What do we really know about designing and evaluating road safety advertising? : current knowledge and future challenges

This paper provides much needed consolidation of the available evidence in relation to the design and evaluation of road safety advertising messages. Drawing upon current knowledge, the paper identifies some key challenges for improving both the persuasiveness of messages and the methods utilised to assess their effectiveness. The paper identifies some key message-related and individual difference factors, such as response efficacy, emotion, gender and involvement, which theoretical and empirical evidence has shown to be key determinants of message persuasiveness. In relation to message evaluation, the paper focuses upon research relating to the direct, persuasive role of advertising as opposed to evaluations of the combined effects of advertising and enforcement. The paper reviews methodological limitations of previous studies and gaps in existing knowledge that together limit the ability to draw accurate and comprehensive conclusions regarding message effectiveness. Overall, this paper provides a significant and timely review of what is currently known about road safety advertising design and evaluation.

Changing motorcycle rider safety attitudes and motives for risk taking : process evaluation of a rider training intervention

Risk-taking behaviour by motorcyclists has been shown to contribute to a substantial proportion of road crashes in Australia and abroad. Concern has been expressed that traditional motorcycle licence training programs do not sufficiently address such behaviour. Accordingly, the Three Steps to Safer Riding program was developed to address risk taking behaviour by riders as an adjunct to existing skills-based rider training. The program was designed to be delivered in a one hour classroom session at the start of training, with a 20 minute debrief to revise the key concepts at the end of training. This paper reports on the key training concepts, methodology and implementation of the pilot program with a major rider training organisation in Queensland and presents findings from a process evaluation. The Three Steps to Safer Riding intervention pilot was delivered to 518 learner riders over a three month period. Follow-up focus groups and one interview with intervention participants (N=18) five to eight months after completion of the program suggest that new riders (absolute novices) embraced and internalised many of the intervention concepts. However, some riders who had previous riding experience prior to training stated these issues were common sense, yet still expressed riding styles that were contrary to some of the key intervention messages. This is discussed in terms of raising awareness of risk issues for motorcyclists versus behaviour change. Additionally, interviews conducted with riding instructors are discussed regarding logistical challenges of implementation, training consistency, skills required to deliver the program, support for the program, and student engagement.

Speeding in Australia and China : a comparison of the influence of legal sanctions and enforcement practices on car drivers

Despite increasingly sophisticated speed management strategies, speeding remains a significant contributing factor in 25% of Australia’s fatal crashes. Excessive speed is also a recognised contributor to road trauma in rapidly motorising countries such as China, where increases in vehicle ownership and new drivers, and a high proportion of vulnerable road users all contribute to a high road trauma rate. Speed choice is a voluntary behaviour. Therefore, driver perceptions are important to our understanding of the nature of speeding. This paper reports preliminary qualitative (focus groups) and quantitative (survey) investigations of the perceptions of drivers in Queensland and Beijing. Drivers’ definitions of speeding as well as their perceptions of the influence of legal factors on their reported speeds were explored. Survey participants were recruited from petrol stations (Queensland, n=833) and car washes (Beijing, n=299). Similarities were evident in justifications for exceeding speed limits across samples. Excessive speeds were not deemed as ‘speeding’ when drivers considered that they were safe and under their control, or when speed limits were seen as unreasonably low. This appears linked to perceptions of enforcement tolerances in some instances with higher perceived enforcement thresholds noted in China. Encouragingly, drivers in both countries reported a high perceived risk of apprehension if speeding. However, a substantial proportion of both samples also indicated perceptions of low certainty of receiving penalties when apprehended. Chinese drivers considered sanctions less severe than did Australian drivers. In addition, strategies to avoid detection and penalties were evident in both samples, with Chinese drivers reporting a broader range of avoidant techniques. Implications of the findings for future directions in speed management in both countries are discussed.

Enhancing road safety for young drivers : how Graduate Driver Licensing initiatives can complement "anti-hooning" legislation

Street racing and associated (hooning) behaviours have attracted increasing concern in recent years. While New Zealand and all Australian jurisdictions have introduced “antihooning” legislation and allocated significant police resources to managing the problem, there is limited evidence of the road safety implications of hooning. However, international and Australian data suggests that drivers charged with a hooning offence tend to be young males who are accompanied by one or more peers, and hooning-related crashes tend to occur at night. In this regard, there is considerable evidence that drivers under the age of 25 are over-represented in crash statistics, and are particularly vulnerable soon after obtaining a Provisional licence, when driving at night, and when carrying peer-aged passengers. The similarity between the nature of hooning offenders, offences and crashes, and road safety risks for young drivers in general, suggests that hooning is an issue that may be viewed as part of the broader young driver problem. Many jurisdictions have recently implemented a range of evidence-based strategies to address young driver road safety, and this paper will present Queensland crash and offence data to highlight the potential benefit of Graduated Driver Licensing initiatives, such as night driving restrictions and peer-aged passenger restrictions, to related road safety issues, including hooning. An understanding of potential flow-on effects is important for evaluations of anti-hooning legislation and Graduated Driver Licensing programs, and may have implications for future law enforcement resource allocation and policy development.

Contemporary behavioural influences in an organisational setting and implications for intervention development

Professional drivers and safety Within the industrialised world, work-related crashes are the most common cause of work-related death, injury and reduced productivity (Charbotel et al., 2001; Toscano and Windau, 1994). Likewise in Australia, road crashes are the most common cause of work-related fatalities, injuries and absence from work (Haworth et al., 2000), with the average time lost being greater than any other workplace claim (Stewart-Bogle, 1999). There are obvious costs related to work crashes such as vehicle and property repair costs. There are also many hidden expenses including third party costs, workers compensation, medical costs, rehabilitation, customer-related costs, increased insurance premiums, administrative costs, legal fees and loss of productivity (Collingwood, 1997; Haworth et al, 2000).

Crash Risk Assessment with Cooperative Systems

Crash risk is the statistical probability of a crash. Its assessment can be performed through ex post statistical analysis or in real-time with on-vehicle systems. These systems can be cooperative. Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) are a developing research avenue in the automotive industry worldwide. This paper provides a survey of existing CVIS systems and methods to assess crash risk with them. It describes the advantages of cooperative systems versus non-cooperative systems. A sample of cooperative crash risk assessment systems is analysed to extract vulnerabilities according to three criteria: market penetration, over-reliance on GPS and broadcasting issues. It shows that cooperative risk assessment systems are still in their infancy and requires further development to provide their full benefits to road users.

A model to predict hypovigilance during a monotonous task

The driving task requires sustained attention during prolonged periods, and can be performed in highly predictable or repetitive environments. Such conditions could create drowsiness or hypovigilance and impair the ability to react to critical events. Identifying vigilance decrement in monotonous conditions has been a major subject of research, but no research to date has attempted to predict this vigilance decrement. This pilot study aims to show that vigilance decrements due to monotonous tasks can be predicted through mathematical modelling. A short vigilance task sensitive to short periods of lapses of vigilance called Sustained Attention to Response Task is used to assess participants’ performance. This task models the driver’s ability to cope with unpredicted events by performing the expected action. A Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is proposed to predict participants’ hypovigilance. Driver’s vigilance evolution is modelled as a hidden state and is correlated to an observable variable: the participant’s reactions time. This experiment shows that the monotony of the task can lead to an important vigilance decline in less than five minutes. This impairment can be predicted four minutes in advance with an 86% accuracy using HMMs. This experiment showed that mathematical models such as HMM can efficiently predict hypovigilance through surrogate measures. The presented model could result in the development of an in-vehicle device that detects driver hypovigilance in advance and warn the driver accordingly, thus offering the potential to enhance road safety and prevent road crashes.

A Vision Based Target Detection System for Docking of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

This paper describes the development and preliminary experimental evaluation of a visionbased docking system to allow an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) to identify and attach itself to a set of uniquely identifiable targets. These targets, docking poles, are detected using Haar rectangular features and rotation of integral images. A non-holonomic controller allows the Starbug AUV to orient itself with respect to the target whilst maintaining visual contact during the manoeuvre. Experimental results show the proposed vision system is capable of robustly identifying a pair of docking poles simultaneously in a variety of orientations and lighting conditions. Experiments in an outdoor pool show that this vision system enables the AUV to dock autonomously from a distance of up to 4m with relatively low visibility.

Use of Probe Vehicles to Increase Traffic Estimation Accuracy in Brisbane

Traffic congestion is an increasing problem with high costs in financial, social and personal terms. These costs include psychological and physiological stress, aggressivity and fatigue caused by lengthy delays, and increased likelihood of road crashes. Reliable and accurate traffic information is essential for the development of traffic control and management strategies. Traffic information is mostly gathered from in-road vehicle detectors such as induction loops. Traffic Message Chanel (TMC) service is popular service which wirelessly send traffic information to drivers. Traffic probes have been used in many cities to increase traffic information accuracy. A simulation to estimate the number of probe vehicles required to increase the accuracy of traffic information in Brisbane is proposed. A meso level traffic simulator has been developed to facilitate the identification of the optimal number of probe vehicles required to achieve an acceptable level of traffic reporting accuracy. Our approach to determine the optimal number of probe vehicles required to meet quality of service requirements, is to simulate runs with varying numbers of traffic probes. The simulated traffic represents Brisbane’s typical morning traffic. The road maps used in simulation are Brisbane’s TMC maps complete with speed limits and traffic lights. Experimental results show that that the optimal number of probe vehicles required for providing a useful supplement to TMC (induction loop) data lies between 0.5% and 2.5% of vehicles on the road. With less probes than 0.25%, little additional information is provided, while for more probes than 5%, there is only a negligible affect on accuracy for increasingly many probes on the road. Our findings are consistent with on-going research work on traffic probes, and show the effectiveness of using probe vehicles to supplement induction loops for accurate and timely traffic information.

Identification of barriers to and facilitators for the implementation of occupational road safety initiatives

To explore potential barriers to and facilitators for implementing occupational road safety initiatives, in-depth interviews were conducted with personnel from four major Australian organizations. Twenty-four participants were involved in the interviews comprising 16 front line employees and eight managers. The interviews identified that employees perceived six organizational characteristics as potential barriers to implementing occupational road safety initiatives. These included: prioritisation of production over safety; complacency towards occupational road risks; insufficient resources; diversity; limited employee input in safety decisions; and a perception that road safety initiatives were an unnecessary burden. Of these organizational characteristics, prioritisation of production over safety and complacency were the most frequently cited barriers. In regards to facilitators, participants perceived three organizational characteristics as potential facilitators to implementing occupational road safety initiatives. These included: management commitment; the presence of existing systems that could support the implementation of initiatives; and supportive relationships. Of these organizational characteristics, management commitment was the most frequently cited facilitator.

The impact of police speed enforcement practices on self-reported speeding: An exploration of the effects of visibility and mobility

Research has highlighted the relationship between vehicle speed and increased crash risk and severity. Evidence suggests that police speed enforcement, in particular speed camera operations, can be an effective tool for reducing traffic crashes. A quantitative survey of Queensland drivers (n = 852) was conducted to investigate the impact of police speed enforcement methods on self-reported speeding behaviour. Results indicate that visible enforcement was associated with significantly greater self-reported compliance than covert operations irrespective of the mobility of the approach, and the effects on behaviour were longer lasting. The mobility of operations appeared to be moderated the visibility of the approach. Specifically, increased mobility was associated with increase reported compliant behaviour, but only for covert operations, and increased longevity of reported compliant behaviour, but only for overt operations. The perceived effectiveness of various speed enforcement approaches are also analysed across a range of driving scenarios. Results are discussed in light of the small effect sizes. Recommendations for policy and future research are presented.

Applying data mining to assess crash risk on curves

The wide range of contributing factors and circumstances surrounding crashes on road curves suggest that no single intervention can prevent these crashes. This paper presents a novel methodology, based on data mining techniques, to identify contributing factors and the relationship between them. It identifies contributing factors that influence the risk of a crash. Incident records, described using free text, from a large insurance company were analysed with rough set theory. Rough set theory was used to discover dependencies among data, and reasons using the vague, uncertain and imprecise information that characterised the insurance dataset. The results show that male drivers, who are between 50 and 59 years old, driving during evening peak hours are involved with a collision, had a lowest crash risk. Drivers between 25 and 29 years old, driving from around midnight to 6 am and in a new car has the highest risk. The analysis of the most significant contributing factors on curves suggests that drivers with driving experience of 25 to 42 years, who are driving a new vehicle have the highest crash cost risk, characterised by the vehicle running off the road and hitting a tree. This research complements existing statistically based tools approach to analyse road crashes. Our data mining approach is supported with proven theory and will allow road safety practitioners to effectively understand the dependencies between contributing factors and the crash type with the view to designing tailored countermeasures.

The on-road difficulties of older drivers and their relationship with self-reported motor vehicle crashes

OBJECTIVES: To quantify the driving difficulties of older adults using a detailed assessment of driving performance and to link this with self-reported retrospective and prospective crashes. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: On-road driving assessment. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred sixty-seven community-living adults aged 70 to 88 randomly recruited through the electoral roll. MEASUREMENTS: Performance on a standardized measure of driving performance. RESULTS: Lane positioning, approach, and blind spot monitoring were the most common error types, and errors occurred most frequently in situations involving merging and maneuvering. Drivers reporting more retrospective or prospective crashes made significantly more driving errors. Driver instructor interventions during self-navigation (where the instructor had to brake or take control of the steering to avoid an accident) were significantly associated with higher retrospective and prospective crashes; every instructor intervention almost doubled prospective crash risk. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that on-road driving assessment provides useful information on older driver difficulties, with the self-directed component providing the most valuable information.

Clinical efficacy and safety of zoledronic acid in osteoporosis and Paget's disease

Osteoporosis and Paget’s bone disease are the most common diseases of the bone. In addition to glucocorticoid treatment, there are many other secondary causes of osteoporosis. Bisphosphonates are used to treat these bone conditions. Zoledronic acid is the most potent bisphosphonate at inhibiting bone resorption. In osteoporosis, zoledronic acid increases bone mineral density for at least 1 year following a single intravenous administration. The efficacy and safety of zoledronic acid in the treatment of osteoporosis and Paget’s bone disease are reviewed. This article also covers the studies of the effects of zoledronic acid in the bone loss associated with the secondary osteoporosis.

Clinical efficacy and safety of zoledronic acid in prostate and breast cancer

The anti-estrogen treatment for hormone-sensitive breast cancer and the androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer can lead to the development of osteoporosis and bone fractures. Metastases associated with prostate and breast cancer can also occur in bone. Bisphosphonates are used in these types of bone dysfunction. Zoledronic acid is the most potent bisphosphonate. In osteoporosis, zoledronic acid inhibits bone reabsorption and increases bone mineral density for at least a year after intravenous administration. The efficacy and safety of zoledronic acid in osteoporosis secondary to hormone-sensitive cancers (prostate and breast), and in the bone metastases associated with these cancers are reviewed.