Accident; analysis and prevention
-
In settings with low seatbelt use prevalence, self-reported seatbelt use estimates often lack validity, and routine observational studies are scarce. In this paper, we aim to describe the prevalence of seatbelt use and associated factors in drivers and front-seat passengers across eight sites in four countries (Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Turkey) using observational studies as well as to produce estimates of country-level and site-level variance. As part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Road Safety Program, data on driver and passenger seatbelt use across four middle-income countries was collected between October 2010 and May 2011 (n=122,931 vehicles). ⋯ At the individual level, older and female drivers were more likely to wear seatbelts, as well as drivers of vehicles transiting at times of increased vehicle flow. We also found that 26-32% and 37-41% of the variance in seatbelt use among drivers and front-seat passengers respectively was explained by differences across sites and countries. Our results demonstrate that there is room for improvement on seatbelt use in middle-income countries and that standardized cross-country studies on road safety risk factors are feasible, providing valuable information for prevention and monitoring activities.
-
This paper proposes a multimodal approach to study safety at intersections by simultaneously analysing the safety and flow outcomes for both motorized and non-motorized traffic. This study uses an extensive inventory of signalized and non-signalized intersections on the island of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, containing disaggregate motor-vehicle, cyclist and pedestrian flows, injury data, geometric design, traffic control and built environment characteristics in the vicinity of each intersection. Bayesian multivariate Poisson models are used to analyze the injury and traffic flow outcomes and to develop safety performance functions for each mode at both facilities. ⋯ Motor-vehicle traffic is the main risk determinant for all injury and intersection types. This highlights the need for safety improvements for cyclists and pedestrians who are, on average, at 14 and12 times greater risk than motorists, respectively, at signalized intersections. Aside from exposure measures, this work also identifies some geometric design and built environment characteristics affecting injury occurrence for cyclists, pedestrians and motor-vehicle occupants.
-
We model a value of statistical life (VSL) transfer function for application to road-safety engineering in developing countries through an income-disaggregated meta-analysis of scope-sensitive stated preference VSL data. The income-disaggregated meta-analysis treats developing country and high-income country data separately. Previous transfer functions are based on aggregated datasets that are composed largely of data from high-income countries. ⋯ The research quantifies uncertainty in the transfer function using parameters of the non-absolute distribution of relative transfer errors. The low- and middle-income function is unbiased, with a median relative transfer error of -.05 (95% CI: -.15 to .03), a 25th percentile error of -.22 (95% CI: -.29 to -.19), and a 75th percentile error of .20 (95% CI: .14 to .30). The quantified uncertainty characteristics support evidence-based approaches to sensitivity analysis and probabilistic risk analysis of economic performance measures for road-safety investments.
-
Text messaging while driving is considered dangerous and known to produce injuries and fatalities. However, the effects of text messaging on driving performance have not been synthesized or summarily estimated. All available experimental studies that measured the effects of text messaging on driving were identified through database searches using variants of "driving" and "texting" without restriction on year of publication through March 2014. ⋯ Typing and reading text messages affects drivers' capability to adequately direct attention to the roadway, respond to important traffic events, control a vehicle within a lane and maintain speed and headway. This meta-analysis provides convergent evidence that texting compromises the safety of the driver, passengers and other road users. Combined efforts, including legislation, enforcement, blocking technologies, parent modeling, social media, social norms and education, will be required to prevent continued deaths and injuries from texting and driving.
-
Evaluating time-reminder strategies before amber: common signal, green flashing and green countdown.
The safety level of signalized intersection depends greatly on drivers' decision-making behaviors, which are significantly influenced by the time-reminder strategy before amber of the signal device. However, previous related studies are mainly based on the statistical results from the field data rather than explore the influence mechanism of the signal device on the signalized intersection's safety level. Therefore, this study aims to find out how these three typical signal devices with various time-reminder strategies, i.e., common signal device (CSD), green signal flashing device (GSFD), and green signal countdown device (GSCD), affect drivers' decision-making processes during the period from the end of the green phase to the onset of the red phase (i.e., G2R) and then evaluate their safety performance from the aspect of RLR violations. ⋯ Empirical analyses show that the time point of decision-making before amber under GSCD is the earliest and that under CSD is the latest, which can also be modeled and reproduced by back propagation neural network (BPNN). After that, five binary logistic regression models are developed to determine the safety effect during other various processes and results show that red-light-running (RLR) violations are not only dependent on the range of dilemma zones (DZ) but also substantially on stop and go decisions of those vehicles in DZ, both of which are the potential cause and direct factors to RLR violations and found to be significantly affected by the time-reminder strategy of the green signal device. Finally, although GSCD stimulates the drivers in DZ to choose to cross the intersection during amber, which produces a higher RLR risk compared with CSD and GSFD, the intersection with GSCD is verified to own the lowest RLR violations due to its greatly positive effect in cutting down the range of DZ.