Citation

Lajunen TJ, Parker D, Summala H. Transp. Res. F Traffic Psychol. Behav. 1999; 2(4): 225-236.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S1369-8478(00)00003-6

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In his recent article about aggressive driving, David Shinar proposed that the classical frustration-aggression hypothesis (Dollard, J., Doob, L., Miller, N., Mowrer, O. and Sears, R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press) provides a useful tool for understanding driver aggression (Shinar, D. (1998). Aggressive driving: the contribution of the drivers and situation. Transportation Research Part F, 1, 137-160). According to Shinar's (1998) application of the frustration-aggression hypothesis, driver aggression is caused by frustration because of traffic congestion and delays. In the present study, the relationships between exposure to congestion (rush-hour driving) and aggressive violations (DBQ) were investigated in Great Britain, Finland and the Netherlands. Partial correlations showed that the frequency of rush-hour driving did not correlate statistically significantly with driver aggression. Correlations between driving during rush-hour and aggression did not differ in magnitude from those between driving on country roads and aggressive violations. In addition, correlations between exposure to congestion and aggressive violations in countries with large number of vehicles per road kilometre (UK, Netherlands) were not higher than those in a sparsely populated country (Finland). These results from three countries suggest that congestion does not increase driver aggression as directly as suggested by Shinar (1998).