In his recent article about aggressive driver, 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 (see IRRD E101674). 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 frequence of rush-hour driving did not correlate statisticially significantly with driver aggression. Correlations between driving during rush-hour and aggressions 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 numbers 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 direictly as suggested by Shinar (1998). (Author/publisher).
Samenvatting