Diary studies of driving (e.g., Gulian, Glendon, Matthews, Davies, & Debney, 1990) suggest that mild stress symptoms are frequently experienced during driving. Such symptoms include unpleasant emotion, worry, and minor health problems. Even the familiar experience of commuting may be a significant source of stress (Novaco, Stokols, & Milanesi, 1990). Stress reactions to driving may impair performance and compromise safety. This chapter reviews the development of a model of driver stress that aims to integrate both subjective and objective data. It is organised as follows. First the author describes a theoretical framework for the research provided by Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) transactional model of stress. Next, he discriminates multiple dimensions of vulnerability to driver stress and describes their associations with self-reported behavioural and affective stress outcome measures. Further studies showed that individual differences in driver stress relate to the appraisal and coping constructs described by the transactional model and suggest an overall model of driver stress traits. The next part of the chapter reviews behavioural studies of driver stress by using a driving simulator to assess performance. The transactional model provides a basis for predicting associations between driver stress factors and efficiency and style of performance. Finally, two studies investigating information-processing mechanisms that may mediate an association between sensitivity to emotional distress and attentional impairment are discussed. It concludes by summarising the cognitive-adaptive basis for various aspects of driver stress.
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