Mediating Effect of Coping Behavior on the Relationship between Driving Stress and Traffic Accident Risk

Abstract

The present study was conducted to determine the effects of driving stress on traffic accident risk. Specifically, this study verified the effects of driving stress on drivers' coping behaviors and the aptitude of mediating models through which coping behavior types affect traffic accident risk. As a result, driving stress directly increased traffic accident risk and indirectly affected them through(good and bad) coping behavior types. This indicates that driving stress directly and indirectly affect traffic accident risk by the medium of(good and bad) coping behavior types in multilateral ways.(Commercial and leisure-purposed) driving purposes showed significant differences in the relations between driving stress and traffic accident risk. Specifically, commercial drivers were affected by driving stress, compared to leisure-purposed drivers. As they were unable to defer or abandon driving even under driving stress, commercial drivers responded to the stress more sensitively and increased traffic accident risk by selecting inappropriate(bad) coping behaviors. The results show that the mere concentration on driving stress management cannot sufficiently lower the traffic accident risks caused by driving stress. This is because driving stress have indirect influences on traffic accident risk. Hence, it will be necessary to seek how to reduce driving stress and control coping behavior types in order to lower the traffic accidents risk by the stress.