Traffic injury prevention
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2020
The epidemiology and prehospital care of motorcycle crashes in a sub-Saharan African urban center.
Road traffic crashes (RTCs) are common among motorcyclists in Kigali, Rwanda. The Service d'Aide Medicale Urgente (SAMU), a prehospital ambulance service, responds to many of these crashes. We aimed to describe motorcycle-related RTCs managed by SAMU. ⋯ Motorcycle-related RTCs represent a large burden of disease for patients treated by SAMU in Kigali, Rwanda. Young men are most at risk of injury, which imposes a financial strain on society. Though injuries occurred frequently, critical trauma cases from motorcycle crashes were uncommon. This may be a result of several initiatives in Rwanda to improve road safety.
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2020
Investigation of traffic and safety behavior of pedestrians while texting or web-surfing.
Objective: More and more pedestrians use mobile phones in their daily traffic activities by the roadside or even when crossing the street. The objective of this research is to examine pedestrians' traffic and safety behavior while texting or web-surfing, when crossing signalized intersections. Methods: In order to compare the behavior of distracted and non-distracted pedestrians, an experimental process through video recording was carried out in real road conditions, in three signalized intersections in the center of Athens in Greece. ⋯ Conclusions: Mobile phones are integral to contemporary daily life and their use and penetration is increasing rapidly as well. For this reason, it is crucial to investigate the impacts of distracted walking on pedestrians' traffic and safety behavior. Various measures and strategies should be implemented and further research should be conducted as texting and web-surfing distraction is associated with a rather high risk.
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2020
Observational StudyThe characteristics of dockless electric rental scooter-related injuries in a large U.S. city.
To describe the characteristics of dockless electric rental scooter ("e-scooter")-related injuries presenting to two emergency departments in one large U.S. city. ⋯ E-scooters are an emerging transportation technology associated with a wide range of potentially serious injuries that consume substantial emergency department and hospital resources. Head injuries are a particular concern, as few e-scooter riders are wearing helmets at the time of injury.
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2020
The electric scooter: A surging new mode of transportation that comes with risk to riders.
Objective: The proliferation of electric scooter sharing companies has inundated many municipalities with electric scooters. The primary objective of this study is to characterize the epidemiology of injuries from this new mode of transportation in order to inform injury prevention efforts. Methods: A multicenter, retrospective study was conducted at two level 1 trauma centers in an urban setting. ⋯ There was a lack of safety equipment utilization and concomitant alcohol utilization was common. These may offer areas of focus for injury prevention efforts. Additionally, standardization of injury coding for electric scooter related injury is critical to future studies and will help better understand the impact of this new mode of transportation.
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2020
Analysis of drivers' deceleration behavior based on naturalistic driving data.
Objective: As one of the bases for designing a humanlike brake control system for the intelligent vehicle, drivers' deceleration behavior needs to be understood. There are two modes for drivers' deceleration behavior: (i) brake pedal input, by applying brake system to reduce the speed; (ii) no pedal input, by releasing the accelerator pedal without pressing the brake pedal, thus decelerating by naturalistic driving resistance. The deceleration behavior that drivers choose to press the brake pedal has been investigated in previous studies. ⋯ Conclusion: The drivers' deceleration behavior can be divided into "no pedal input" and "brake pedal input." The following six factors significantly affect drivers' choice of deceleration mode: Traffic flow, Intersection mode, Lead vehicle motion state, Ego-vehicle motion state, Ego-vehicle speed and THW. The logistic regression model can quantify the influence of these six factors on drivers' deceleration behavior. This study provides a theoretical basis for the braking system design of ADAS (Advanced Driving Assistant System) and intelligent control system.