In our cities, the attacks between drivers and other road users increase. We searched for the reasons by interviewing the best known researcher in traffic psychology
Dr. Biassoni, what do you think of the survey in the European context?
“The comparison data between Italians and drivers from other countries is interesting and disturbing at the same time. The behaviors described (insulting other users, using the horn with an insulting intent or threat, to hell) are as a manual of the ‘driving anger’, exactly as described in the latest research on the guide at the helm. Together with the gestures, the risky overtaking or on the contrary the lecture guide in order to obstruct the way to others”.
Net of news events, don’t you find that it makes the concept of ‘master of the road’ smile with what derives from it when especially in urban centers there is less and less road for cars?
“In reality there are very interesting research that have measured in different European cities the share of city land” dedicated “to cars compared to that dedicated to other road users, demonstrating how many urban centers (including certainly many Italians) are designed for cars: the disproportion between the space dedicated to the circulation and parking of the vehicles and the space dedicated to other road users is overwhelming in favor of cars. For this reason, the administrations that have been realized this situation. Started to take measures aimed at inverting the course, although the road is long and irritated by obstacles but the future will help in this sense “.
Why do you think so?
“Other data show that in large urban centers the new generations are less and less interested in obtaining the license just turned 18 and even less interested in possessing a car. It is clearly going from the idea of the car as well to an idea of car as a service. In this perspective, it seems to me that the concept of ‘master of the road’ risks becoming at least vet. A place of coexistence necessary but which can also become virtuous “.
The arises between weak users and drivers are increasing, has this reflected decrease those between motorists only?
“I would not say. The arises between ‘weak’ users and motorists originate from the fact that the road context is increasingly crowded and complex. Consequently, it is difficult to think that there is simply a ‘transfer of aggression’. More likely that it is a further diffusion of aggression, which from the arrival between motorists widens ‘creatively’ to the outbursts with any other user of the road”.
Motorcyclists, pedestrians, single -sective people, cyclists: generalizing, who is most hated by motorists?
“It depends on the context and personality of the driver. Certainly at the present time it seems that those who travel in a single -seventeenth century have earned a place of honor in this little honorable ranking. Because there are many, because they still constitute a relative novelty, and as always we are on average you remain to accept, know and integrate the new”.
We deepen the specific theme.
“People who use a scooter are configured as a peculiar mix, which combines some characteristics of motorcyclists and cyclists with those of pedestrians. Because on the one hand they can move at a remarkable speed, they occupy the roadway and less the sidewalk. And on the other they occupy a limited space, they juggle between the roadway and the sidewalks, enter the pedestrian areas. Unpredictable and irresponsible, as if their being ‘hybrid creatures’ made them exempt from each specific code, both that of pedestrians, and that of those who move on two wheels, or even more out of four “.
Is different behavior between those who drive a city car or a SUV?
“Some research says so. Strengthening that if it is true that the vehicle has lived a bit like an extension of the body, a large car is ‘strong’ can suggest a sense of invulnerability and environmental control. Having said that, I think that once again the individuality and personality of those who keep the steering wheel comes into play”.
But is the street anger different from what is unleashed in a stadium, for example?
“It is a completely specific genre of anger. That arises from specific before specific: the traffic and the stress that generates or the fact that other road users can be experienced as obstacles on the route towards their destination with the frustration that derives from it. All mixed with the perception that the passenger compartment protects us and makes us anonymous. Furthermore, it is typically a kind of anger that lives in solitude and that is expressed in a very specific way. – To find yourself in a car, so the interaction with the other is mediated by the car itself: hence the playing the horn instead of screaming, turning on rather than threatening physically and so on “.
However, it is clear that it lives in the impossibility of quickly adapting to the news found on the street.
“The expertise is missing, that is, in the minds of the drivers has not yet been formed what in psychology we call ‘representations of the situation’, which allow refined elaborations on the characteristics of the environment and how to move in it, even starting from the understanding of the intentions of others, therefore taking into account the behavior of the other ‘inhabitants’ of the street. These skills are normal for a human being. While for the awaited autonomous guide it is still a mountain to be scaled”.
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