The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to identify the ways public transport drivers cope with stressful events of daily working life. One hypothesis is that stress‐induced problems at work are resistant to direct actions and that this may be even more the case among blue‐collar workers who typically have less control than managerial and professional staff. Emotion‐focused rather than problem‐focused forms of coping may therefore be the more prevalent. The second aim was to examine the relationships between coping processes and adaptational outcomes such as work strain and somatic complaints. The discussion about the effectiveness of different coping strategies shows a positive bias toward problem‐focused approaches. Yet there is little empitical evidence confirming either the superiority of problem‐solving attempts or the ineffectiveness of efforts to manage the stress‐related emotions (Menaghan&