Objective: Suffering a stroke might lead to permanent cognitive and/or physical impairment. It has been shown that these impairments could have an impact on an individual's fitness to drive. In Sweden, as in many other countries, there are regulations on driving cessation post-stroke. Information on driving cessation should be given to all patients and noted in the journal. The present study sought to determine physician's compliance to driving regulations post-stroke as well as follow-up and gender aspects.
Method: A retrospective study of medical records on stroke patients was carried out. The study covered all of the medical records on stroke incidents (n = 342) during a year at a typical medium to large-sized hospital in Sweden.
Results: A journal entry on driving cessation post-stroke was missing in 81% of the medical records. Only 2% of the patients were scheduled for a follow-up meeting specifically concerning fitness to drive. Significantly more men than women had an entry on driving in the journal.
Conclusions: We conclude that the Swedish regulations on driving cessation post-stroke were not followed at the participating hospital. It is crucial that all stroke patients receive information on driving cessation because their condition might affect fitness to drive. Analysis of follow-up records showed that there was no consistent method for assessment of a patient's fitness to drive. There was also a gender difference in the material, which warrants further investigation. 相似文献
Objectives: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Touro University California campus to compare differences in reaction times and driving performance of younger adult drivers (18–40 years) and older adult drivers (60 years and older). Each test group consisted of 38 participants.
Methods: A Simple Visual Reaction Test (SVRT) tool was used to measure reaction times. The STISIM Drive M100 driving simulator was used to assess driving parameters. Driving performance parameters included mean lane position, standard deviation of mean lane position measured, mean speed, standard deviation of mean speed, car-following delay, car-following modulus, car-following coherence, off-road accidents, collisions, pedestrians hit, and traffic light tickets.
Results: Compared to younger participants, older drivers experienced significantly slower reaction times (510.0 ± 208.8 vs. 372.4 ± 96.1 ms, P =.0004), had more collisions (0.18 ± 0.39 vs. none, P =.0044), drove slower (44.6 ± 6.6 vs. 54.9 ± 11.7 mph, P <.0001), deviated less in speed (12.6 ± 4.3 vs. 16.8 ± 6.3, P =.0011), and were less able to maintain a constant distance behind a pace car (0.42 ± 0.23 vs. 0.59 ± 0.24; P =.0025).
Conclusions: Differences exist in driving patterns of older and younger drivers as measured by reaction times and driving simulator outcomes. These results are the first to compare these 2 specific adult age groups' driving performance as measured by a standardized driving simulator scenario. Identifying these differences is essential in addressing them and preventing future traffic injuries. 相似文献
Introduction: Given the tremendous number of lives lost or injured, distracted driving is an important safety area to study. With the widespread use of cellphones, phone use while driving has become the most common distracted driving behavior. Although researchers have developed safety performance functions (SPFs) for various crash types, SPFs for distraction-affected crashes are rarely studied in the literature. One possible reason is the lack of critical distracted behavior information in the commonly used safety data (i.e., roadway inventory, traffic, and crash counts). Recently, the frequency of phone use while driving (referred to as phone use data) is recorded by mobile application companies and has become available to safety researchers. The primary objective of this study is to examine if phone use data can potentially predict distracted-affected crashes. Method: The authors first integrated phone use data with roadway inventory, traffic, and crash data in Texas. Then, the Random Forest (RF) algorithm was applied to assess the significance of the feature - phone use while driving - for predicting the number of distraction-affected crashes on a road segment. Further, this study developed two SPFs for distraction-affected crashes with and without the phone use data, separately. Both SPFs were assessed in terms of model fitting and prediction performances. Results: RF results rank the frequency of phone use as an important factor contributing to the number of distraction-affected crashes. Performance evaluations indicated that the inclusion of phone use data in the SPFs consistently improved both fitting and prediction abilities to predict distracted-affected crashes. Practical Applications: The phone use data provide new insights into the safety analyses of distraction-affected crashes, which cannot be achieved by only using the conventional roadway inventory and crash data. Therefore, safety researchers and practitioners are encouraged to incorporate the emerging data sources in reducing distraction-affected crashes. 相似文献
