Accident; analysis and prevention
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Hazard perception is a critical skill for road users. In this study, an open-loop motorcycle simulator was used to examine the effects of motorcycle riding and car driving experience on hazard perception and visual scanning patterns. Three groups of participants were tested: experienced motorcycle riders who were experienced drivers (EM-ED), inexperienced riders/experienced drivers (IM-ED), and inexperienced riders/inexperienced drivers (IM-ID). ⋯ The results revealed a significant monotonic decrease in hazard response times as experience increased from IM-ID to IM-ED to EM-ED. Compared to the IM-ID group, both the EM-ED and IM-ED groups exhibited more flexible visual scanning patterns that were sensitive to the presence of hazards. These results point to the potential benefit of training hazard perception and visual scanning in motorcycle riders, as has been successfully demonstrated in previous studies with car drivers.
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With the expansion of bicycle usage and limited funding and/or space for segregated pedestrian and bicycle paths, there is a need for traffic, road design and local government engineers to decide if it is more appropriate for space to be shared between either cyclists and pedestrians, or between cars and cyclists, and what restrictions need to be applied in such circumstances. To provide knowledge to aid engineers and policy makers in making these decisions, this study explored death and morbidity data for the state of New South Wales, Australia to examine rates and severity of injury arising from collisions between pedestrians and cyclists, and between cyclists and motor vehicles (MVs). An analysis of the severity of hospitalised injuries was conducted using International Classification of Diseases, Version 10, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AM) diagnosis-based Injury Severity Score (ICISS) and the Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY) was used to measure burden of injury arising from collisions resulting in death or hospitalisation. ⋯ For all collision mechanisms, the odds of serious injury on admission are greater for the elderly than for those in other age groups. The significant burden of injury arising from collisions of cyclists and MVs needs to be addressed. However in the absence of appropriate controls, increasing the opportunity for conflict between cyclists and pedestrians (through an increase in shared spaces for these users) may shift the burden of injury from cyclists to pedestrians, in particular, older pedestrians.
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Safety belts protect occupants in frontal impacts by reducing occupant deceleration and preventing the occupant from hitting interior vehicle components likely to cause injury. However, occupants moving forward during the impact may contact the safety belt webbing across their chest and abdomen. We hypothesized that if the occupant loaded their knee-thigh-hip (KTH) region with enough force to result in injury to this region-it might prevent compression (and injury) of their abdomen by the safety belt. ⋯ Occupants with KTH injury were four times less likely (adjusted odds ratio=0.25, 95% CL 0.10, 0.62) to have concomitant serious intra-abdominal injury caused by the safety belt. Although safety belts save lives and prevent serious injury, some occupants may sustain serious intra-abdominal injury when the abdomen is loaded by the safety belt during a frontal impact. These results may be useful to motor vehicle manufacturers and others who design and test motor vehicle safety systems.
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An analysis of 6215 hospitalized unintentional injuries among children aged 0-14 in northwest China.
The aim of this study was to analyze the sorts and the external causes of hospitalized unintentional injuries among children aged 0-14 so as to learn the status of children's unintentional injuries in northwest China and then to give some references for the prevention. As many as 6215 abstracts of the discharged medical records of hospitalized children for unintentional injuries from 31 hospitals in northwest China from January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2003 were analyzed, especially for the different external causes and sorts of injuries according to ages, genders and locations. We identified 2081 (33.5%) fractures, 1279 (20.6%) scald/burns, 1125 (18.1%) internal organ injuries and 611 (9.8%) open injuries among the 6215 hospitalized children for unintentional injuries. ⋯ The total length of stay in hospital was 106915.2 days, with a mean of 17.2 days per case. A large proportion of fall, traffic accident, and fire/explosion induced fractures, scald/burns, internal organ and encephalic injuries characterize the childhood unintentional injuries in northwest China. From the analyses of external causes, prevention strategies for different external causes should be correspondingly specific.