Development of a short form of the driving anger expression inventory

•Shorter versions of the DAX were developed (25 and 15 items).•Both versions retained the original four-factor structure.•Scores on the DAX-short were correlated with self-reported road rage.•Scores on the DAX-short differed according to crash involvement.

The present study developed a revised version of the driving anger expression inventory (25-items) and a short (15-item) version using data from 551 drivers. Split half factor analyses on both versions confirmed the original four factors; personal physical aggressive expression, use of a vehicle to express anger, verbal aggressive expression and adaptive/constructive expression. The two DAX versions were strongly correlated, demonstrating the suitability of both forms of the scale and the aggressive forms of expression were higher for drivers who reported initiating road rage interactions. Total aggressive expression was also higher for drivers who reported recent crash-related conditions, such as: loss of concentration, losing control of their vehicle, moving violations, near-misses and major crashes. The revised DAX and DAX-short provide shorter versions of the 49-item DAX that can more easily be combined with other questionnaires and require smaller sample sizes to analyse. Further research is required to validate these tools among different samples and populations.