The analysis revealed that people who live in communities with fewer travel choices are more likely to be victims of aggressive driving than those who live in communities with more choice to walk, bike or ride transit. In addition, communities with more miles of highway per capita and higher amounts of miles traveled per person also indicate a higher rate of aggressive driving deaths. Areas with higher aggressive driving rates are typically marked by many separate and spread out subdivisions. They also feature office parks and commercial centers that can only be reached by high-speed arterials, which are more dangerous for drivers as well as more frustrating for residents to use. These regions tend to be places where development patterns dictate that few people can choose to run errands or go to work by walking or biking and where transit runs too infrequently or is too far away to be convenient.
Residents often have now choice but to drive everywhere they go.
Communities with low aggressive driving death rates were more likely to have high transit use, many people who walked or biked to work, and fewer miles of highway per resident. Areas with these attributes tend to be more compact communities with connecting neighborhood streets. By the nature of their design, these communities are more easily served by transit, offer residents more convenient access to retail and services, and are safer for automobile users because they encourage lower travel speeds. The relationships found were not simply due to having fewer commuters on the road. More transportation choices and better community design appear to be making the roads safer for all users of the transportation system, including drivers.