Aggressive driving among British, Dutch, Finnish and Turkish drivers

Abstract

The first aim of the present study was to investigate cross-cultural differences in aggressive driving behaviour among British, Dutch, Finnish and Turkish drivers (or ‘between’ countries). The second aim of the present study is to examine how the ratings of aggressive behaviours committed by the driver himself/herself (‘self’ scale) and high ratings of perceiving himself/herself as an object of other drivers’ aggressive acts (‘other’ scale) are evaluated ‘within’ countries. Survey studies of 3673 drivers were carried out in four countries, that is in Finland, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Turkey. Analysis of variance results revealed that Turkish drivers scored higher on aggressive driving behaviours than British and Dutch drivers, who in turn reported more aggressive behaviours than Finnish drivers. In every country (or ‘within’ countries), on the contrary, drivers reported having been a target of aggressive behaviour (‘other’) more often than they had committed aggressive behaviour themselves (‘self’).

Keywords:

• anger
• aggressive driving
• cross-cultural differences
• other drivers

Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by TÜBİTAK (SBB-3038) and ODTÜ in Turkey and the Graduate School of Psychology and Henry Ford Foundation in Finland, and Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge programme (‘SAFEAST’ project no. MTKD-CT-2004–509813).