Accident; analysis and prevention
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At unsignalized crosswalks, interactions between pedestrians and vehicles often lead to traffic safety hazards due to absence of traffic control and unclear right-of-ways. To address this safety problem, there is a need to understand the interaction behaviors of pedestrians and vehicles that are complicated by a variety of traffic and roadway attributes. The prime objective of this study is to establish a reliable simulation model to represent the vehicle yielding and pedestrian crossing behaviors at unsignalized crosswalks in a realistic way. ⋯ Moreover, with the definitions of the vehicle-pedestrian conflicts, the proposed model is capable to evaluate the pedestrian safety. Thereby, the simulation model has the potential to serve as a useful tool for assessing safety performance and traffic operations at existing facilities. Furthermore, the model can enable the evaluation of policy effectiveness and the selection of engineering treatments at unsignalized crosswalks to improve safety and efficiency of pedestrian crossing.
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Pedestrians are considered as one of the most vulnerable road users in less developed countries (LDCs). Yet, pedestrian safety remains poorly addressed in both urban and rural transportation plans in most LDCs. Since most pedestrian injury severity studies are conducted in developed countries, this study fills the gap with an inquiry focused on a highly urbanized region of an LDC that faces a rapid increase in car ownership and increasing pedestrian-related traffic injuries, documenting specific pedestrian safety issues and providing guidance for injury prevention measures in such places. ⋯ The street level analysis also finds that fatal pedestrian crashes occur close to different types of transit stations. The results of this study of three cities in Metro Manila, reflect the twofold challenge to pedestrian safety in rapidly urbanizing areas in countries such as the Philippines that are classified as lower-middle-income: they face some of the same pedestrian safety issues as more developed areas, but with a much larger number of pedestrians using the streets, and a built environment that was not planned for the high volume and speed of motor vehicle traffic on today's roadways. Policies and planning that support increased pedestrian safety therefore need to address this dual challenge in the contexts where they are most needed.
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Comparative Study
The influence of pedestrian countdown signals on children's crossing behavior at school intersections.
Previous studies have shown that pedestrian countdown signals had different influences on pedestrian crossing behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the installation of countdown signals at school intersections on children's crossing behavior. A comparison analysis was carried out on the basis of observations at two different school intersections with or without pedestrian countdown signals in the city of Jinan, China. ⋯ Boys were found more likely to run crossing than girls, but there was no significant gender difference in other crossing behavior. Finally, it's recommended to remove countdown at the end of the Red Man phase to improve children's crossing behavior and reduce the conflicts with vehicles. Meanwhile other measures are proposed to improve children safety at school intersections.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Driving simulator sickness: Impact on driving performance, influence of blood alcohol concentration, and effect of repeated simulator exposures.
Simulator sickness is a major obstacle to the use of driving simulators for research, training and driver assessment purposes. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the possible influence of simulator sickness on driving performance measures such as standard deviation of lateral position (SDLP), and the effect of alcohol or repeated simulator exposure on the degree of simulator sickness. Twenty healthy male volunteers underwent three simulated driving trials of 1h's duration with a curvy rural road scenario, and rated their degree of simulator sickness after each trial. ⋯ Overall, the results suggest no influence of simulator sickness on SDLP or several other driving performance measures. However, simulator sickness seems to cause test subjects to drive more carefully, with lower average speed and fewer steering wheel reversals, hampering the interpretation of these outcomes as measures of driving impairment and safety. BAC and repeated simulator exposures may act as confounding variables by influencing the degree of simulator sickness in experimental studies.
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Pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists can suffer serious injury in road traffic crashes. To date, no studies examine the injury severity within this vulnerable cohort following collisions with reversing cars. ⋯ This is the first study that analyzes injury severity among these vulnerable road users following collisions with reversing vehicles. The majority of collisions occur at low impact speed during the day. Most injuries resulting from these collisions are not serious, however pedestrians are at greatest risk of severe injury to any body region. The lower extremities suffer the most serious and frequent injuries within this cohort.