Traffic injury prevention
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2015
Driver Behavior During Overtaking Maneuvers from the 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study.
Lane changes with the intention to overtake the vehicle in front are especially challenging scenarios for forward collision warning (FCW) designs. These overtaking maneuvers can occur at high relative vehicle speeds and often involve no brake and/or turn signal application. Therefore, overtaking presents the potential of erroneously triggering the FCW. A better understanding of driver behavior during lane change events can improve designs of this human-machine interface and increase driver acceptance of FCW. The objective of this study was to aid FCW design by characterizing driver behavior during lane change events using naturalistic driving study data. ⋯ This study developed and validated an algorithm to detect lane change events in the 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study and characterized lane change events in the database. The characterization of driver behavior in lane change events showed that driver lane change frequency and minimum TTC vary with travel speed. The characterization of overtaking maneuvers from this study will aid in improving the overall effectiveness of FCW systems by providing active safety system designers with further understanding of driver action in overtaking maneuvers, thereby increasing system warning accuracy, reducing erroneous warnings, and improving driver acceptance.
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2015
The risk of a safety-critical event associated with mobile device use in specific driving contexts.
We explored drivers' mobile device use and its associated risk of a safety-critical event (SCE) in specific driving contexts. Our premise was that the SCE risk associated with mobile device use increases when the driving task becomes demanding. ⋯ Drivers' engagement in mobile device subtasks varies by driving context. The SCE risk associated with mobile device use is dependent on the types of subtasks performed and the driving context. The findings of this exploratory study can be applied to the design of driver-vehicle interfaces that mitigate distraction by preventing visual-manual subtasks while driving.
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2015
Mortality Risk in Pediatric Motor Vehicle Crash Occupants: Accounting for Developmental Stage and Challenging Abbreviated Injury Scale Metrics.
Survival risk ratios (SRRs) and their probabilistic counterpart, mortality risk ratios (MRRs), have been shown to be at odds with Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) severity scores for particular injuries in adults. SRRs have been validated for pediatrics but have not been studied within the context of pediatric age stratifications. We hypothesized that children with similar motor vehicle crash (MVC) injuries may have different mortality risks (MR) based upon developmental stage and that these MRs may not correlate with AIS severity. ⋯ Trauma severity metrics are important for outcome prediction models and can be used in pediatric triage algorithms and other injury research. Trauma severity may vary for similar injuries based upon developmental stage, and this difference should be reflected in severity metrics. The MR-based data-driven determination of injury severity in pediatric occupants of different age cohorts provides a supplement or an alternative to AIS severity classification for pediatric occupants in MVCs.
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2015
The road traffic crashes as a neglected public health concern; an observational study from Iranian population.
Traffic crashes are multifactorial events caused by human factors, technical issues, and environmental conditions. The present study aimed to determine the role of human factors in traffic crashes in Iran using the proportional odds regression model. ⋯ Public health strategies and preventive policies should be focused on more common human risk factors such as disregarding traffic rules and regulations, drivers' rushing, and alcohol consumption due to their greater population attributable fraction and more intuitive impacts on society.
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2015
The contribution of the Israeli trauma system to the survival of road traffic casualties.
According to the World Health Organization, over one million people die annually from traffic crashes, in which over half are pedestrians, bicycle riders and two-wheel motor vehicles. In Israel, during the last decade, mortality from traffic crashes has decreased from 636 in 1998 to 288 in 2011. Professionals attribute the decrease in mortality to enforcement, improved infrastructure and roads and behavioral changes among road users, while no credit is given to the trauma system. Trauma systems which care for severe and critical casualties improve the injury outcomes and reduce mortality among road casualties. ⋯ This study clearly shows that without any improvement in the health system, specifically the trauma system, the number of traffic deaths would be considerably greater. Although the health system has a significant contribution on reducing mortality, it does not receive the appropriate acknowledgment or resources for its proportion in the fight against traffic accidents.