An exploratory study was designed to understand how drivers perceive andinterpret aggression and stress-inducing traffic situations. The goals of the studywere to identify the most stressful situations to be used in a follow-on empiricalstudy and to examine the relative rankings of stressful situations acrossdemographic subgroups. Using a convenience sample, our findings support theresults from previous studies that gender, history of driving, and drivingexperience play a significant role in perceiving and interpreting the intentions ofothers. Drivers who had prior violations and citations perceived others’ behaviorsmore negatively. Males had more situations related to others’ deliberateaggressive behaviors in their top 15 traffic situations, compared to females.Females had more environmental factors in their top 15 when compared to males.Continuing education and emphasis on improving the driving culture may behelpful in reducing the aggression toward others, especially when thecommunications between road users are primarily based on non-verbalobservations.
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