Psychological and Roadway Correlates of Aggressive Driving

Project summary:

The AAA foundation for traffic safety, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Highway Administration have identified road rage/driver aggression as one of the major threats to safety in future roadway environments. The proposed research is an interdisciplinary effort to understand the extent to which pre-existing cognition, emotions, roadway conditions, and attitudes toward driving contribute to aggressive driving. The general goal is to identify factors that prompt aggressive driving behavior and to examine them in a simulated driving environment at the HFRL. Previous studies on aggressive driving have failed to address the factors that can precipitate to aggressive driving as comprehensively as proposed in this study. Results obtained from the survey and subsequent experimental analysis will yield a rich resource of information for educational outreach throughout Minnesota and beyond with the goal of reducing incidents of aggressive driving.