Road rage in China: An exploratory study

Abstract

This study consisted of a stated-preference questionnaire survey to investigate road rage among Chinese drivers. A total of 5157 Chinese drivers completed the survey. The Driving Anger Scale (DAS) and Driving Anger Expression Inventory (DAX) were used to measure road rage under various anger-provoking situations. Meanwhile, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was adopted to explore respondents’ attitudinal perception towards road rage behaviors. Three TPB variables, i.e., behavioral attitude (BA), subjective norm (SN), and perceived behavioral control (PBC), were used to describe drivers’ perceived anger levels, driving habits, self-efficacy, and perceived controllability of road rage, respectively. Additionally, aggressive reaction (AR) was introduced to describe drivers’ inclination to express road rage. Then, descriptive analyses were performed to examine the connection between individual characteristics on road rage. Results exhibited these variables have different between-group correlation and significant relationships with gender, age group, education, driving years, professional or not, daily driving hours, and vehicle type. Also, outcomes from structural equation models (SEMs) demonstrated that the above four descriptive variables in the modified TPB model could be linked to drivers’ intention to exhibit road rage behaviors. Finally, countermeasures for controlling and curing road rage were proposed based on the findings.