The effect of stress and stress susceptibility on driving performance

Abstract

The following literature review seeks to investigate the effects of stress and stress susceptibility on driving behaviour and performance. Many personal, environmental, and personality factors have been identified that lead to erroneous and dangerous driving behaviours like speeding, tailgating, and jerky driving. Physiological and psychometric measures indicate that these factors lead to greater perceived and experienced stress in drivers, which suggests that stress could have a mediating effect on the relationship between these factors and risky driving. Moreover, stress has been shown to have an obvious impact on cognitive processes involved in driving, such as spatial attention and perceptual-motor performance. Many studies propose possible mechanisms for how stress can affect driving behaviour. The findings from these studies can be applied in the development of interventions that reduce motor vehicle accidents and promote driving safety, specifically interventions that involve managing drivers’ stress level.