Are Beautiful traffic environments safer than Ugly traffic environments?

Abstract: To link aesthetics to traffic safety, the field of environmental psychology was consid-ered. A new model of driving behaviour was developed, based on Lewin’s (1951) equation, B = f (P,E) and by employing Küllers’ (1991) model of the basic emotional process. The employed model B = f (R(Road), U(Users), A(Task), P(Person)), states that driving behaviour (B) is related to the physical environment (R), other road users (U), the driving task (A), the individual factors and own abilities (P); and to the interaction among them. In this way, driving behaviour was investigated in relation to aesthetics both directly and through the driver’s basic emotional process. Taken together, the results confirmed that driving behaviour is influenced by aesthetics. It is likely that drivers display lower speed in beautiful rather than ugly traffic environments, not spontaneously and directly as an effect of aesthetics, but after a sequence of driving and stop over.