How common is road user aggression?

Answer

Cases of road user aggression are not officially registered, nor the number of road casualties that ensue. So its prevalence cannot be established. Survey results are available however. The Safety Monitor of Statistics Netherlands is a recurrent large-scale population survey among 135,000 inhabitants aged 15 or over, asking about aggressive road user behaviour in their neighbourhoods [17]. In 2019, 29.3% replied that aggressive road user behaviour does sometimes occur in their neighbourhoods and 6.3% even replied that they experience quite some nuisance from aggressive road user behaviour [17]. In 2017, these percentages were almost the same (29.6% en 6.2%).

An online survey among over 25,000 members of the ‘EenVandaag Opiniepanel’ (online opinion panel of tv news programme) showed that, by their own account, one in eight drivers was involved in a ‘traffic dispute’ sometime in 2019 [18]. Half of these disputes (52%) resulted in a dangerous situation, such as drivers making each other brake abruptly in dense traffic, consciously driving others off the road or trying to do so, or fighting in the streets. In said survey, more than a quarter (27%) of cyclists reported having been involved in a traffic dispute at one time or another.

Traffic disputes are reported to the police more and more often. Between 2013 and 2018, the number of reported traffic disputes in the Netherlands doubled from 3140 in 2013 to 6340 in 2018 [19]. In 2018, police had to deal with violence in traffic 824 times, 300 times more often than in 2017 [19].

Part of fact sheet

Risky road user behaviour, aggression and repeat offenders

Risky road user behaviour is behaviour that adversely affects road safety, such as driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or… Meer

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