Previous research has found that the content of thoughts and rumination influences driving anger and aggressive driving; however, no research to date has observed how the specific thoughts and process of rumination may directly or indirectly influence aggressive driving behaviors. The present research explores the potential roles of thought content and rumination on aggressive driving to improve our understanding of factors that influence aggressiveness in driving situations. The current study recruited 262 Southeastern University students, who completed a number of questionnaires measuring anger rumination, thought content, driving anger, and aggressive driving behaviors tendencies. Results demonstrated that trait driving anger imposed partial indirect effects on aggressive driving behaviors through specific angry thoughts. In addition, this partial indirect effect was conditional to the degree of coping thoughts. These findings may help advance the understanding of the roles content of thoughts and rumination play in aggressive driving behaviors.

Past studies found many different types of factors can influence dangerous driving behaviors. Driver inattention, such as driving under the influence or using a cell phone while driving, was found to contribute to risky driving behaviors. Rumination is a cognitive process that may also contribute to risky driving behaviors due to its influence on attention and limited executive processes. The present study explores the potential role of rumination in dangerous driving behavior endorsement. It was hypothesized that trait rumination would be significantly related to dangerous driving behaviors and that this relationship would be conditional to the sex of the participant. Six-hundred and fifty-three Southeastern university students were recruited to participate and asked to complete multiple questionnaires measuring anger rumination, thought content, driving anger, and dangerous driving behaviors. It was demonstrated that self-reported risky driving behaviors significantly predicted dangerous driving behavior endorsement on the Dula Dangerous Driving Index. Trait rumination scores were found to predict self-reported dangerous driving, aggressive driving, and risky driving behaviors as well as trait driving anger scores. However, no conditional effects based on the sex of the participant were found. It appeared males and females were equally likely to report dangerous driving behaviors, driving anger thoughts, and trait anger rumination. Findings from the current study may assist in understanding how cognitive processes influence different driving behaviors and help develop methods to re-direct attention to safe driving behaviors, and conversely away from ruminative thoughts that increase the likelihood of dangerous driving.

Although some descriptions of stereotypes about drivers are documented in the literature, the specific behaviours representing these stereotypes have not been previously explored. In addition to identifying specific behaviours associated with stereotypes about female drivers, this thesis looks at the way that these stereotypes may be affected by the age of the stereotyped driver. Furthermore, a debate exists in the field of social psychology about whether the awareness of these stereotypes affects the performance of drivers from the stereotyped groups through the phenomenon known as stereotype threat. This thesis explores these topics through a series of three studies. In the first study, participants watched videos illustrating a variety of driving behaviours and indicated whether the driver was more likely to be male or female. In the second study, participants were told to imagine male and female drivers of different ages approaching a car, and the participants were asked to indicate which driver was more likely to take the wheel of the car and whether that driver was the safer of the two. In the third study, which consisted of two experiments, female participants were invited to complete several driving scenarios in a driving simulator. The first of the two experiments had two conditions: stereotype threat and neutral; the second experiment had an enhanced stereotype threat and a counterstereotype condition. The findings of the first study elucidated the specific behaviours that are stereotypically associated with male and female drivers. The second study showed that in many ways, driving is still considered to be a man’s prerogative, since men were frequently rated as more likely to drive and safer drivers than women. The results of the third study showed that the effects of these stereotypes on drivers can be difficult to detect using the stereotype threat paradigm in a driving simulator environment. Although stereotypes about male and female drivers from different age groups are still prevalent, their effects on the behaviour of the drivers from the stereotyped groups may be elusive and hard to reproduce in a simulated driving context.

Two studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between age, personality factors and aggressive driving behavior. In Study 1, 1122 volunteers completed an online survey that included questionnaires on demographic data, personality factors, and driving behavior. Personality factors were measured using the Revised Competitiveness Index, the Sensation Seeking Scale, the Big Five Inventory, and the Cook Medley Hostility Scale, whereas aggressive driving behavior was measured using the Aggressive Driving Behavior Scale (ADBS). The majority of the volunteers were female (786 versus 336), while ages ranged from 18 to 87. In Study 2, 98 volunteers from Study 1 were recruited to perform driving simulations on two scenarios. These volunteers consisted of 52 females and 46 males, with ages ranging from 18 to 83. Results from both studies produced positive correlations between aggressive driving behavior and competitiveness, sensation seeking, hostility, extraversion, and neuroticism, while negative correlations were obtained between aggressive driving behavior and age, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. No significant correlation was obtained between gender and aggressive driving behavior. Most importantly, scores in the ADBS were positively correlated to a composite of scores measuring aggressive driving behavior in the simulator. This pattern of results not only validates the ADBS, but it also provides another mechanism to study aggressive driving behavior.

Due to comfort, convenience, and flexibility, taxis become more and more prevalent in China, especially in large cities. According to a survey reported by Beijing Traffic Development Research Center, there were 696 million taxi person-rides in Beijing in 2011. However, many violations and road crashes that were related to taxi drivers occurred more frequently. The survey showed that there were a total of 17,242 taxi violations happened in Beijing in only one month in 2003, which accounted for 56% of all drivers' violations. Besides, taxi drivers also had a larger accident rate than other drivers, which showed that nearly 20% of taxi drivers had accidents each year. This study mainly focuses on investigating differences in driving behavior between taxi drivers and non-professional drivers. To examine the overall characteristics of taxi drivers and non-professional drivers, this study applied a hierarchical driving behavior assessment method to evaluate driving behaviors. This method is divided into three levels, including low-risk level, medium-risk level, and high-risk level. Low-risk level means the basic vehicle control. Medium-risk level refers to the vehicle dynamic decision. High-risk level represents the driver avoidance behavior when facing a potential crash. The Beijing Jiatong University (BJTU) driving simulator was applied to test different risk level scenarios which purpose is to find out the differences between taxi drivers and non-professional drivers on driving behaviors. Nearly 60 subjects, which include taxi drivers and non-professional drivers, were recruited in this experiment. Some statistical methods were applied to analyze the data and a logistic regression model was used to perform the high-risk level. The results showed that taxi drivers have more driving experience and their driving style is more conservative in the basic vehicle control level. For the car following behavior, taxi drivers have smaller following speed and larger gap compared to other drivers. For the yellow indication judgment behavior, although taxi drivers are slower than non-professional drivers when getting into the intersection, taxi drivers are more likely to run red light. For the lane changing behavior, taxi drivers' lane changing time is longer than others and lane changing average speed of taxi drivers is lower than other drivers. Another different behavior in high-risk level is that taxi drivers are more inclined to turn the steering wheel when facing a potential crash compared to non-professional drivers. However, non-professional drivers have more abrupt deceleration behaviors if they have the same situation. According to the experiment results, taxi drivers have a smaller crash rate compared to non-professional drivers. Taxi drivers spend a large amount of time on the road so that their driving experience must exceed that of non-professional drivers, which may bring them more skills. It is also speculated that because taxi drivers spend long hours on the job they probably have developed a more relaxed attitude about congestion and they are less likely to be candidates for road rage and over aggressive driving habits.

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Although many studies have investigated accelerator/brake pedal placement in terms of the time needed to move the foot from the accelerator to the brake during emergency braking (i.e. movement time), none have as yet specifically addressed the issue of pedal actuation errors. The primary purpose of the present study was to determine what types of errors (if any) occur, to document the frequency with which various categories of error occur, and to determine whether the different types of error are configuration-dependent. To accomplish this, the foot movements of subjects were observed and recorded while they performed a variety of driving tasks in an automobile simulator. Subjects drove the simulator on four separate occasions. For each session the simulator was modified to represent one of four different pedal, floor, and seating geometries present in actual automobiles. / Master of Science

This research examined the relationship between experience and driving performance with secondary tasks. Data were collected from 42 teenage drivers and their parents using an instrumented vehicle for two one hour test track sessions spaced 12 months apart. For part of the sessions, participants followed a lead vehicle which allowed for range data to be collected. Teenage and experienced drivers' driving were compared for cell phone and odometer tasks. Variables such as Speed, Range to Forward Vehicle, and Driving-Related Eyeglance percentages were all analyzed utilizing ANOVA. Post-hoc analysis on continuous data was performed using a Tukey HSD test. Lane Deviations were examined using Chi-Square analyses. Experienced drivers drove faster overall than teenage drivers. Teenage drivers drove faster in the 12 month session than the first session. No significant effects were found for Speed Variance, Range Variance, or Lane Deviations. Experienced drivers had a higher percentage of driving-related glances than teenage drivers. For the odometer task, teenage drivers were found to follow further behind a lead vehicle than adults. Driving experience was believed to have an effect on driver eyeglance patterns due to increased development of attentional control resulting in better switching between the task and the driving environment. Experienced drivers likely drove faster due to increased confidence in their driving ability. This research supports current GDL cell phone restrictions. A drivers' education lesson plan framework was developed to address these differences. Future research should focus on further refining GDL legislation to address the cognitive differences between teenage and experienced drivers. / Master of Science

Learning to drive represents a rite of passage for many adolescents and young adults, which increases their access to vocational, education, and social opportunities (Almberg et al., 2015; Cox et al., 2012; Lindsay, 2016). When examining licensure rates for individuals with developmental disabilities and/or Autism Spectrum Disorder, research demonstrates lower licensure rates and more difficulties obtaining licensure (Almberg et al., 2015; Cox et al., 2012). Most research focusses on teaching on the road or simulation based driving skills to increase licensure rates, however little research addresses the barriers these individuals face obtaining their drivers permit (Huang et al., 2012; Pandolfe, 2015; Smigiel, 2020; Vindin et al., 2021); . The current research study sought to fill in gaps in the literature by investigating the effects of a traditional academic intervention, Incremental Rehearsal’s, effects on increasing participants knowledge of the drivers manual used for the driver’s permit exam. Results demonstrated positive increases in correct responding for one participant, however inconsistent results for the other two participants. Varying results may be partially due to differing participant characteristics, which could be important for future research considerations.

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