bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A systematic review of pedestrian injuries on account of distraction by mobile phone use
Authors: Sotiraki M , Matsoukis I , Kousoulis A , Gerakopoulou P , Bouka E , Alexopoulos A , Petridou E 
Published: October 2012

BackgroundPedestrians, the largest group of road users, sustain a considerable proportion of road casualties, mainly due to their vulnerability. The association of accidents with driver's distraction by mobile phone (MP) use has been repeatedly documented, whereas the relation with pedestrian's MP use distraction has been less intensively studied.PurposeTo systematically review publications on accidents/ near-accidents due to pedestrian distraction by MP and attempt to quantify the risk.MethodsΙn the context of the ‘ENIGMA’ program, aiming to summarise evidence on human risks associated with MP use, we systematically searched Medline publications using appropriate search algorithms and analysed eligible studies, published until February 2012.ResultsStudies conducted in either virtual or real environments seem to point to an increased accident/near-accident risk due to pedestrians' distraction of attention by MP. Regardless of individual attentional/processing skills or the content of conversation, pedestrians who used MP while walking missed more opportunities for safe road behavior, needed more time to cross the street, left less safe time between their crossing and the next-arriving vehicle and were hit or almost hit more times compared to not distracted, Of note, pedestrians were less attentive to traffic, even when they may have made the appropriate motions to look left and right before crossing.SignificanceMP use by pedestrians seems to impart a higher risk of being involved in an accident/near accident. Intensive efforts are needed aiming to highlight dangers and promote behaviour modification towards intended use of a new technology that has rapidly become highly popular.
Improving road traffic injury surveillance using data linkage—a pilot project in Mures County, Romania
Authors: Rus D , Bărăgan EA , Marton-Vasarhelyi EO , Cherecheş RM , Mocean F 
Published: October 2012

BackgroundInjury surveillance efforts are being made in order to facilitate the access to accurate information for prevention strategies. Often, sources of information lack injury details, such as the mechanism of injury, therefore linking different datasets can lead to a better road traffic injury assessment.PurposeTo identify and describe traffic injuries and their risk factors taking into consideration available databases.MethodsWe linked cases across two databases in Mures County: the Injury Database (IDB) was matched with the police crash database. Two variables were used (time and date of injury), to integrate information about the road traffic injury environment and causes, specific to police crash database and injury characteristics specific to IDB.ResultsOne third of the injuries treated in the Emergency Department were due to road traffic crashes. Preliminary results show that there is a statistically significant relation between the gender of the injured person and the activity when injured (p<0.001), 12.5% of these were due to travelling to/from or in the course of paid work. One of the contributions in the field is the capacity to correlate activity when injured (available in the IDB) with the causes of crash (available in the traffic police records). For example, the risk factors and causes of crash (available in the police database): level of alcohol, wearing a seatbelt, speeding, imprudent driving, linked to work related travelling can lead to targeted interventions on road traffic injury safety at workplace.
Practical experience of gateway treatment in developing country
Authors: Satiennam T , Satiennam W 
Published: October 2012

BackgroundMany developing countries currently encounter critical high traffic accident rate. One cause is lack of controlling speed, especially along local road passing community. The gateway installation at entrance of community is one effective traffic calming measure to reduce speed of traffic approaching to community. However, implementation of gateway treatment in developing country should be highly concerned in many issues of careless driving behaviour, high motorcycle mode share and lack of road hierarchy planning.Aims/Objectives/PurposeThis study aims to evaluate the gateway treatment at an entrance of campus zone road section of Mahasarakham University, Thailand. It surveyed and analysed the traffic speed before and after gateway installation along the road through campus zone.MethodsSpot speed study was employed to measure speed of passenger car and motorcycle travelling through road section before/after gateway installation. Average 85 percentile speeds of both vehicle types were calculated. The statistical T-test method was applied to compare average speed before/after gateway installation.Results/OutcomeAfter installing gateway, average speed of passenger cars and motorcycles significantly reduced from 59 to 37 km/h (37% reduction) and 46 to 38 km/h (17% reduction), respectively.Significance/Contribution to the FieldThis study proved the gateway treatment is one efficient measure to calm the speedy traffic not only in developed countries but also in the developing counties with different traffic characteristics in term of high number of motorcyclists. Nevertheless, the appropriate implementation, for example, good design, location and illumination of gateway, is highly considered.
ICD-based injury severity for land transport trauma
Authors: Bambach MR , Mitchell RJ , Grzebieta RH , Williamson A 
Published: October 2012

BackgroundLand transport crashes are responsible for a large proportion of injury-related morbidity and subsequent disability. The accurate identification of land transport morbidity is essential to inform and evaluate countermeasures and policy.Aims/Objectives/PurposeTo develop and compare ICD-based non-fatal injury severity measures, in order to accurately define injury severity resulting from land transport crashes.MethodsAll land transport hospital admissions and fatalities from 2001 to 2007 in New South Wales, Australia, were examined. Previously published limitations of the ICD-based International Classification Injury Severity Score (ICISS) were addressed by: including multiple admissions and deaths that occurred outside hospital using data linkage; including comorbidity and age; and accounting for multiple injuries, using multiplicative or worst injury methods. The performance of the different approaches in predicting mortality was assessed with multivariate logistic regression, by comparing the discrimination, calibration and goodness-of-fit.Results/OutcomesThere were 109 843 land transport hospital admissions during the study period, of which 3471 were fatalities. The inclusion of age and comorbidity improved the prediction of mortality for all ICISS methods. The inclusion of multiple admissions and deaths outside hospital substantially improved the performance of ICISS. ICISS determined from the worst injury had improved discrimination and goodness-of-fit compared with the multiplicative method, for individuals with multiple injuries. The superior ICISS approach demonstrated excellent predictive power (concordance of 0.950).Significance/Contribution to the FieldICISS is a robust predictor of mortality for land transport trauma. Superior performance was achieved with the worst injury method, and including age, comorbidity, multiple admissions and deaths outside hospital.
Crash fatality risk differences between access and non-access controlled highways in Pakistan: a low-income country
Authors: Sodhar I , Bhatti J , Khoso A , Shiekh N , Razzak J 
Published: October 2012

BackgroundUrbanisation around highways is frequent in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) and can affect traffic safety negatively if it is inadequately-planned. Access control has shown to reduce significantly highway crashes in developed countries but explored to less extent in LMICs.Aims/Objectives/PurposeThe study aimed to compare crash risk differences between an access-controlled highway sections with that of non-access controlled sections in Pakistan.MethodsUsing historical cohort design, crash fatality risk and pedestrian crash risks were compared between 397 km-long sections of access controlled Motorway 1&2 (M1&2) and 332-km-long non-access controlled road sections of N5 between cities of Attock and Lahore.Results/OutcomesApproximately 47 persons died per billion vehicle-km travelled on both types of road sections, a rate over ten times higher than that observed in France on similar roads. Pedestrian crash risks were significantly higher on non-access controlled road sections compared with access controlled road sections (Risk ratio=3.43, p<0.001, attributable risk proportion=70.1%) suggesting that access control might reduce over two-thirds of pedestrian crashes on highways in Pakistan.Significance/significance to FieldHigh crash burden on highways indicated that vigorous efforts are required in legislating and enforcing international safety standards in Pakistan with regards to seat-belt or helmet use, vehicle checks, and educating safe road use to drivers and the population living around highways.
Effect of vehicle characteristics on crash severity: Portuguese experience
Authors: Guilhermina Torrão , Nagui Rouphail , Margarida Coelho 
Published: October 2012

This research explores the crash severity for the population of crashes resulting in injuries and/or fatalities. Real world crash data were collected from the Portuguese Police Republican National Guard records for the Porto metropolitan area, for the period 2006–2011.The goal of this study is the development of a crash-severity prediction model with application to crash analysis and prevention. The target is a binary variable, FatalSIK (=1 for severe crashes, 0 otherwise). In this paper, the effect of vehicle characteristics, such as weight, engine size, wheelbase and registration year (age of vehicle) were analysed with data mining methodology in order to extract patterns from the predictors and relate them to the occurrence of injuries and fatalities in a crash.A predictive approach using Classification and Regression Trees (CART) was adopted. To conduct the analysis with high unbalanced data, oversampling followed by correction of prior probabilities for the original crash population was applied. For all crashes, the Weight of the Vehicle was the most important variable for tree split, and those crashes involving weight≥1743.5 kg were the most severe, (χ2p value<0.1382). For two vehicle crashes, weight was also the most important variable, followed by Speed. The highest percentage of severe crashes occurred in collisions involving heavier vehicles and in routes with higher speed, (χ2p value<0.0017). For the single vehicle crashes, the highest percentage of severe crashes involving a vehicles with a larger engine size (ccV1≥1588 cm3) and those that were older (AgeV1≥4.5), (χ2p value<0.056).
Through flashing speed limit signage to control vehicle speed limit for entering school zone
Authors: Lin (Fannie) Wang , Minyan (Monica) Cui 
Published: October 2012

Background1. 35 000 children under 14 are injured from RTA annually in China, four out of 10 are pedestrians, 70% students walk to school.2. Speed increases 1 kilo, injury incidence increases 3%.3. School zone speed limit is 30 kilo in China. However, it is often ignored by drivers.ObjectivesExploring a measure to enhance the speed limit signage visibility in school zone and could be used friendly by schools.Methods1. Three schools in a community with a higher RTA incidence were identified.2. The baseline of vehicle speed entering the school zone was recorded by observers, 30 min for each observation (morning, noon and afternoon), when children to and off school.3. A movable intervention speed limit flashing light was developed to enhance the speed limit signage visibility and was set for 50 m seen by drivers before entering school zone.4. Vehicle speed was recorded again with the intervention in the same way as the baseline.Results1. 2400 vehicles' speed was recorded in the baseline and with the intervention respectively.2. The baseline shows 1431 vehicles over 30 kilo; among which 608 vehicles over 40 kilo.3. The intervention shows 769 vehicles over 30 kilo, a 46.4% drop; among which 255 vehicles over 40 kilo, a 58.1% drop.Conclusions1. Vehicle speed limit for the school zone could be controlled by enhancing speed limit signage visibility.2. The intervention with a movable speed limit flashing light on-and-off school is practical for school use.
‘Training injury and violence prevention professionals to influence transportation decisions’
Authors: Wiliams A , Porter J 
Published: October 2012

BackgroundA strong connection exists between transportation decisions and the health of communities. Thus, it is essential for injury and violence prevention (IVP) practitioners to effectively participate in transportation decision-making. In early 2011, the Safe States Alliance conducted a workshop to:• ‘Make the case’ for integrating injury issues in transportation planning;• Understand the process, policies, and players in transportation planning;• Advance safe transportation policies and design within state, regional and local transportation agencies;• Enhance partnerships; and• Increase state and local capacity to promote safety in planning and design.MethodsPrior to the training, attendees were asked to complete homework including a task about transportation planning, a pre-training evaluation, and a ‘Personal Action Plan (PAP).’ PAPs were to include policies or changes that participants anticipated addressing using injury prevention strategies. Following the training event, participants were given a post-training evaluation and encouraged to update and strengthen their PAPs based on new information obtained from the training.ResultsRespondents reported gaining more knowledge of and comfort with every objective they were asked to rate. For example, 94% of participants indicated they felt more ‘prepared and comfortable with reaching out to and building new/stronger partnerships with transportation planning and traffic engineering agencies.’ Nearly all post-evaluation respondents indicated that they better understood and were more comfortable with all of the topics addressed in the training.Conclusions or SignificanceOnce equipped with the necessary information, IVP professionals can be empowered to effectively influence transportation decisions at state and local levels.
Transportation safety issues: the student experience and their solutions
Authors: Wood G , Lalor P 
Published: October 2012

Millions of people each day move from their home to a place of work, a school, shop, or to engage in social and or leisure activity. Experts examine this flow and the volume and efficiency of these movements to understand and cater for an increasing population growth and displacement. As people, goods and vehicles move there are inherent risks of delay and injury. The associated health issues were identified, examined and solutions proposed. This unique study carried out by students at several schools and across multiple ages sought to learn if the student own transport experience constructs a different view than that of the experts and if different solutions might emerge. Two hundred young people (Average age 11–12 years) were divided into 13 work groups.Each group examined an aspect of transport within the Auckland North region (New Zealand: North Shore-Rodney). With the mentor of older students (17–18 years) the groups examined closely the safe transit of: cars, pedestrian, school buses, bicycle of roads, etc. Each group worked within a wiki environment and surveyed users and expertise. Findings and recommendations will be reported at the World Injury Prevention Conference in October 2012. Close examination through student eyes is expected to provide a better understanding of urban transport related hazards and their prevention. The students acknowledge the kind assistance of Ms Kelly Strong and Ms Toni Dale, Auckland Transport.
Social autopsy: a community based intervention in preventing road traffic injuries—experience from Bangladesh
Authors: Baset MK , Towner E , Mashreky SR , Rahman A , Biswas A , Rahman A K M F 
Published: October 2012

IntroductionIn developing countries, people have social and behavioural misperceptions about injury deaths. Social Autopsy is a process of examining social errors related to injury deaths to determine why they occurred and how they could be prevented by increasing awareness in the community.ObjectiveTo utilise social autopsy for identifying achievable measures to prevent road traffic injury deaths.Target Audience of Social AutopsiesDecision makers in the family, Caretaker of the children, Local leaders.Principles of Social Autopsy:• Analyse socially correct behaviours and errors• Provide positive reinforcement for appropriate behaviours• Active community participation• Constructive, supportive facilitation• Lack of victim blaming• Conduct immediately after the deathMethodsSeventy-seven social autopsies for road traffic injury deaths were conducted in Raiganj, Bangladesh from 2006—2010. About 4000 villagers attended the autopsies. At the start the deceased's family member(s) described the event to the target audience; the facilitator initiated the discussion using standardised protocols and expanded, encouraged and kept the discussion on track to explore the social errors. Recommendations and decisions were made for injury prevention.Recommendations• Children should be supervised during road use• Children should not play on the roadside• Children should be informed about road use from school and family.• Pedestrians should take care while crossing the road• Nobody should travel on ‘Nosimon’ (locally-made unauthorised vehicle)ConclusionsSocial Autopsy is a process through which social errors related to the road traffic injury deaths can be elicited and appropriate preventive measures can be identified.
Proposal for a road safety indicator based on origin-destination survey: the problem of indicators in developing countries
Authors: Bonilla-Escobar FJ , Gutierrez-Martínez MI 
Published: October 2012

BackgroundAnalyses of indicators of health events are the main input to recognise a public health problem. Colombia does not have robust indicators of Road Traffic Mortality, and being a developing country, traffic events become important, and alternatives indicator are the key to provide guidance for public policy on road safety.Aims/Objectives/PurposeTo analyse an indicator of road traffic mortality based on a denominator from origin-destination survey in Cali, Colombia.MethodsDeaths Rate per Trips made by User (DRTU) corresponds to the rate of deaths established by the quotient of the number of deaths over number of trips per year and type of user (DRTU=(deaths/trips)×10.000 000)).Results/OutcomesWe calculated mortality rates for the period 2005 to 2010. The motorcyclists have the biggest DRTU, and this varied from 8.4 to 12.2 deaths×10.000.000 travels from 2005 to 2010, in pedestrians from 5.3 to 3.9, cyclists from 4.1 to 3.4, and drivers from 1.2 to 1.6. The classical indicator (which denominator is the total population), shows that the higher risk population are pedestrians, while the proposed indicator shows that the higher risk population are motorcyclists.Significance/Contribution to the FieldThe study of indicators in road traffic events contributes to the recognition of vulnerable populations and their risk. The proposed indicator shows a different road user as the most vulnerable. This is an option for countries without a census of the population of road users. This problem should be considered in order to establish public health policy.
Potential for lives saved by the road safety in 10 countries (RS-10) project interventions in five Brazilian cities
Authors: Seiffert B , Chandran A , Li Q , Sousa TRV , Pechansky F , Hyder AA 
Published: October 2012

BackgroundThe Road Safety in 10 Countries (RS10) project aims to improve road safety in Brazil by reducing drinking and driving (DWI) and excessive speeding. In 2010, 1086 road traffic deaths occurred in five intervention cities; estimated effectiveness on reducing deaths are 29% for speed reduction and 42% for DWI reduction. Implementing effective interventions has tremendous potential to save lives.Aims/Objectives/PurposeTo estimate the potential number of lives saved by the RS10 project in Brazil from 2012 through 2014.MethodsMortality data from 2010 were extracted from Brazil's Mortality Information System (SIM). Prevalence of risk factor behaviours was collected in 2011 and 2012 in Palmas and Teresina and then projected to Belo Horizonte, Campo Grande, and Curitiba. The post-intervention mortality was projected using varied reductions in risk factor prevalences.Results/OutcomeDecreases in the prevalence of DWI from a baseline prevalence of 10% to potential future prevalence rates of 8%, 5% or 2% could eliminate 44, 110, or 176 deaths respectively over a 3 year period. If the baseline rate of speeding are reduced from 30% to 25%, 20%, or 15% then 59, 118, or 178 deaths could be averted during the same period.Significance/Contribution to the FieldInterventions undertaken by RS10 have the potential to save as many as 354 lives (or 10.9% of annual deaths) in the five intervention cities given moderate success. The effect of interventions on risk factors behaviour should be monitored and the interventions adapted frequently to maximise their effectiveness in order to save as many lives as possible.
Impact of a national multifaceted road safety intervention programme in Mexico: results and implications from a time-series analysis
Authors: Chandran A , Pérez-Núñez R , Bachani A , Híjar MM , Bishai D , Hyder AA 
Published: October 2012

BackgroundMexico faces a substantial road traffic (RT) injury and mortality burden. In January 2008, a national multifaceted road safety intervention programme (IMESEVI) funded by the Bloomberg Philanthropies was launched in Mexico. Two years later, IMESEVI was refocused as part of a 10-country international consortium demonstration project.Aims/Objectives/PurposeWe evaluate the effect of each phase of the road safety intervention project on numbers of RT crashes and deaths in the two main target cities of Guadalajara-Zapopan and León.MethodsAn interrupted time series analysis using autoregressive integrated moving average modelling was performed using monthly data of numbers and rates of RT crashes (police data) and deaths (mortality system data) from 1999–2011 with dummy variables representing each intervention phase.Results/OutcomeIn the period following the first intervention phase in both cities, the rate and number of RT crashes decreased significantly (p<0.001); there was no significant change in RT deaths in Leon (p=0.957 for number, p=0.324 for rate) or Guadalajara-Zapopan (p=0.993 for number, p=0.985 for rate). There were also no significant differences in RT crash or death rate or number following the second intervention phase.Significance/Contribution to the FieldThis study suggests that a multi-faceted road safety intervention programme can be effective in reducing road crashes in a low-income country setting; it is hoped that with time, an impact will also be observed in road traffic mortality. Further analysis is needed to differentiate effects of various interventions, and to determine what other economic and political factors might have affected this change.