The influence of driving anger on truck drivers’ speeding behavior in Serbia: the evidence from naturalistic global positioning system driving data

Abstract

Objective

Speeding behavior is recognized as one of the three main causes of risk on the roads and the most frequent ordinary violation among truck drivers. The study reported in this article focused on the driving anger personality trait and its role in predicting the observed speeding behavior in a sample of truck drivers.

Methods

A longitudinal study design was implemented, where 93 Serbian truck drivers filled in an adapted form of the Driving Anger Scale designed to assess the amount of driving anger evoked by specific traffic situations. The drivers’ second-by-second speeding behavior data were captured using GPS tracking and recording devices installed in the vehicles over a period of six months. Hierarchical multiple linear regression was used to examine the predictive performance of driving anger.

Results

The results showed that more than three fourths of the exceeded speed ranged from 1 to 9 km/h and the highest percentage of speed events occurred in urban areas. The findings suggest that truck drivers experienced the highest level of anger in driving because of the discourteous and illegal behavior of other drivers. Younger truck drivers are more likely to drive fast compared to older drivers. Truck drivers who perform driving tasks more often and spend less time driving are more likely to participate in speed events. The results revealed that the subscales of anger, hostile gestures and traffic obstructions have a positive effect, while slow driving has a negative effect on the observed speeding behavior of truck drivers.

Conclusions

This study confirms the predictive performance of driving anger facets. The results of the research can help us improve our understanding of the mechanisms of speeding behavior of truck drivers.

Keywords:

• Driving anger
• truck drivers
• observed speeding behavior
• naturalistic study

Acknowledgment

We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. Also, we would like to express our appreciation to Mr Dragan Radović and all the participants for the very helpful cooperation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Sciences and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia under Grant 451-03-68/2020-14/200156.