Accident; analysis and prevention
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Observational Study
Adolescent driving behavior before and during restrictions related to COVID-19.
Understanding who heeds the driving-related COVID-19 restrictions is critical for assisting public health professionals improve response to this and future pandemic events. The purpose of the current study was to characterize driving behavior changes among adolescents as a function of COVID-19 restrictions. It was hypothesized that adolescent driving would be reduced by COVID-19 restrictions, especially for younger teens, non-minorities, females, non-working teens, and those with higher prosocial tendencies. ⋯ Findings provide early evidence of COVID-19 restriction-related adolescent driving changes suggesting older, employed, minority teens and teens with lower prosocial tendencies are less likely to reduce driving behavior. These observations provide a foundation for more extensive studies of adolescent drivers during various driving and contact restrictions and inform future public health campaigns for social distancing.
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Reducing nonmotorized crashes requires a profound understanding of the causes and consequences of the crashes at the facility level. Generally, existing literature on bicyclists and pedestrian crash models suffers from two distinct problems: lack of exposure/volume data and inadequacy in capturing potential correlations across various crash aspects. To develop a robust framework for pedestrian crash analysis, this research employed a multivariate model across multiple pedestrian crash severities incorporating a crucial piece of information: pedestrian exposure. ⋯ Bus stop presence was found to have a negative influence on incapacitating injury crashes and a positive influence on non-incapacitating injury crashes. Moreover, the pedestrian volume at intersections positively influences non-incapacitating injury crashes. The difference in influence across crash types warrants careful and focused policy design of intersections to reduce pedestrian crashes of all severity types.
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Emergency response drivers (ERDs) are often required to engage in high-risk driving manoeuvres on their way to a reported incident. Such risk requires that these drivers receive a high-level of training and continued development. The aim of this paper was to investigate an innovative format for a new potential tool that could support the training and assessment of these drivers: a single-clip Holistic Hazard Test, containing multiple hazards in a single route. ⋯ ERDs once again responded to MCQs more accurately, and also scored more hazard points on the basis of faster responses to hazards compared to control participants. These results suggest such tests can successfully tap into ERD-specific skills with regard to spotting, predicting and responding to hazards on the road. We recommend refinement of this tool for assessment of emergency response drivers, and further development to extend the materials to create a training tool.