Pedestrian injuries injure about 180,000 individuals and kill 6000 each year in the United States, and pedestrian injury rates have increased each of the last several years. Distracted pedestrian behavior may play a role in the trend of increasing risk for pedestrian injury. Using in vivo behavioral coding over the course of two weeks on two urban college campuses, this study aimed to (1) understand the type and rate of distractions engaged in by pedestrians on urban college campuses, and (2) investigate the impact of distraction on street-crossing safety and behavior.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Distracted pedestrian behavior is a significant public health concern, as research suggests distracted pedestrians have significantly higher risk of injury compared to fully attentive pedestrians. Despite this, efforts to reduce distracted pedestrian behavior are scant.
Objective: Using a repeated measures experimental research design, we implemented a behavioral intervention to reduce distracted pedestrian behavior in the high-risk environment of an urban college campus and simultaneously monitored behavior on a control urban college campus not exposed to the intervention.
Sleep apnea increases risk of driving crashes when left untreated. This study examined the driving performance decrements of untreated, undiagnosed sleep apnea drivers compared with healthy controls in a monotonous highway driving simulator task. It was hypothesized that the sleep apnea group would perform worse during a driving simulator test compared with the control group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Primary enforcement laws have been shown to be effective methods for increasing seat belt use at the state level.
Method: This study investigates state differences in the effectiveness of primary enforcement laws by assessing whether a state's academic achievement, health ranking, economic prosperity, violent crime rates, government effectiveness, gender distribution, or proportion of rural roads moderate the relationship between those laws and seat belt compliance rates.
Results: Aggregate state-level academic achievement, health ranking, government effectiveness, and proportion of rural roads uniquely moderated the seat belt use differences between primary and secondary enforcement states.
In 2005 the Virginia legislature allowed the law permitting automated enforcement for red light running violations to expire. An opportunity presented itself to evaluate what would happen to red light running behavior at formerly enforced locations. Using intersections previously studied to document one city's deployment and use of photo enforcement (see Martinez and Porter, 2006), we mobilized multiple pre-expiration, immediate post-expiration, and one year post-expiration observations at camera-enforced intersections as well as two control groups consisting of same-city and a different city's non-camera locations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: In this article, the authors investigated the effectiveness of a behavior modification program using global positioning system (GPS) vehicle tracking devices with contingency incentives and disincentives to reduce the speeding behavior of drivers with ADHD.
Method: Using an AB multiple-baseline design, six participants drove a 5-mile stable driving route weekly while GPS devices recorded speeds. The dependent variable was percentage of feet speeding.
Objectives: Recent research supports the use of high-threat messages when they are targeted appropriately and designed to promote high efficacy as well as fear. This research examined the effectiveness of using a novel threat-appeal approach to encourage parents to place their children in booster seats and rear seats of vehicles.
Method: A 6-min video-intervention was created and evaluated at after-school/daycare centers via an interrupted time series design with similar control sites for comparison.
Accid Anal Prev
September 2006
Red light running causes about 260,000 crashes and 750 fatalities each year in the US (Retting, Ulmer, & Williams, 1999, Accident Analysis & Prevention). This study investigated the effects of photo enforcement cameras on reducing red light running and characterized the typical red light runner throughout photo enforcement program implementation. In Southeast Virginia, eight intersections were observed over an 8-month period during which photo enforcement cameras were installed at three sites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: A new law took effect in Finland at the beginning of 2003 which prohibits the handheld use of mobile phones while driving a motor vehicle. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of the law on phone usage and self-reported safety during the first few months and 16 months later to determine whether the initial level of compliance with the law had been sustained.
Methods: Data were collected by Gallup home poll before (spring 2002) and after legislation took effect (spring 2003 and 2004).