Trying to meet a deadline when driving causes stress, which is a major cause of traffic accidents

Stress is an almost everyday condition. Your job can be stressful, the precarious economic situation is stressful and problems in personal relationships cause stress as well.

Getting some rest can help. But for many, stress is often considered not that dangerous.

But people under stress can pose a risk, to themselves as well as to others, especially when adrenaline is surging through their body, their heart rate is high and they are sitting at the wheel of a car.

Stress has various effects. Stressed drivers on their way to a pressing appointment are quick to anger and their ability to concentrate is diminished.

"Failures in processing information cause more than 50 percent of all traffic accidents. Situations are incorrectly assessed or not perceived in time," notes Ulrich Chiellino, a traffic psychologist with the German motorists' association ADAC.

Chiellino recommends that motorists learn proper behavior in stress situations, starting with the recognition that stress affects driving and can lead to dangerous errors in judgment. Blaming others should also be avoided.

"Many drivers see themselves as victims, saying the traffic stresses them," Chiellino notes. Other motorists are not deliberately driving slowly in order to impede the stressed motorist, though. Perhaps they also suffer from stress but have learned that stepping on the gas is unhelpful.

"Stress arises when you're confronted with an inescapable event over which you have no control," says Alfred Fuhr, a traffic sociologist with the German automobile club AvD.

That event can be a deadline - something not confined to the workplace. Fuhr cites as an example a trip to a holiday destination. The trip, almost by definition, should be relaxing. It becomes stressful, though, if you are trying to make a ferry and are held up by traffic or road works.

"In cases like this, the driver always has the disruptive factors in the back of his mind," Fuhr says. They distract him from the task at hand, namely driving.

Time pressure can cause carelessness that can then lead to driving errors and accidents.

"Careless mistakes made while driving can be fatal," Fuhr warns.

Stress not only diminishes the ability to concentrate, it can also make drivers irritable and induce them to take greater risks. In stressful situations it is important that either the passengers keep an eye on the driver or the driver recognizes that he or she is stressed.

Instead of pressing harder on the accelerator, Rainer Hillgaertner, spokesman for the German automobile club ACE, advises pulling the car over, phoning the person with whom the appointment is scheduled and saying you may be arriving a little late. This simple act will quickly alleviate the stress.

In most cases stress is preventable. Instead of telling yourself that you can somehow reach a destination in a certain amount of time, Hillgaerter says you should allow yourself extra time so that even a traffic jam will not make you late.

German Press Agency

(China Daily 05/05/2010 page19)