries from the drivers behind you soon after the light changes.

The point is you can dissipate much of the tension and anxiety you experience on the road by simply stop trying to hurry.

Take traffic situations. So many drivers expend a lot of effort in traffic trying to get ahead. They pass, they weave, they tailgate, they jump out in front and otherwise elevate their tension level and blood pressure. Why? To save a few minutes. 

The problem is those few minutes so often are illusory. Anybody who hurries down a roadway controlled by traffic signals loses any time advantage they gained as soon as a red light brings them to a stop. 

So, instead of pushing and pressing and fussing and fuming, it might be time to try another approach: Lay back a little. Obey speed limits. Wait your turn. Stop passing for passing's sake and by all means stop tailgating. 

In almost every case, it will make almost no difference in your arrival time -- but if you practice it consistently, it might increase your odds of arriving safely.

Next week: Beating high gas costs

Phil Berardelli also is the author of “The Driving Challenge: Dare to Be Safer and Happier on the Road.”

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