The Prevalence of Violence in Driving among Motor Vehicles Drivers in Tehran

Traffic accidents outcomes not only involve death and injury in the community, but also lead to a collapse in social relationships, disturbing mental health, and lowering the quality of life of people in these communities. Violent behaviors in driving in addition to physical harm and death also affect the social and mental health of citizens. This research was conducted to identify violent behavior of motor vehicle drivers and to measure and distribute these behaviors in Tehran.
Methods and Materiales: This research was carried out using a researcher-made questionnaire with high validity and reliability in the period of September-December 2018. The questionnaire consisted of two sections of demographic information of drivers and 20 specific questions about violent behaviors. Exclusive questions on the 5-point Likert scale were completely disagreeable = 1 to totally agree = 5. Content validity coefficient was used to calculate content validity, which was 0.7 for any questions and 0.72 for all questions. Using the 10 experts, content validity index was also 0.8. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used for reliability. Cronbach's coefficient was 0.7. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 22 and descriptive statistics and non-parametric statistical analysis (Mann-Whitney and Kruskal).

Being nervous from getting stuck in traffic or getting stuck behind a slow-driving driver has the highest distribution among drivers (11.2). The lowest mean was the passing of red lights and tongues or smears for other drivers. Investigating the relationship between demographic variables and the degree of violence in drivers also showed a significant relationship between vehicle type and mean of violence (p = 0.001) and between mean of violence in two groups of drivers who had a history of conflict and the group which did not have (p = 0.018).

Considering that violent behavior in driving can have many negative consequences in the society, educations should be applied for people who have a history of conflict and engagement with other people and have less patience in traffic; in order to improve driving behavior, aggression control and respecting the law.