Driver behavior in developing countries: evidence from modeling anger and aggression performance of Nigerian drivers on inter-city trips

The study investigated driver behavior in a developing country, based on Nigerian data. It is assumed that angry and aggressive behaviors are revealed when drivers respond to various traffic situations. The drivers studied include shared-taxi, bus, truck and impulsive drivers. Impulsive drivers were identified as a special category of drivers to unravel the influence of the impulsivity of driver. Drivers’ angry and aggressive behaviors were captured from the replies reported when drivers were faced with a list of hypothetical traffic states prevalent on inter-city roads in Nigeria. The questionnaire used to elicit driver response was adapted from the Manchester's Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ). Initially drivers were asked how frequently they would perform each behavior on a 6-point scale. Exploratory factor analysis was used to establish the principal components of the data and to remove highly correlated variables from the data set. Using the SPSS command syntax, the response menu of the new data set was re-coded to generate a yes and no answer, thereby yielding binary data, simulating a binomial distribution. The maximum likelihood logistic regression was then employed in estimating the odds ratios associated with the estimated models. The results show that the anger performance model is a good fit, while the aggression performance model is satisfactory. A probability model of driver behavior was next derived using the sigmoid function. On the whole, the study suggests that the probability of driver aggression was high while the probability of driver anger was even higher. Impulsive drivers revealed higher aggression performance than others. The approach is novel in quantifying the behavior of drivers of different categories. The findings are also useful for policy making towards influencing driver behaviors on inter-city roads in developing countries.