Human error in recreational boating

Each year over 600 people die and more than 4000 are reported injured in recreational boating accidents. As with most other accidents, human error is the major contributor. U.S. Coast Guard reports of 3358 accidents were analyzed to identify errors in each of the boat types by which statistics are compiled: auxiliary (motor) sailboats, cabin motorboats, canoes and kayaks, house boats, personal watercraft, open motorboats, pontoon boats, row boats, sail-only boats. The individual errors were grouped into categories on the basis of similarities in the behavior involved. Those presented here are the categories accounting for at least 5% of all errors when summed across boat types. The most revealing and significant finding is the extent to which the errors vary across types. Since boating is carried out with one or two types of boats for long periods of time, effective accident prevention measures, including safety instruction, need to be geared to individual boat types.     

Understanding the factors influencing safe and unsafe motorcycle rider intentions

The increasing popularity of motorcycles in Australia is a significant concern as motorcycle riders represent 15% of all road fatalities and an even greater proportion of serious injuries. This study assessed the psychosocial factors influencing motorcycle riders’ intentions to perform both safe and risky riding behaviours. Using an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB), motorcycle riders (n = 229) from Queensland, Australia were surveyed to assess their riding attitudes, subjective norm (general and specific), perceived behavioural control (PBC), group norm, self-identity, sensation seeking, and aggression, as well as their intentions, in relation to three safe (e.g., handle my motorcycle skilfully) and three risky (e.g., bend road rules to get through traffic) riding behaviours. Although there was variability in the predictors of intention across the behaviours, results revealed that safer rider intentions were most consistently predicted by PBC, while riskier intentions were predicted by attitudes and sensation seeking. The TPB was able to explain a greater proportion of the variance for intentions to perform risky behaviours. Overall, this study has provided insight into the complexity of factors contributing to rider intentions and suggests that different practical strategies need to be adopted to facilitate safer and reduce risky rider decisions.     

Developing a self-reporting method to measure pedestrian behaviors at all ages

The objective of this study was to develop and validate a self-reporting scale to measure injury risk behaviors among pedestrians of all ages. The Pedestrian Behavior Scale (PBS) was developed that included 47 items enabling respondents to evaluate the frequency with which they had different types of pedestrian behaviors. The validation study was carried out on 343 participants (126 men and 217 women) between the ages of 15 and 78. Factor analyses were used to differentiate between 4 axes. Factor 1, “transgression”, included items concerning offence of legal rules and errors. Factor 2 included “lapses” items. Factor 3 comprised “aggressive behavior” items and factor 4 included “positive behavior” items. A revised version of the PBS with 20 items was produced by selecting those items that loaded most strongly on the four factors. The 20-item version had good internal reliability. The effects of demographic and mobility variables on the PBS scores were investigated. This instrument will be useful in measuring the frequency of these different types of behaviors among the pedestrians who are most at risk, analyzing the psychological factors used to predict PBS scores and thus better adapt preventive actions to the different populations of vulnerable road users of all ages.     

The Prosocial and Aggressive Driving Inventory (PADI): A self-report measure of safe and unsafe driving behaviors

Surveys of 1217 undergraduate students supported the reliability (inter-item and test–retest) and validity of the Prosocial and Aggressive Driving Inventory (PADI). Principal component analyses on the PADI items yielded two scales: Prosocial Driving (17 items) and Aggressive Driving (12 items). Prosocial Driving was associated with fewer reported traffic accidents and violations, with participants who were older and female, and with lower Boredom Susceptibility and Hostility scores, and higher scores on Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness, and Neuroticism. Aggressive Driving was associated with more frequent traffic violations, with female participants, and with higher scores on Competitiveness, Sensation Seeking, Hostility, and Extraversion, and lower scores on Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness. The theoretical and practical implications of the PADI's dual focus on safe and unsafe driving are discussed.     

Initial development of a practical safety audit tool to assess fleet safety management practices

Work-related vehicle crashes are a common cause of occupational injury. Yet, there are few studies that investigate management practices used for light vehicle fleets (i.e. vehicles less than 4.5 tonnes). One of the impediments to obtaining and sharing information on effective fleet safety management is the lack of an evidence-based, standardised measurement tool. This article describes the initial development of an audit tool to assess fleet safety management practices in light vehicle fleets. The audit tool was developed by triangulating information from a review of the literature on fleet safety management practices and from semi-structured interviews with 15 fleet managers and 21 fleet drivers. A preliminary useability assessment was conducted with 5 organisations. The audit tool assesses the management of fleet safety against five core categories: (1) management, systems and processes; (2) monitoring and assessment; (3) employee recruitment, training and education; (4) vehicle technology, selection and maintenance; and (5) vehicle journeys. Each of these core categories has between 1 and 3 sub-categories. Organisations are rated at one of 4 levels on each sub-category. The fleet safety management audit tool is designed to identify the extent to which fleet safety is managed in an organisation against best practice. It is intended that the audit tool be used to conduct audits within an organisation to provide an indicator of progress in managing fleet safety and to consistently benchmark performance against other organisations. Application of the tool by fleet safety researchers is now needed to inform its further development and refinement and to permit psychometric evaluation.     

Developing a multi-quality characteristic analysis model to measure the quality of quick-release bicycle hubs

To reduce the pollution caused by the carbon emissions of automobiles and locomotive vehicles, many countries around the world have encouraged citizens to use bicycles for short-distance trips in recent years. Bicycles are comprised of many parts, and quick-release hubs are highly important for the fixtures on the front and rear wheel axles of a bicycle. The quick-release hub is a multi-quality characteristic product, including two larger-the-better quality characteristics (quick-release stroke and tensile strength) and three nominal-the-best quality characteristics (axis size, assembly distance, and the outer diameter of the spindle). To improve the quality of quick-release hubs, this study proposes a multi-quality characteristic analysis table (MQCAT) and a multi-quality characteristic analysis model (MQCAM). The proposed method can provide a valuable reference by which to guide efforts aimed at improvement for quick-release hub manufacturers. A quick-release hub manufacturer in central Taiwan is presented to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method. In addition, a comparison with recent methods is provided to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method. Finally, conclusions are made based on the research study findings.     

Effects of a rumble strip barrier line on lane keeping in a curve

This field study was conducted along a curve where the barrier line was worn out due to encroachments by cars. Vehicles were unobtrusively video recorded with the worn barrier line, after re-painting the barrier line and after milling the rumble strip barrier line. Lateral positions and speeds of vehicles were measured. Vehicle type and traffic situation were also classified (n = 6599). It was assumed that if encroachments of barrier line and the standard deviation of lateral positions were reduced, safety would improve. The standard deviation of the lateral position of passenger cars travelling in free-flow traffic decreased from 35 cm with the worn barrier line to 28 cm after re-painting the barrier line and to 24 cm after milling the rumble strip barrier line. The mean speeds of cars in free-flow traffic did not change. No vehicle with oncoming traffic crossed the barrier line after rumble strip. Encroachments of passenger cars in free-flow traffic with no oncoming traffic fell from 9.2% to 2.5% after re-painting, with no further change after implementing the rumble strip. The improvement in visual guidance alone reduced the number of crossings. However, including rumble strips may reduce the need for frequent re-painting of barriers.     

Developing a new chance constrained NDEA model to measure the performance of humanitarian supply chains

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a method for measuring performance of decision making units (DMUs). Conventional DEA models view DMUs as black boxes. Network DEA (NDEA) models have been developed to overcome this shortfall. This paper develops a new NDEA model based on modified enhanced Russell measure model. This paper measures performance of humanitarian supply chains (HSCs) by an NDEA model. Capabilities of the proposed model are addressed by theorems. However, in the real world, there might be stochastic data. This paper presents a stochastic version of the proposed NDEA model to measure the performance of HSCs. We analyse main properties of our model. We present a case study to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model.     

Validation of virtual reality as a tool to understand and prevent child pedestrian injury

In recent years, virtual reality has emerged as an innovative tool for health-related education and training. Among the many benefits of virtual reality is the opportunity for novice users to engage unsupervised in a safe environment when the real environment might be dangerous. Virtual environments are only useful for health-related research, however, if behavior in the virtual world validly matches behavior in the real world. This study was designed to test the validity of an immersive, interactive virtual pedestrian environment. A sample of 102 children and 74 adults was recruited to complete simulated road-crossings in both the virtual environment and the identical real environment. In both the child and adult samples, construct validity was demonstrated via significant correlations between behavior in the virtual and real worlds. Results also indicate construct validity through developmental differences in behavior; convergent validity by showing correlations between parent-reported child temperament and behavior in the virtual world; internal reliability of various measures of pedestrian safety in the virtual world; and face validity, as measured by users' self-reported perception of realism in the virtual world. We discuss issues of generalizability to other virtual environments, and the implications for application of virtual reality to understanding and preventing pediatric pedestrian injuries.     

Developing a four point bend specimen to measure the mode I intralaminar fracture toughness of unidirectional laminated composites

The use of a four point bend test is investigated for the measurement of intralaminar toughness of unidirectional carbon fibre composites. A key element of the investigation is the process of producing a sharp pre-crack and the effect of this on the measured toughness. A method is presented in which the pre-crack is produced during the layup and cure process and this is shown to cause minimal distortion of the plies of the laminate. The test results show good consistency and low scatter.     

Parents’ attitudes,knowledge and behaviours relating to safe child occupant travel

This study investigated parents’ attitudes, knowledge and behaviours relating to safe child occupant travel following new Australian legislation regarding child restraint system (CRS) and motor vehicle restraint use for children aged 7 years and under. A questionnaire exploring attitudes, knowledge and behaviours regarding general road safety, as well as safe child occupant travel, was completed by 272 participants with at least one child aged between 3 and 10 years residing in the Australian state of Victoria. Responses to the questionnaire revealed that participants’ attitudes, knowledge and behaviours towards road safety in general were fairly positive, with most participants reporting that they restrict their alcohol consumption or do not drink at all while driving (87%), drive at or below the speed limit (85%) and ‘always’ wear their seatbelts (98%). However, more than half of the participants reported engaging in distracting behaviours ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’ (54%) and a small proportion of participants indicated that they ‘sometimes’ engaged in aggressive driving (14%). Regarding their attitudes, knowledge and behaviours relating to safe child occupant travel, most participants reported that they ‘always’ restrain their children (99%). However, there was a surprisingly high proportion of participants who did not know the appropriate age thresholds’ to transition their child from a booster seat to an adult seatbelt (53%) or the age for which it is appropriate for their child to sit in the front passenger seat of the vehicle (20%). Logistic regression analyses revealed that parents’ knowledge regarding safe child occupant travel was significantly related to their attitudes, knowledge and behaviours towards road safety in general, such as drinking habits while driving and CRS safety knowledge. Based on the findings of this study, a number of recommendations are made for strategies to enhance parents’ attitudes, knowledge and behaviours relating to safe child occupant travel, as well as for future research.     

Beachgoers’ beliefs and behaviours in relation to beach flags and rip currents

Background

Coastal drownings claim on average 82 people per year in Australia. Beach flags are a primary safety strategy used on beaches. They are located away from rip currents, which are the main beach hazard affecting swimmers. Little is known about the behavioural and motivational factors associated with people choosing where to swim in relation to flags and rips.

Aims

To assess the beliefs and behaviours of beachgoers in relation to beach flags and rip currents.

Methods

Beachgoers at beaches in NSW were interviewed about their swimming beliefs and behaviours. They were asked to indicate on pictures depicting beach scenarios involving beach flags and fixed rip currents, where they would and would not swim. Logistic regression analysis was undertaken to determine predictors of correct and incorrect swimming behaviour.

Results

Beachgoers who are aged from 30 to 49 years (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.16, 0.74, p = 0.006) are less likely to choose to swim between the flags than other swimmers. In addition, beachgoers who are at the beach with children are significantly more likely to choose to swim between the flags (OR 2.74, 95% CI 1.39, 5.40, p = 0.004). Beachgoers with basic knowledge about rip currents are significantly more likely to swim away from the rip (OR 11.59, 95% CI 5.89, 22.81, p < 0.001).

Discussion and conclusions

Ocean swimmers aged from 30 to 49 years may choose to swim outside the flags, though they may not necessarily be swimming in the rip. Swimming outside of the flags may be linked with experience. The flags appear to be attractive to parents and carers of children. Whilst the flags indicate a relatively safe area of the beach, it is still vitally important for parents and carers to supervise children in this area. Basic rip current knowledge is an essential component in developing national interventions aimed at reducing coastal drowning. Beachgoers clearly need to know what a rip looks like in order to actively avoid swimming in it.     

The contribution of on-road studies of road user behaviour to improving road safety

For over 40 years transport safety researchers have been using methods of vehicle instrumentation to gain greater insights into the factors that contribute to road user crash risk and the associated crash factors. In the previous decade in particular the widespread availability of lower cost and more advanced methods of vehicle instrumentation and recording technologies are supporting the increasing number of on-road research studies worldwide. The design of these studies ranges from multi-method studies using instrumented test vehicles and defined driving routes, to field operational tests, through to much larger and more naturalistic studies. It is timely to assess the utility of these methods for studying the influences of driver characteristics and states, the design and operation of the road system, and the influences of in-vehicle technologies on behaviour and safety for various road user groups. This special issue considers the extent to which on-road studies using vehicle instrumentation have been used to advance knowledge across these areas of road safety research. The papers included in this issue illustrate how research using instrumented test vehicles continues to generate new knowledge, and how the larger scale United States and European naturalistic and field operational test studies are providing a wealth of data about road user behaviour in real traffic. This is balanced with a number of studies that present methodological developments in data collection and analysis methods that, while promising, need further validation. The use of on-road methods to accurately describe the behaviours occurring in everyday real-world conditions, to quantify risks for safety critical events, and an improved understanding of the factors that contribute to risk, clearly has huge potential to promote further road trauma reductions.     

Equine road user safety: public attitudes, understandings and beliefs from a qualitative study in the United Kingdom

Horse riders represent a significant group of vulnerable road user and are involved in a number of accidents and near misses on the road. Despite this horse riders have received little attention both in terms of academic research and transport policy. Based on literature on vulnerable road user safety, including attitudes to road user safety and behaviour of drivers and their relationship with cyclists and motorcyclists, this paper examines the attitudes and reported behaviour of drivers and horse riders. A total of 46 participants took part in six focus groups divided into four groups of drivers with little or no horse riding experience and two groups of frequent horse riders. Each group investigated five key topic areas stemming from the literature review on vulnerable road users including hazard perception, risk perception, emotion, attitudes to sharing the road and empathy. It was found that drivers and horse riders are not always aware of the same hazards in the road and that this may lead drivers to under-estimate the risk when encountering horses. Drivers often had good intentions to overtake horses safely, but were unaware of how vulnerable passing very wide and slow made them feel until they had begun the manoeuvre and hence quickly reduced such feelings either by speeding up or cutting in too soon. However, other than this, drivers had good skills when encountering horses. But these skills could be impeded by frustration when encountering a slow moving horse which was further compounded by a feeling, mainly by younger drivers, that horse riding was for leisure and as such should not get in the way of necessary work journeys. There is a need for drivers to be more aware of the potential hazards a horse rider faces on the road and these could be achieved through inducing empathy amongst drivers for horse riders, creating nudges for drivers in the environment and better education for drivers.     

A video based run-off-road training program with practice and evaluation in a simulator

A run-off-road (ROR) event occurs when one or more of a vehicle’s wheels leaves the roadway and begins to travel on the surface or shoulder adjacent to the road. Despite various countermeasures, ROR crashes continue to yield a large number of fatalities and injuries. Infrastructure-based solutions do not directly address the critical factor of driver performance preceding and during an ROR event. In this study, a total of 75 individuals participated in a pre–post experiment to examine the effect of a training video on improving driver performance during a set of simulated ROR scenarios (e.g., on a high speed highway, a horizontal curve, and a residential rural road). In each scenario, the vehicle was unexpectedly forced into an ROR scenario for which the drivers were instructed to recover as safely as possible. The treatment group then watched a custom ROR training video while the control group viewed a placebo video. The participants then drove the same simulated ROR scenarios. The results suggest that the training video had a significant positive effect on drivers’ steering response on all three roadway conditions as well as improvements in vehicle stability, subjectively rated demand on the driver, and self-evaluated performance in the highway scenario. Under the highway conditions, the treatment group reduced the frequency of spinouts from 70% in the pre-training events to 16% in the post-training events (χ²(1) = 23.32, p < 0.001) with no significant improvement found for the control group. In the horizontal curve, spinouts were reduced for the treatment group from 50% in the pre-training events to 30% in the post-training events (χ²(1) = 8.45, p = 0.004) with the control group also not showing any significant improvement. The results of this study suggest that even a short video about recovering from ROR events can significantly influence a driver’s ability to recover. It is possible that additional training may have further benefits in recovering from ROR events.     

Why drivers use cell phones and support legislation to restrict this practice

The use of cell phones while driving is ubiquitous, particularly in countries where the practice is legal. However, surveys indicate that most drivers favor legislation to limit the use of mobile devices during the operation of a vehicle. A study was conducted to understand this inconsistency between what drivers do and what they advocate for others. Participants completed a survey about their driving attitudes, abilities, and behaviors. Following previous research, drivers reported using cell phones for benefits such as getting work done. The hypocrisy of using cell phones while advocating restrictions appears to stem from differences in the perceived safety risks of self vs. others’ use of cell phones. Many if not most drivers believe they can drive safely while using mobile devices. However, they lack confidence in others’ ability to drive safely while distracted and believe that others’ use of cell phones is dangerous. The threat to public safety of others’ usage of mobile devices was one of the strongest independent predictors of support for legislation to restrict cell phone use.     

Five road safety education programmes for young adolescent pedestrians and cyclists: A multi-programme evaluation in a field setting

A practical approach was developed to assess and compare the effects of five short road safety education (RSE) programmes for young adolescents that does not rely on injury or crash data but uses self reported behaviour. Questionnaires were administered just before and about one month after participation in the RSE programmes, both to youngsters who had participated in a RSE programme, the intervention group, and to a comparable reference group of youngsters who had not, the reference group. For each RSE programme, the answers to the questionnaires in the pre- and post-test were checked for internal consistency and then condensed into a single safety score using categorical principal components analysis. Next, an analysis of covariance was performed on the obtained safety scores in order to compare the post-test scores of the intervention and reference groups, corrected for their corresponding pre-test scores. It was found that three out of five RSE programmes resulted in significantly improved self-reported safety behaviour. However, the proportions of participants that changed their behaviour relative to the reference group were small, ranging from 3% to 20%. Comparisons among programme types showed cognitive approaches not to differ in effect from programmes that used fear-appeal approaches. The method used provides a useful tool to assess and compare the effects of different education programmes on self-reported behaviour.     

Application of a performance measure reduction technique to categorical safety data

This research proposes an interdisciplinary approach that combines correspondence–analytic, information–theoretic, and approximation–theoretic concepts to derive a fast reduction procedure suitable for categorical data. The procedure can also be applied to metric data where it proves to perform as well as linear regression on multivariate-normal data and superior otherwise. All types of monotone relationships, linear or non-linear, are handled well. In addition, the procedure is robust to outliers, which makes it especially desirable for exploratory and control purposes. The procedure also has a very limited data requirement, which distinguishes it from other information–theoretic procedures whose data requirement increases exponentially with the number of variables and which, in turn, are numerically highly unstable. An application of the procedure to an aviation safety data set is presented. The new procedure performs well on this data set and is shown to be analytically robust and consistent with expert judgment.     

X-ray diffraction as a promising tool to characterize bone nanocomposites

Abstract

To understand the characteristics of bone at the tissue level, the structure, organization and mechanical properties of the underlying levels down to the nanoscale as well as their mutual interactions need to be investigated. Such information would help understand changes in the bone properties including stiffness, strength and toughness and provide ways to assess the aged and diseased bones and the development of next generation of bio-inspired materials. X-ray diffraction techniques have gained increased interest in recent years as useful non-destructive tools for investigating the nanostructure of bone. This review provides an overview on the recent progress in this field and briefly introduces the related experimental approach. The application of x-ray diffraction to elucidating the structural and mechanical properties of mineral crystals in bone is reviewed in terms of characterization of in situ strain, residual stress–strain and crystal orientation.