We report four cases of burn injuries inflicted by hot coolant after the explosion of the heating unit in four motor-vehicles of the same make and version, in similar circumstances while the patients were driving their cars. Burns of this type can cause considerable morbidity with an accompanying high risk of a traffic accident.

Does intentional car following capture visual attention to the extent that driving may be impaired? We tested fifteen participants on a rudimentary driving simulator. Participants were either instructed to follow a vehicle ahead through a simulated version of London, or were given verbal instructions on where to turn during the route. The presence or absence of pedestrians, and the simulated ti...

The models introduced in this chapter are derived from assumptions about real driving behavior such as keeping a “safe distance” from the leading vehicle, driving at a desired speed, or preferring accelerations to be within a comfortable range. Additionally, kinematical aspects are taken into account, such as the quadratic relation between braking distance and speed. We introduce two examples: ...

This paper provides a link between car following theory and the economic theory of road congestion by means of a theory of speed choice. According to this theory speed choice is based on a trade-off between the benefits (shorter travel time) and cost (higher accident risk) of driving faster. Accident risk is related to the distance to the ‘leader’ and by elaborating this relationship a number o...

A nonlinear car-following model that includes the reaction-time delay of drivers is considered. When investigating the linear stability of the uniform flow solution, boundaries of Hopf bifurcations are determined in the parameter space. Crossing these boundaries, oscillations may appear corresponding to travelling wave solutions. Hopf normal form calculations prove robustly subcritical behavior...

A nonlinear car-following model is studied with driver reaction time delay by using state-of-the-art numerical continuations techniques. These allow us to unveil the detailed microscopic dynamics as well as to extract macroscopic properties of traffic flow. Parameter domains are determined where the uniform flow equilibrium is stable but sufficiently large excitations may trigger traffic jams. ...

Although several studies have associated antisocial behavior with decreased cortisol awakening responses (CAR), studies in adolescent samples yielded inconsistent results. In adolescence however, the CAR develops and antisocial behavior is heterogeneous in type and persistence. Therefore this longitudinal study compared persistent aggressive and rule-breaking adolescents to low aggressive and r...

Microscopic simulation models have become widely applied tools in traffic engineering. Nevertheless, parameter identification remains a difficult tasks due to the fact that parameters are often not directly observable from common traffic data, but also because real driving behavior is variable in time and space, etc. This paper puts forward a new approach to identifying changing parameters of d...