Finding the Root Cause of Negative Driving Behaviors

Peaceful drivers are well acquainted with their more agitated traffic colleagues, and have had their fair share of curse words, angry and rude signs, and maybe even the occasional, deliberate tailgating. Now, experts are looking into determining the exact causes of aggression behind the wheel.

No one is saying that people shouldn't get mad while driving, as the number of idiots on the streets is mesmerizing. But the team behind the new work wants to determine what drives those people who are angry and shouting all the time.

Bad gestures, curse words and horn blasts are common throughout the world, and especially in large metropolises, where traffic jams and the general congestion are really annoying.

Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), in Australia, say that this type of behaviors could be prevented, if researchers knew what causes them in so many drivers.

QUT Center for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland (CARRS-Q) expert Dr Alexia Lennon, the leader of the research, believes that angry drivers are increasing the risks associated with driving on public roads for the other drivers as well.

In the newly-proposed set of experiments, the investigators will subject various persons to a whole bunch of stimuli, in a bid to detect which of them is the most annoying to experience while driving.

The Australian Research Council Discovery (ARCD) is financing this investigation with a $285,000, three-year grant, which is meant to covert simulations of a large number of scenarios.

Generally, the phenomenon known as “road rage” is snagging the spotlight from driver aggression, but researchers say that they are two distinct types of events.

“While violent behavior such as assaulting another driver is at the extreme end of the aggressive driving scale, it is important to realize that violent behaviors are very rare,” Dr Lennon says.

“Other forms of driver aggression are much more common and much more likely to be something ordinary, everyday drivers do. And while these can be dangerous or risky, they are not violent,” she adds.

“Driver aggression is often a response to anger or irritation at another road user,” argues Lennon, saying that the escalation phase of driver aggression will most likely constitute the focal point of the investigation.

“We want to understand how something as apparently 'mild' as insulting another driver can lead to a cycle of aggression, where drivers interact more and more aggressively and take greater risks,” she says.

“We want to know what is it that leads a driver to react aggressively,” the researcher concludes.