Motorized Vehicle Safety

Relative Burden of Distracted Driving Fatalities by Characteristic

Griswold, Julia B.
Grembek, Offer
2014

We were glad to see discussion of the dangers of distracted driving to vulnerable road users in the article by Stimpson et al. in the November/December 2013 issue of Public Health Reports. However, we question the conclusion that pedestrian and bicyclist victims of distracted driving crashes are disproportionately nonHispanic white. This inference appears to be drawn from the results in Table 1 of the article, where the rates are calculated per one million total population, which fails to account for the different sizes of the populations of each race/ethnicity. To correctly evaluate the...

Keeping Children Safe in Cars

Cooper, Jill F.
2004

Low-income children face twice the risk of dying from crash-related injuries compared to children from higher income families. To increase safety for these children, the California Health Care Safety Net Institute and the UC Davis Medical Center launched the Child Passenger Safety (CPS) Initiative with funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety. The initiative ran from April, 2001, through September, 2003, and had these goals: to increase safety seat use among families using public health care services; to decrease the rate of safety seat misuse among these families; and to...

Quantifying the Performance of Countermeasures for Collision Concentration Related to Ramp/Freeway Mainline Junctions

Lee, Joon Ho
Chan, Ching-Yao
Ragland, David R.
2009

This study performed before-and-after analyses (comparisons of collisions before and after the construction of auxiliary lanes) on collision rate at nine study sites in California in order to achieve two objectives: (i) to estimate the freeway Crash/Collision Reduction Factor (CRF) for auxiliary lanes, and (ii) to develop design guidelines for the construction of auxiliary lanes. Findings indicate that on average, collision rates decreased by 17.3 percent at nine study sites. The study also found that after construction of auxiliary lanes at two study sites, collision rates increased when...

Development of a Variable Speed Limit Strategy Based on Car Following Behaviors for Improving Freeway Safety Under Severe Weathers

Li, Zhibin
Liu, Pan
Li, Ye
Xu, Chengcheng
Yu, Hao
Zhang, Yuanyuan
2014

Severe weather reduces sight distance and increases stopping distance of traveling vehicles. Traffic collisions are likely to occur when vehicles encounter traffic congestions on freeways under severe weathers. The primary objective of this study is to develop a control strategy of variable speed limit (VSL) to improve freeway safety in different types of weather conditions. The control strategy aims to reduce vehicle speeds gradually prior to congestions. A car-following model was used to simulate the behaviors of drivers in different visibility and road adhesion conditions. The...

Trauma Center-Based Surveillance of Nontraffic Pedestrian Injury among California Children

Rice, Thomas M.
Trent, Roger B.
Bernacki, Kate
Rice, Jennifer K.
Lovette, Bonnie
Hoover, Eileen
Fennell, Janette
Aistrich, Anna Zacher
Wiltsek, Dana
Corman, Ellen
Anderson, Craig L.
Sherck, John
2011

Introduction: Every year in the United States, thousands of young children are injured by passenger vehicles in driveways or parking areas. Little is known about risk factors, and incidence rates are difficult to estimate because ascertainment using police collision reports or media sources is incomplete. This study used surveillance at trauma centers to identify incidents and parent interviews to obtain detailed information on incidents, vehicles, and children.

Methods: Eight California trauma centers conducted surveillance of nontraffic pedestrian collision injury to children aged...

The Effectiveness of Child Restraint Systems for Children Aged 3 Years or Younger During Motor Vehicle Collisions: 1996 to 2005

Rice, Thomas M.
Anderson, Craig L.
2009

Objectives. We estimated the effectiveness of child restraints in preventing death during motor vehicle collisions among children 3 years or younger.

Methods. We conducted a matched cohort study using Fatality Analysis Reporting System data from 1996 to 2005. We estimated death risk ratios using conditional Poisson regression, bootstrapping, multiple imputation, and a sensitivity analysis of misclassification bias. We examined possible effect modification by selected factors.

Results. The estimated death risk ratios comparing child safety seats with...

Geocoding vehicle collisions on Korean expressways based on postmile referencing

Park, Shin Hyoung
Bigham, John M.
Kho, Seung-Young
Kang, Seungmo
Kim, Dong-Kyu
2011

Geocoding is the process of assigning latitude and longitude coordinates to data that contain spatial information. Geocoded records of motor vehicle collisions are an invaluable resource for injury prevention researchers. The objective of this study is to apply the postmile referencing system for geocoding collisions on Korean expressways and summarize the methodology and results with comparative research efforts in the USA. A street network provided by Korea Expressway Corporation was cleaned and calibrated using ArcGIS and a customized Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) tool....

Surrogate safety measure for evaluating rear-end collision risk related to kinematic waves near freeway recurrent bottlenecks

Li, Zhibin
Ahn, Seongchae
Chung, Koohong
Ragland, David R.
Wang, Wei
Yu, Jeong Whon
2013

This study presents a surrogate safety measure for evaluating the rear-end collision risk related to kinematic waves near freeway recurrent bottlenecks using aggregated traffic data from ordinary loop detectors. The attributes of kinematic waves that accompany rear-end collisions and the traffic conditions at detector stations spanning the collision locations were examined to develop the rear-end collision risk index (RCRI). Together with RCRI, standard deviations in occupancy were used to develop a logistic regression model for estimating rear-end collision likelihood near freeway...

Methods for Identifying High Collision Concentration Locations for Potential Safety Improvements

Geyer, Judy
Lankina, Elena
Chan, Ching-Yao
Ragland, David R.
Pham, Trinh
Sharafsaleh, Mohammad A.
2008

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) uses Table C and related documents to identify and to investigate locations within the state highway system where a relatively large number of collisions occur. In earlier years, a task force evaluated the process of generating and using these reports and found that there was much room for improvements. A list of recommendations was made. The efforts undertaken within this project is part of the effort to make the process of safety investigations and improvements more efficient and productive. This report summarizes the work carried...

Applying Safety Improvements to Fleet Vehicles

Cooper, Douglas L.
Sharafsaleh, Mohammad A.
Ragland, David R.
Begley, Loida
Kim, Yong Hee
Jin, Eui Jae
2007

The safety of both employees and the motoring public is of paramount importance to Caltrans, resulting in a continuing effort to improve the operating vehicle fleet. The potential safety changes that are the focus of this project are those that involve safety equipment enhancement over and above the original specifications for the vehicle or outside of the scope of the original equipment design or purpose, such as rear view backup video cameras. The motivation for this project was Division of Equipment (DOE) managers' need for an objective strategy to address safety equipment deployment...