Personal lifestyle and behavior are associated with the 10 leading causes of death for Americans. Motor vehicle crashes kill more than 40,000 people and injure more than 3 million people annually in the United States, representing one of America's most serious health and economic problems. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), someone in America is injured in a motor vehicle crash every 14 seconds and someone is killed every 12 minutes (as cited in Ad Council, 2003). It is widely accepted that increased use of safety belts and reductions in driving while impaired are two of the most effective means to reduce the risk of death and serious injury of occupants in motor vehicle crashes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and NHTSA monitor the use of seat belts by surveying the population. The CDC annually conducts a telephone survey called the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The NHTSA conducts an observational survey called the National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS). The purpose of this study was to examine three questions when estimating safety belt use in the United States: (1) Does the BRFSS differ from NOPUS? (2) Is there regional variation in the differences between BRFSS and NOPUS? (3) Do BRFSS and NOPUS data differ significantly depending on whether the safety belt law is primary, secondary, or none? In this study, the two surveys were compared. Three research hypotheses were tested in the null format at the .05 level of significance using a two-tailed test. The z test was used to determine the difference in the nominal data of the two independent proportions. The results of the study revealed that there is a difference between the self-reported BRFSS survey and the NOPUS observational data.

Self-balancing vehicles or those without any seat so called Personal Light Electric Vehicles (PLEV) are excluded from the scope of the Type Approval Regulation (EU) No. 168/2013 for two- or three-wheel vehicles and quadricycles (category L vehicles) thus they have to be regulated on national level since 2016. Furthermore, at that time a definition of micromobility devices was missing - and therefore different national categories with detached requirements were established. In 2019 SAE International published the J3 l 94TM for the classification of powered micromobility vehicles. A fundamental research project undertaken by the German Federal Highway Research Institute provided recommendations to integrate PLEV with respect to traffic safety into the existing road traffic. Subsequently, the legislative frame called Personal light electric vehicles regulation enforces the approval of PLEV and safe usage in Germany as well as administrative offences. Behavioural rules, technical and safety requirements characterize the PLEV regulation. In a next step, PLEVs market introduction with respect to traffic safety is evaluated in a current project with different aspects e.g. a market dissemination, user analysis and user behaviour, traffic surveillance and accident analysis. [from Introduction]

Att köra fastän trötthet upplevs är en erkänd trafikfara. Om en förare idag kör när denne är trött klassas det som vårdslöshet i trafiken. Dock är det nästan omöjligt att vid en olycka påvisa att olyckan skedde för att en förare var trött. Det praktiska resultatet är att det lämnas åt föraren att själv avgöra om denne är för trött för att föra fram fordonet säkert. Hela situationen om att vara en trafikfara eller ej lämnas då åt en subjektiv bedömning.   I denna rapport undersöks olika sömnstadier, och metoder för att avgöra när och hur det är lämpligast att vakna för att vakna i ett mer alert tillstånd. För att sedan använda de metoder som visar sig vara lämpade som indata och parametrar till en algoritm som ska avgöra när det är som lämpligast att vakna för att vakna mer alert. Rapporten gör också en kalkyl som kan användas för att fastställa prototypens utvecklingskostnader.   Arbetet resulterar i en prototyp som föreslår en lösning till problemet med trötthet i trafiken. De kostnader som framkommer i samband med prototyputveckling fastställs och presenteras.   Undersökningen och utvecklandet av den tekniska lösningen har delats upp i två moduler och kommer att göras i samverkan med en extern studentgrupp på skolan för elektroteknik och datavetenskap (EECS) vid Kungliga Tekniska högskolan. / Driving although experiencing fatigue is a recognized traffic hazard. Today, if a driver is driving despite being tired, it is considered to be reckless driving. However, in the event of an accident, it is almost impossible to prove that the accident occurred because the driver was tired. The practical result is that it is left to the driver to decide if one is too tired or not to drive the vehicle safely. The whole situation of being a traffic hazard or not is then subjected to a subjective assessment. This report examines different sleep stages and methods for determining when it’s most appropriate, and how it’s most appropriate to wake up, with the aim on waking up in a more alert state. Further, to use the methods that prove to be suitable as inputs and parameters of an algorithm. The report also examines different calculations that can be used to determine the development cost of the prototype. The result consists of a prototype that is a beginning on addressing the problem with fatigue in traffic. It also consist of a calculation determining the development cost. The research and development of the technical solution has been divided into two modules and will be done in collaboration with an external student group at School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2017 / The use of communication technologies has brought changes to our daily ways of doing things. Youth use technology for different purposes at different locations. As technology grows everyday with various advantages, its benefits come along with some disadvantages. Road accidents are one of the major problems that South Africa experiences. The focus of this study was to explore the danger of texting and driving and its potentials for road accidents. This research focused on the negative impact of technology, mainly technological distraction, while driving. Broadly, this research looks at the social and cultural impact of texting and mobility, with specific focus on distracted driving. This study is significant in the social analysis of technology use and distraction; this significance is made more important considering that there is very limited study of this social issue in South Africa. The always-available communication culture (such as texting while driving) should be viewed as a problematic phenomenal. For data collection, the researcher conducted a survey with adults and youth drivers to explore the perceptions and attitudes of drivers towards cell phone use, texting and driving. The researcher also conducted roadside observations of drivers to investigate the occurrence of distracted driving due to technology use, and interviews were conducted with Traffic Officers to share their professional experience on observing incidences of texting and driving. The study reveals that technology use, texting and driving is a common problem among young drivers, while adults tend to be more careful and engage less in this activity. Aspect of the findings of the study shows that 60% of drivers report that they have sent a text while driving. Moreover, the study explores ways of curbing cell phone use texting and driving on South African roads. There should be more research on distracted driving and technology use, so that more suggestions on how to curb technology use while driving can be offered

This thesis will research and evaluate the state of the current ETSI VAM standard. The thesis evaluates and discusses the means of improving the speed and response of ETSI VAM by reducing the load on the radio medium. The research looks to prove that fewer messages broadcasted improve VRU awareness. The thesis focuses mainly on the benefits of VRU clustering as a means of reducing radio medium load through numerical evaluation and physical implementation testing. Evaluation of basic and alternate cluster parameters is performed to find the most optimal ones; alternate clustering strategies are also discussed and proposed. The thesis aims to improve the standard by finding and evaluating alternate methods and parameters in order to propose improved options. / Projektet utvärderar och diskuterar sätten att förbättra hastigheten och responsen hos ETSI VAM genom att minska belastningen på radiomediet. Forskningen syftar till att bevisa att färre meddelanden som sänds förbättrar systemets VRU-medvetenhet. Fokuset ligger huvudsakligen på att utvärdera fördelarna med "VRU-klustring" som ett sätt att minska radiomediebelastningen genom numerisk utvärdering och fysisk testning. Utvärdering av grundläggande och alternativa klusterparametrar utförs för att hitta de mest optimala; alternativa klustringsstrategier diskuteras och föreslås också. Projektet syftar till att förbättra standarden genom att hitta och utvärdera alternativa metoder och parametrar för att föreslå förbättrade alternativ.

Civil infrastructure serves as the driving force behind the evolution of a safe, sustainable, and efficient environment. However, the way information about civil infrastructure has been communicated to the public has been insufficient. Since every human is intrinsically different, designing, and dispersing information about civil infrastructure that accommodates everyone, while also being direct and concise has been a challenge for policymakers and other federal, state, local, and tribal civil engineering stakeholders. Though there has been a plethora of research conducted on message design and communication in other disciplines, little research has been done in the US that focuses on designing more accessible, actionable civil infrastructure messages. The objective of this research was to investigate how to improve the accessibility of civil infrastructure messages and communication infrastructure to enhance the public's ability to make daily infrastructure decisions. This research study utilized quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze and discuss various ways that civil infrastructure messages can be improved. Results from this study are based on the exploration of three different ways in which civil infrastructure messaging can be improved: policy, transportation/roadway safety, and emergency response. Data sources include eight publicly accessible energy policies from 1978-2022, a publicly available dataset of more than 75 thousand WEAs, and a dataset retrieved from Shealy et al. (2020), which collected data on 300 Virginia drivers in both rural and urban areas. A descriptive policy analysis and Flesch-Kincaid readability test were conducted to historically analyze energy policies and understand their accessibility impacts for research question 1; a brain activation network analysis was conducted and nodal network measures (i.e., network density, degree centrality) were used to investigate the cognitive response Virginia drivers had for various types of non-traditional traffic safety messages for research question 2; and sentiment analysis, emotion detection analysis, as well as a two-phased qualitative coding analysis (i.e., in-vivo coding, focused coding) were conducted to investigate how WEAs can be better designed to increase public attention and engagement for research question 3. The findings from this study demonstrate how emotional content that is present in tweets authored by community members affected by the natural disaster event can be incorporated into the WEA template. The findings from research question 1 identified potential issues with accessibility and energy policy. Also, the findings from this study describe the content included in the parallel documents that federal agencies use to communicate the most important information of a policy. The findings from research question 2 demonstrate that while the various types of non-traditional traffic safety messages produced variances in cognitive response, messages that included negative emotional content or statistics should be further explored on their impact on evoking safer driving behaviors. The findings from research question 3 reported on how emotional content could be incorporated into the template design of WEAs. The implications from this dissertation provide valuable insights for policymakers, civil engineers, transportation engineers, and emergency response stakeholders and the conclusions set the stage for future research to improve the design of more accessible civil infrastructure messages. / Doctor of Philosophy / Civil infrastructure messages are used daily, but improper design can make them difficult to understand or to continue to use over long periods of time. Also, every human is different and interprets information about civil infrastructure, which adds a level of difficulty to designing effective civil infrastructure messages. Though there has been a lot of research on the effectiveness of civil infrastructure, little research has used a human-centered design approach to improve civil infrastructure messages. This study analyzes three different ways to improve civil infrastructure messages: policy, traffic safety, and emergency response. We used publicly available energy policies from 1978-2022, data collected by co-authors from Shealy et al. (2020) to analyze the cognitive response of 300 Virginia drivers to various types of non-traditional traffic safety messages, a publicly available dataset of more than 75 thousand Wireless Emergency Alerts sent by FEMA, and a publicly available data set of more than 9.1 thousand tweets about Hurricane Harvey. To analyze this data, this research study utilized various methods to understand how easy policies are to read, to understand how the brains of Virginia drivers respond to different types of non-traditional traffic safety messages and to identify the differences between tweets and WEAs. Results from this study suggest that parallel documents should be published alongside energy policies to help the public understand the main points of the policy, establish a readability metric to use for all energy policies, continue to investigate non-traditional traffic safety messages that included negative emotional content or statistics, measure the brain activation and observe long-term driving behaviors, use more negative emotional content in templated WEAs, and use social media data to better design templated WEAs. The findings reported from this study can be beneficial for various types of civil infrastructure stakeholders such as policymakers, utilities, US State Departments of Transportation, FEMA, alerting officials, and the public to further explore ways in which the language of civil infrastructure messages can be improved to address accessibility issues with energy policy, traffic safety, and emergency response to the public.

Though the trucks consist of only 3% of the total registered vehicles in the United States, truck accidents have been a major concern due to the property damage and loss of lives involved. Growth trends show that the truck travel will reach 1 trillion vehicle miles by the end of the year 2000. This increase in truck travel poses a major threat to the safety of both passenger cars and trucks. To improve the safety of the trucks as well as the passenger cars, understanding of the factors affecting the truck safety is essential. Models developed in the past were mostly regression models which tried to relate the truck accidents to the geometry of the highways. But most of these models did not consider all the factors affecting the safety of the trucks. Simulation models were developed in the past to study the dynamic vehicle response to different highway geometry especially, on exit ramps where most of the rollover accidents occur every year. But not enough research was done in the past on the weather and surface conditions affecting the truck safety. The objective of this study is to develop a graphics-based computer simulation model to test the trucks for different geometric features, surface conditions, and truck characteristics on exit ramps and to gain a better understanding of the factors affecting the safety of the trucks. A high-level simulation language SIMSCRIPTII.5 was used in the study to develop a simulation model. To make the model is to understand, graphical windows and animation were included in the model. Three exit ramps were tested in this model. Two of these ramps are existing ramps in southwestern Virginia and they had rollover accidents reported on them in the past. The parameters and other surface and geometric conditions can be changed at any time during the simulation. The model indicated that deceleration lengths provided may not be sufficient for heavy trucks traveling at higher speeds to reduce their speeds to the safe speed limits on the ramps. The posted speed limits may not be suitable for heavy trucks especially when the surface is not dry. The model also indicated that the tractor-semitrailers are more exposed to rollovers than any other type of trucks. / Master of Science

Previous studies show that pavement condition properties are significant factors to enhance road safety and riding experience, and pavements with low quality might have inadequate performance in terms of safety and riding experience. Pavement Management System (PMS) databases include pavement properties for each segment of the road collected by the agencies. Understanding the impact of road characteristics on crash frequency is a key step to prevent crashes. Whereas other studies analyzed the effect of different characteristics such as International Roughness Index (IRI), Rutting Depth (RD), Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), this thesis analyzed the effect of Critical Condition Index (CCI) on crash frequency, in addition to the other factors identified in previous studies. Other characteristics such as Percentage of Heavy Vehicles, Road Surface Condition, Road Lighting Condition, and Driver Conditions are taken into the consideration. The scope of the study is the interstate highway system in Fairfax County, Virginia. Negative Binomial, Least Square and Nominal Logistic Models were developed, showing that the CCI value is a significant factor to predict the number of crashes, and that it has different effect for different values of AADT. The result of this study is a substantial step towards developing an integrated transportation control and infrastructure management framework. / Master of Science / Many factors cause crashes in the roads. Although there is a common sense that road characteristics such as asphalt quality are important in terms of road safety, there are few studies that scientifically prove that statement. In addition, asphalt maintenance decisions making process is mainly based on cost benefit optimization, and traffic safety is not considered at the process. The purpose of this study is to analyze crashes and road characteristics related to each crash to understand the effect of those characteristics on crash frequency, and eventually, to build a model to predict the number of crashes at each part of the road. The model can help transportation agencies to have a better understanding in terms of safety consequences of their infrastructure management plans. The scope of this study is the highway interstate system in Northern Virginia. Results suggest that pavement condition has a significant impact on crash frequency.

No description available.

Child pedestrian injury and mortality is an issue of significant public health concern in the city of Johannesburg, Gauteng, in South Africa. Since there is a paucity of studies in the last decade or more on fatal childhood traffic and non-traffic injuries in Johannesburg, this study aspires to address the disproportion in this domain of research, and provide more recent, and comprehensive empirical evidence over a ten-year period. The overarching aim of this study was to describe and examine the magnitude, circumstances, and neighbourhood characteristics of fatal pedestrian injuries among children (0-14 years) in Johannesburg for the period from 2001 to 2010. More specifically, the objectives of the study were: firstly, to provide a comprehensive epidemiological description of the magnitude, trends and occurrence of pedestrian mortality among children; secondly, to describe and examine the epidemiology of child pedestrian mortality in relation to children as motor vehicle passengers; thirdly, to describe and examine child pedestrian mortality in relation to non-traffic injuries, in particular, burns and drowning; and fourthly, to assess the influence of neighbourhood characteristics on child pedestrian mortality. The study conceptualised pedestrian road safety within an ecological systems framework. The study used quantitative descriptive, and multivariate logistic regression methods of analysis to examine child pedestrian mortality data. The study drew on data from the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System (NIMSS) and the Census 2001. The main findings indicated that black, male children aged 5 to 9 years (11.02/100 000) are the most vulnerable, and that mortality occurred predominantly during the afternoons and early evenings (12h00-16h00 and 16h00-21h00), over weekends, during school holidays, and to a lesser extent, during non-holiday months. In addition, neighbourhood characteristics that reflected concentrations of disadvantage, single female-headed households and residentially stable areas were associated with child pedestrian mortality. The study findings highlight the need for critical action in terms of investment in child pedestrian safety research, and appropriate prevention initiatives guided by stringent evidenced-based studies, and the design of safe pedestrian, vehicular and urban environments. / Psychology / D.Phil. (Psychology)