Traffic injury prevention
-
Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2012
ReviewRoad traffic injuries and data systems in Egypt: addressing the challenges.
Road traffic injuries (RTIs) are a major cause of global mortality and morbidity, killing approximately 1.3 million people and injuring 20 to 50 million each year. The significance of this public health threat is most pronounced in low- and middle-income countries where 90 percent of the world's road traffic-related fatalities take place. Current estimates for Egypt show a road traffic fatality rate of 42 deaths per 100,000 population-one of the highest in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. RTIs are also responsible for 1.8 percent of all deaths and 2.4 percent of all disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost in the country. Despite this, studies surrounding this topic are scarce, and reliable data are limited. The overall goal of this article is to define the health impact of RTIs in Egypt and to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each data source for the purpose of improving the current RTI data systems. ⋯ The results of this article clearly highlight the significant burden that road traffic injuries pose on the health of the Egyptian population. The hospital-based injury surveillance system that has been established in the country and the use of International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) coding brings the system very closely in line with international guidelines. There is, however, some considerable room for improvement, including the need to extend the coverage of the surveillance system, the inclusion of injury severity scores and disability indicators, and standardization of the sometimes rather disparate sources from various sectors in order to maximally capture the true burden of RTIs.
-
Head injuries are the most common injuries sustained by children in motor vehicle crashes regardless of age, restraint, and crash direction. For rear seat occupants, the interaction of the subject with the seat back and the vehicle side interior structures has been previously highlighted. In order to advance this knowledge to the development of countermeasures, a summary of vehicle components that contributed to these injuries is needed. Therefore, the objective of this study was to create a contact map of the vehicle interior for head and face injuries to rear-seated restrained children in front crashes. ⋯ Contact points associated with head/face injury for restrained children 0 to 15 years in frontal crashes have been delineated. In a majority of the cases, the head/face injury was the most severe injury and severe injuries to other body regions were uncommon, suggesting that efforts to mitigate head injuries for these occupants would greatly improve their overall safety. The majority of the head/face contact points were to the first row seat back and B-pillar. In these frontal crashes, the importance of head/face contact with the vehicle side structure suggests that deploying a curtain air bag in frontal impacts may help manage the energy of impact. These data advance the current understanding of injury patterns and causation in frontal crashes involving restrained rear-row occupants and can be used to develop solutions to mitigate the injuries sustained.
-
Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2012
Risk factors for child and adolescent occupants, bicyclists, and pedestrians in motorized vehicle collisions.
The aim was to use similar population data to examine the relative risk of collision injury among children of different ages and adolescents involved in various collision types and to elucidate the possible risk factors related to road collisions involving children and adolescents in a large, 2-wheeled vehicle environment. ⋯ The risk of collision injury varied for the different groups of children in the 4 collision types. To reduce the risk of injury for young children, we recommend the development of road-crossing training tools for parents. In addition, the behaviors of children should be taken into consideration when developing in-vehicle assistance systems.
-
Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2012
An investigation of the risk factors causing severe injuries in crashes involving gravel trucks.
Gravel trucks that transport heavy materials such as gravel, sand, dirt, or crushed rock require great skill and attention for safe driving, especially when they carry excessive loads or drive at unwarranted speeds that tend to cause serious accidents. Very few studies in the past have attempted to examine the effect of risk factors on the severity of injury associated with gravel truck crashes. This study intends to assess the impact of risk factors on the severity of injury associated with gravel truck crashes. ⋯ Some policy recommendations to prevent gravel truck-involved crashes that resulted in serious injuries include mandating gravel truck operators and companies to strictly enforce the maximum legal driving hours and improve the wage system of a low pay base and high-bonus by runs, in addition to a required driver training program, mandating gravel truck drivers to attend a traffic safety program for the education and awareness of risky driving behaviors--for example, overloading, speeding, and prolonged driving--before obtaining a professional driver's license.
-
Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2012
Development and validation of a crash culpability scoring tool.
Several traffic safety research techniques require researchers to separate crash-involved drivers into culpable and nonculpable. Nonculpable drivers are assumed to be randomly involved in crashes by external factors and to approximate a noncollision control population. If this is true, factors that increase crash risk should be found more often in culpable than in nonculpable drivers. Though a culpability scoring tool has been developed for research purposes, that tool does not adequately address winter driving conditions (Robertson and Drummer 1994). Moreover, traditional culpability scoring requires assessors to read and score individual collision reports. The purpose of this study is to develop and validate an automated, rule-based Canadian culpability scoring tool that is capable of rapidly scoring police crash reports from large administrative datasets. ⋯ We have developed an automated culpability scoring tool contextualized to Canadian driving conditions. This tool will allow road safety researchers to assess collision responsibility in large administrative data sets derived from police reports.