Recognition of typical driving stressors and driver stress level in a Chinese sample

Drivers are adversely affected in decision-making and behavior under excessive stress, thus increasing road crash risks. In this study, the Driver Stress Inventory (DSI) was used to identify typical driving stress scenarios and explore the characteristics of drivers among different stress levels. A total of 1881 drivers took part in the survey. The Precedence Chart was used to rank the importance of driving stressors involved in the scale. K-means cluster was adopted to classify drivers’ stress into three levels, namely low, medium and high-stress. Finally, the Kruskal-Wallis test and Mantel-Haenszel test were employed to analyze the similarities and differences of demographic statistical characteristics under different stress levels. The results of the study indicate that various unexpected scenarios caused by the abnormal behavior of other road users are the most typical stressors. Drivers in the high-stress group tended to be younger and less experienced. Professional drivers reported higher stress than nonprofessional drivers. In addition, high-stress drivers were more prone to be involved in traffic crashes.