The impact of a standard enforcement safety belt law on fatalities and hospital charges in Ohio

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to analyze linked crash and hospital data to determine the effect that enactment of a standard enforcement safety belt law in Ohio would have on hospital charges and direct medical costs due to motor-vehicle crashes, focusing on the impact to the state's Medicaid system.

Method

The linkage and analysis was conducted as part of the Ohio Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES) program. Current safety belt usage in Ohio stands at 82% with its secondary enforcement safety belt law.

Results

Assuming an increase in usage to 92% through standard enforcement, over $15.3 million in medical costs to Medicaid for injuries that occur in a single year could be prevented over a 10-year period. Cumulative savings could reach more than $91.2 million during the 10-year period. In addition, 161 fatalities could have been prevented in one year had all unbelted occupants who sustained a fatal injury instead chosen to wear their safety belt.

Summary and Impact on Industry

Clearly, substantial progress can be made in reducing the number of deaths and injuries, as well as medical costs associated with motor-vehicle crashes, by strengthening safety belt laws and increasing safety belt usage in Ohio.     

Potential effects of lowering the BAC limit on injuries,fatalities, and costs

IntroductionPotential health and cost impacts of lowering the BAC limit for U.S. drivers below .08% were explored through analyses of reductions in crash incidence, injury severity, and costs based on five scenarios with varying assumptions about how the change to a .05% BAC limit might affect alcohol-impaired driving.MethodsDistribution of crashes by injury level and highest driver or non-occupant BAC levels for 2010, together with unit crash costs provided a base for comparison. Scenario 1 assumed all alcohol-impaired driving ceased; scenario 2 assumed all drivers obeyed the law, and scenario 3 assumed decreases in driver BAC levels would be limited to those who had been driving near the legal limit before the change. Scenario 4 was based on changes in driver BAC levels associated with a 08% to .05% BAC limit change in Australia, and scenario 5 was based on changes in alcohol-related crashes associated with the change to the .08% BAC limit in the United States. The number of casualties prevented in each scenario was estimated using relative risks of crash involvement, and changes in societal costs were estimated using the unit costs.ResultsReductions ranging from 71% to 99% in fatalities, injuries, and costs related to alcohol-impaired driving were estimated in scenarios 1 and 2. Scenarios 3–5 produced smaller reductions ranging from 4% to 16% for alcohol-impaired fatalities, injuries, and costs.ConclusionThe wide difference between the outcomes of the two sets of scenarios reflects the sensitivity of BAC policy benefits to driver compliance behavior.Practical applicationThe quantification of the reduction in the number and costs of traffic crash casualties in the set of behavioral scenarios explored in this research can inform policymakers about the extent and limits of benefits achievable by lowering the BAC limits as they consider strategies to reduce alcohol-impaired driving.     

An experimental study on the effect of mobile phone conversation on drivers' reaction time in braking response

Introduction

This paper presents an experimental study in which the effect of three factors (distance between cars, mobile call duration, and time of driving (day or night)) on drivers' reaction time in braking response was investigated.

Methods

The experiment was performed in a real driving environment in which 27 male adults between the ages of 22 and 24 years participated. Three levels of the first two factors (i.e., distance between cars and call duration) and two levels of the last factor (i.e., time of driving) were selected to conduct the experimental study. A full factorial design of experiment with 18 treatment combinations and three replicates of each combination were used. Fifty-four trial runs were performed in a random manner and for each run drivers' reaction time in braking response was measured, which served the data for further analysis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA), interaction effect analysis, and various model adequacy tests were carried out using Design Expert software.

Results

The results of the study indicated that the most important factor affecting the drivers' reaction time in car braking response was the mobile call duration followed by the time of driving, with a high level of interaction between the two factors. It was also found that the distance between cars did not seem to have a significant effect on the reaction time in braking response. It is to be noted that these response times are expected to be higher under normal driving conditions where awareness of experimental environment is not present.

Impact on Industry

The findings of this study would help mobile phone industries in improving safety of mobile phone users in driving environment.     

诱导排烟系统应用于地下车库的实验研究

运用实验研究的方法分析了诱导排烟系统在地下车库中应用的可行性,研究了布置方式、诱导风速等敏感参数对排烟效果的影响,主要分析了火源上游不同位置处温度的变化。结果表明,诱导排烟系统能有效地抑制烟气向上游的逆流并能加强烟气的热对流,降低上游烟气的温度;另外,开启少于均匀布置诱导风机数目下,菱形布置诱导风机下的排烟效果优于均匀排列布置;在实验风速范围内,诱导排烟系统对上游烟气的控制和降温能力随着诱导风速的增加而提高,同时,在火源功率一定的条件下,增大诱导风速对控烟效果的改善存在临界值。     

功能安全评估在安全评价中的应用体系研究

在工业过程控制领域,安全仪表系统监视生产过程的状态,在危险条件出现时采取相应的措施,防止危险发生,避免潜在危险对人身、设备、环境造成伤害或减轻造成的损失,是保障生产安全的重要措施。安全仪表系统应能在危险发生时正确的执行其安全功能,因而其自身的功能安全成为关注的焦点。作为安全评价的延伸,应将功能安全评估引入,从而完善安全评价体系。本文以功能安全国际标准为基础,讨论建立我国功能安全评估机构的运作模型及功能安全评估在安全评价中的应用体系。     

A study on the impact of management system certification on safety management

This study presents an empirical investigation of the influence of management system certification on the relationship between safety management and safety performance in major accident hazard chemical industry. The perceptions of employees about six important safety management practices and self-reported safety behaviour are measured with the help of a questionnaire survey administered in eight chemical companies in the state of Kerala in India. One thousand five hundred and sixty six workers participated in the survey with a response rate of 72%. The validity and reliability of the scales are found acceptable. Analysis of the data revealed that employees in companies with OHSAS 18001, ISO 9001 and no certification at all perceive different levels of the above safety variables in them and those in OHSAS 18001 organizations are significantly higher compared with the others. Step-wise regression analysis revealed that four out of six safety management practices predicted safety behaviour in OHSAS 18001 certified organization and three safety management practices were found to predict safety behaviour in the other two groups. But, safety rules and procedures (SR) emerged as a common predictor of safety behaviour in all the three models. This study emphasizes the need for OHSAS 18001 certification to reduce the accidents and thereby to reduce liability and improve productivity and safety and health of employees.     

装修改造对结构整体安全性影响分析

归纳了危害结构安全的主要装修改造行为,提出装修改造对结构安全性影响应以整体结构为研究对象,分析结构整体抗力的变化。以实际工程为例,对装修改造前后建筑结构进行设计复核,重点分析了建筑荷载增加、承重墙窗下墙拆除对结构安全性的影响。指出在各种装修因素综合作用下,结构承重体系发生改变,尤其是抗震薄弱构件的出现,使结构整体抗震能力大大降低。提出保证建筑结构安全性的合理化建议,对防止突发性灾害具有重要意义。     

An application of data mining tools for the study of shipping safety in restricted waters

The effectiveness of the enforcement of the ISM-Code and the examination of its role in the distribution of causes of shipping accidents between human and non-human error was studied. All accidents involving Greek-flagged ships from 1995 to 2006, a time-scale which spans over the pre- and post-ISM period in navigational regions of restricted waters, were analyzed.The accident data was processed through a classification tree analysis which enabled the classification of various accident factors. The analysis revealed that although the human error maintained its position as the dominant factor in shipping accidents, there is also substantial evidence in support of the ISM-Code effective control over shipping accidents during the post-ISM period. The implementation of the ISM-Code led to an overall reduction of human-induced accidents in total. Furthermore, in terms of location, the ISM-Code improved the human-induced accident record within restricted waters.Conclusively, the ISM-Code constitutes an effective policy measure for shipping safety. The results of the classification tree analysis reported in the present work can be used by decision makers in companies and international organizations to build knowledge-based expert systems and augment their information in the field of safety policy and management.     

基于CF与LR模型的泥石流危险性评价

泥石流危险性评价是泥石流防灾减灾工作不可或缺的部分.以帕隆藏布流域为研究区,以多元遥感数据和实地调查数据为数据源,从致灾因子和孕灾环境入手,选取年均降雨量、地层岩性、距断层距离、NDVI、土地利用类型等8个影响因子,利用CF模型和LR模型确定各因子及其分类级别的权重,采用Pearson相关系数法进行因子间的独立性检验,运用ROC曲线对评价结果进行验证.结果表明:1)泥石流危险性的影响因子权重从大到小依次为土地利用类型、年均降雨量、距断层距离、土壤类型、归一化植被指数、地层岩性、坡度、地形起伏度;2)高危险区面积占研究区总面积的17.11％,其泥石流数占研究区泥石流总数的43.62％,表明泥石流发育集中,与实际情况相符;3)模型精度验证AUC为0.903,表明模型评价精度较高,评价结果理想,可为帕隆藏布流域泥石流防治提供辅助决策.     

基于中介效应法的安全氛围对员工安全行为的影响研究

安全氛围对员工的安全生产行为会产生重要的影响.首先在相关研究成果基础上,设计了安全氛围、个体安全认知和个体安全行为关系的分析模型,包括构面维度、维度关键因子与测评工具.然后通过在一家大型建筑企业集团不同项目上的问卷调查,应用中介效应法对安全氛围、个体安全认知、个体安全行为之间相关关系进行了实证分析.研究结论包括:安全氛围对员工的安全认知、安全行为起着正向影响,安全意识、安全态度、安全参与在安全氛围和安全行为之间存在中介效应关系.这说明组织安全氛围成熟度越高,个体安全认知感越强,其对安全行为的影响作用也越大.模型设计突出了原创性和交融性,能为建筑企业安全生产管理实践提供参考.     

Performance assessment system of health,safety and environment based on experts' weights and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation

Performance evaluation of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) is the measurement of a company's achievement in HSE management. In order to receive a comprehensive and objective evaluation result, it is necessary to consider all evaluation factors and experts at different levels when HSE performance assessment is conducted. To improve conventional HSE performance evaluation, where weighted average method was used, a Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (FCE) method is used in this study by taking experts' weights into account. Further, an HSE operating performance assessment system is designed to simplify manual and complex assessment process and generate charts and analysis reports automatically. Finally, a case of petrochemical enterprise is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the method and system.     

The impact of chronic pain patients' psychotropic drug knowledge and warning labels on the decision whether to drive a car or not

OBJECTIVE: The attitudes of patients towards driving a car while taking medication with psychotropic side effects is unclear. A growing number of patients use these psychotropic medicines on a daily basis, and this may interfere with their ability to drive a car. METHODS: By means of a survey, we examined attitudes towards driving while using psychotropic medicinal drugs and the effect of warning labels on the decision whether to drive a car or not in patients with chronic pain. RESULTS: Fifty-eight of 100 patients possessing a driver's license used psychotropic medication. Despite warning labels affixed on the packages that these drugs might impair driving ability, the majority (71%) of these patients continued driving a car. A point of concern is that 40% of these patients reported not to be more cautious in traffic after taking psychotropic drugs. CONCLUSION: The results of this survey indicate that drug warning labels applied by Dutch pharmacies do not significantly change attitudes towards driving a car in patients taking medicinal drugs with psychotropic side effects. Future road-safety campaigns should pay more attention to the impairing effects of psychotropic drugs on driving.     

Multi-agent traffic simulations to estimate the impact of automated technologies on safety

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this article was to develop a multi-agent traffic simulation methodology to estimate the potential road safety improvements of automated vehicle technologies.

Methods: We developed a computer program that merges road infrastructure data with a large number of vehicles, drivers, and pedestrians. Human errors are induced by modeling inattention, aimless driving, insufficient safety confirmation, misjudgment, and inadequate operation. The program was applied to simulate traffic in a prescribed area in Tsukuba city. First, a 100% manual driving scenario was set to simulate traffic for a total preset vehicle travel distance. The crashes from this simulation were compared with real-world crash data from the prescribed area from 2012 to 2017. Thereafter, 4 additional scenarios of increasing levels of automation penetration (including combinations of automated emergency braking [AEB], lane departure warning [LDW], and SAE Level 4 functions) were implemented to estimate their impact on safety.

Results: Under manual driving, the system simulated a total of 859 crashes including single-car lane departure, car-to-car, and car-to-pedestrian crashes. These crashes tended to occur in locations similar to real-world crashes. The number of crashes predicted decreased to 156 cases with increasing level of automation. All of the technologies considered contributed to the decrease in crashes. Crash reductions attributable to AEB and LDW in the simulations were comparable to those reported in recent field studies. For the highest levels of automation, no assessment data were available and hence the results should be carefully treated. Further, in modeling automated functions, potentially negative aspects such as sensing failure or human overreliance were not incorporated.

Conclusions: We developed a multi-agent traffic simulation methodology to estimate the effect of different automated vehicle technologies on safety. The crash locations resulting from simulations of manual driving within a limited area in Japan were preliminary assessed by comparison with real-world crash data collected in the same area. Increasing penetration levels of AEB and LDW led to a large reduction in both the frequency and severity of rear-end crashes, followed by car-to-car head-on crashes and single-vehicle lane departure crashes. Preliminary estimations of the potential safety improvements that may be achieved with highly automated driving technologies were also obtained.     

安全产品的供求特性及其与行业安全形势的关系初探

基于安全经济学的基本原理，通过对不同行业的自动安全水平和法定安全水平之间的关系的分析，论述了不同行业安全产品的需求特性，以及与此相适应的安全产品供给特性；并对安全产品的特殊供求机制与特定行业的安全形势之间的关系进行了初步的探讨，提出了提高行业安全水平的对策。     

The effects of a mandatory motorcycle helmet law on helmet use and injury patterns among motorcyclist fatalities

BACKGROUND: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has found that motorcycle helmets are 37% effective in preventing death and 65% effective in preventing brain injuries in a crash. Unfortunately, in 1995 Congress lifted federal sanctions against states without helmet laws and since then there have been a number of primary motorcycle helmet laws repealed or weakened. More lives could be saved and serious injuries avoided if there was increased helmet use throughout the United States. METHODS: This study analyzed helmet use and injury patterns among motorcycle riders in the United States involved in fatal crashes from 1995 through 2003 and compared the results between states with and without a primary helmet law. Age, sex, injury severity and helmet use are some of the variables obtained from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). RESULTS: In the 20 states and the District of Columbia, which currently have a primary helmet law, 84.0% of fatally injured riders were wearing a helmet. In the 27 states with a secondary helmet law, 36.2% of fatalities used a helmet, and in the remaining three states with no law at all, helmet use dropped to 17.6%. In the two states (Arkansas and Texas) that changed from a primary helmet law to a secondary helmet law in 1997, helmet use decreased from 78.2% in 1996 to 31.7% in 2000. CONCLUSION: If all states were to enact a primary motorcycle helmet law, helmet use would dramatically increase while decreasing the number of motorcyclist head injuries and fatalities. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: The results of this study will hopefully persuade law makers to enact primary helmet laws in all states throughout the nation. Helmet manufacturers can use this data to design more comfortable helmets while also improving upon the protective qualities of these safety devices.