Accident; analysis and prevention
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Recreational boating is a popular leisure time activity in many countries. It is estimated that, in Australia, boating incidents cause more harm than rail and air crashes combined and, in terms of transport, are second only to motor vehicle crashes as a cause of serious injury. The consumption of alcohol among recreational boaters is considered an important risk factor for fatalities and injuries among both operators and passengers. ⋯ The odds of not having a drink were associated, after adjusting for age, with having completed a boating education course and with carrying children less than 12 years on board. The use of alcohol was not found to be prevalent among WA recreational boat owners. Based on these findings, it is recommended that efforts to decrease boating-related incidents, such as through education and legislation measures, be monitored over time to determine the effects of these strategies upon safety behaviours.
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This study examined the effects of repeated iPod interactions on driver performance to determine if performance decrements decreased with practice. Nineteen younger drivers (mean age=19.4, range 18-22) participated in a seven session study in the University of Calgary Driving Simulator (UCDS). Drivers encountered a number of critical events on the roadways while interacting with an iPod including a pedestrian entering the roadway, a vehicle pullout, and a lead vehicle braking. ⋯ Difficult iPod interactions significantly increased the amount of visual attention directed into the vehicle above that of the baseline condition. With practice, slowed responses to driving hazards while interacting with the iPod declined somewhat, but a decrement still remained relative to the baseline condition. The multivariate results suggest that access to difficult iPod tasks while vehicles are in motion should be curtailed.
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Diving is the most frequent cause of spinal cord injury (SCI) from recreation and sport in Canada. This study was done to identify risk factors for SCI from diving in the province of Quebec. ⋯ The target for prevention of diving SCI is male youths and young adults. Above-ground pools are too shallow and small for diving. Deep ends of many in-ground pools are excessively shallow and short since many SCIs resulted from striking the up-slope. Prevention of SCI from diving needs to focus on education of potential victims, pool vendors and manufacturers, and regulations for safety norms in private pools. Water safety should highlight diving as a high-risk activity, and emphasize that most home pools and natural sites are unsafe. Safer evidence-based pool designs and more effective warnings need to be implemented.
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Most crash severity studies ignored severity correlations between driver-vehicle units involved in the same crashes. Models without accounting for these within-crash correlations will result in biased estimates in the factor effects. This study developed a Bayesian hierarchical binomial logistic model to identify the significant factors affecting the severity level of driver injury and vehicle damage in traffic crashes at signalized intersections. ⋯ Crashes occurring in peak time and in good street-lighting condition as well as those involving pedestrian injuries tend to be less severe. But crashes that occur in night time, at T/Y type intersections, and on right-most lane, as well as those that occur in intersections where red light cameras are installed tend to be more severe. Moreover, heavy vehicles have a better resistance on severe crash and thus induce less severe injuries, while crashes involving two-wheel vehicles, young or aged drivers, and the involvement of offending party are more likely to result in severe injuries.
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Traffic crash statistics and previous research have shown an increased risk of traffic crashes at signalized intersections. How to diagnose safety problems and develop effective countermeasures to reduce crash rate at intersections is a key task for traffic engineers and researchers. This study aims at investigating whether the driving simulator can be used as a valid tool to assess traffic safety at signalized intersections. ⋯ Furthermore, this study used an innovative approach of using surrogate safety measures from the simulator to contrast with the crash analysis for the field data. The simulator experiment results indicated that compared to the right-turn lane with the low rear-end crash history record (2 crashes), subjects showed a series of more risky behaviors at the right-turn lane with the high rear-end crash history record (16 crashes), including higher deceleration rate (1.80+/-1.20 m/s(2) versus 0.80+/-0.65 m/s(2)), higher non-stop right-turn rate on red (81.67% versus 57.63%), higher right-turn speed as stop line (18.38+/-8.90 km/h versus 14.68+/-6.04 km/h), shorter following distance (30.19+/-13.43 m versus 35.58+/-13.41 m), and higher rear-end probability (9/59=0.153 versus 2/60=0.033). Therefore, the relative validity of driving simulator was well established for the traffic safety studies at signalized intersections.