could dart out in front of your car – all sorts of unimagined chaos.
The best way to avoid it is to keep a safe distance.
But most people have their own internal set of rules about
following the car ahead of them. Have you ever wondered why
some people are perfectly content to leave a football field’s worth
of space between them and the car ahead of them, while others
seem to be satisfied only if they are nearly in the back seat of that
car? Sensation-seeking might offer a clue.
As a low sensation-seeker, close following causes me to
scramble for the invisible passenger emergency floor brake or to
jokingly announce, “We have obtained ramming speed!” to my
friend who approaches cars from behind with aggressive enthu-
siasm. If you ever wondered how your high sensation-seeking
friends tolerated that much stress, the answer is they don’t even
feel it. Researchers observed the driving behavior of subjects as
they rated their risk feelings at various points in time as they
followed another car. The researchers also kept track of differ-
ent stress indicators such as heart rate. High sensation-seekers
followed the lead car at closer distances but didn’t perceive
their tailgating as more risky. The low sensation-seekers showed
a greater increase in perceived risk and a threefold increase in
heart rate.^10
The novelty and intensity of stimuli produced by speed and
reckless driving release dopamine in reward areas of the brain in
high sensation-seeking individuals, as we discussed earlier. The
thing is, almost everyone drives with the same amount of perceived
stress. We choose the distance where we feel comfortable, just as
the risk homeostasis theory predicts.
Before you feel too comfortable about the high sensation-
seeker’s driving powers, there are a slew of other driving facts to
consider regarding high sensation-seeking drivers. Not only do
those with high sensation-seeking personalities drive faster and
closer, but they also have more accidents and convictions for driv-
ing offenses. Sensation-seeking is correlated with fast and careless
driving,^11 increased multitasking and distracted driving,^12 speed-
ing and other traffic violation convictions, and accidents.^13 HSSs
tend to wear their seat belts less often,^14 race other drivers, pass in
no passing zones, and try to beat trains at train crossings.^15 In fact,
over half of high sensation-seekers have one or more accidents,
while about a quarter of low sensation-seekers have never had
one (raises hand).^16143 / The Dark Side of High Sensation-SeekingDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:20:10, subject to the Cambridge