OBJECTIVE To pilot data collection instruments and to make a preliminary estimate of the level of incorrect use of car seat belts and child restraints in Fife, Scotland. DESIGN Cross sectional survey of cars containing adults and children at a number of public sites across Fife in 1995 to assess use of car occupant restraints. Trained road safety officers assessed whether seat restraints were...

PROBLEM Many motorized countries use fixed penalties to deter the most common traffic violations. Fixed penalties are usually given at the spot by a police officer. If the offender accepts the fixed penalty, no court hearing or trial is held. During the years 1995-2004, the rates for fixed penalties for traffic offences in Norway increased substantially. This paper evaluates the effects on comp...

Seat belt use is an important factor in the prevention of automobile accidents involving injuries and fatalities. The current study used a multielement design to compare the "Click It or Ticket" and "Please Buckle Up--I Care" procedures. Results indicate that the Click It or Ticket prompt resulted in a 20-percentage-point increase in seat belt use, and Please Buckle Up-I Care resulted in a 14-p...

We examined the utility of estimating rates of automobile seat belt use with self-report measures. Self-report measures overestimate belt use rates compared to observational surveys of the same population. Laws mandating seat belt use did not substantially affect the degree to which self-reports are upwardly biased. We found self-report measures overestimate observed belt use by 8.9 to 19.4 per...

In 1987, most states raised the speed limit from 55 to 65 mph on portions of their rural interstate highways. There was intense debate about the increase, and numerous evaluations were conducted afterwards. These evaluations share a common problem: they only measure the local effects of the change. But the change must be judged by its system-wide effects. In particular, the new 65 mph limit all...

CONTEXT The American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration currently recommend that, unless they are under 57in. in height, 8-12-year-old children use seat belts and all should ride in the rear seats of vehicles. These recommendations assume that the vehicle seat belt should provide adequate protection for these older children in the event of a crash. OB...

Sequential voting rules and correspondences provide a way for agents to make group decisions when the set of available options has a multi-issue structure. One important question about sequential voting rules (correspondences) is whether they satisfy two crucial criteria, namely neutrality and efficiency. Recently, Benoit and Kornhauser established an important result about seat-by-seat voting ...

Seat pressure is known as a major factor of seat comfort in vehicles. In passenger vehicles, there is lacking research into the seat comfort of rear seat occupants. As accurate seat pressure measurement requires significant effort, simulation of seat pressure is evolving as a preferred method. However, analytic methods are based on complex finite element modeling and therefore are time consumin...

The study compared female white water paddlers over two conditions: with seat raise and with no seat raise. The aim was to determine whether raising the sitting height would improve paddling efficiency. Sitting height of each participant was recorded in order to calculate the seat raise height required and three-dimensional kinematic data was collected for six participants over both conditions....