Traffic injury prevention
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To determine details of road traffic suicides in Switzerland between 2000 and 2010 and to look at our results in relation to studies from other countries. ⋯ Road traffic suicides account for approximately 1% of all suicide methods used in Switzerland, although unclassifiable cases indicate that the rate might be higher. Every road traffic crash should therefore be routinely investigated by an interdisciplinary team and suicide should be considered as the possible cause.
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2015
Effect of audio in-vehicle red light-running warning message on driving behavior based on a driving simulator experiment.
Drivers' incorrect decisions of crossing signalized intersections at the onset of the yellow change may lead to red light running (RLR), and RLR crashes result in substantial numbers of severe injuries and property damage. In recent years, some Intelligent Transport System (ITS) concepts have focused on reducing RLR by alerting drivers that they are about to violate the signal. The objective of this study is to conduct an experimental investigation on the effectiveness of the red light violation warning system using a voice message. ⋯ This driving simulator study showed a promising effect of the audio in-vehicle warning message on reducing RLR violations and crashes. It is worthwhile to further develop the proposed technology in field applications.
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Traffic injury prevention · Jan 2015
Driver Injury Risk Variability in Finite Element Reconstructions of Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) Frontal Motor Vehicle Crashes.
A 3-phase real-world motor vehicle crash (MVC) reconstruction method was developed to analyze injury variability as a function of precrash occupant position for 2 full-frontal Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) cases. ⋯ A method to compute injury metrics and risks as functions of precrash occupant position was developed and applied to 2 CIREN MVC FE reconstructions. The reconstruction process allows for quantification of the sensitivity and uncertainty of the injury risk predictions based on occupant position to further understand important factors that lead to more severe MVC injuries.
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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.