The effectiveness of parents in promoting the development of road crossing skills in young children. "Risk Watch": cluster randomised controlled trial evaluating an injury prevention program. Highlighting human form and motion information enhances the conspicuity of pedestrians at night. Effects of age and illumination on night driving: a road test. High visibility safety apparel and nighttime conspicuity of pedestrians in work zones. Effects of retroreflector positioning on nighttime recognition of pedestrians. Injury prevention counselling to improve safety practices by parents in Mexico. Reducing road traffic injuries: effectiveness of speed cameras in an urban setting. Controlled trial evaluation of an asthma education programme for adults. Prevention of childhood injuries: evaluation of the Statewide Childhood Injury Prevention Program (SCIPP). Effect of motorcycle rider education on changes in risk behaviours and motorcycle-related injuries in rural Thailand.
Young children show poor judgment when asked to select a safe place to cross the road, frequently considering dangerous sites to be safe. Correspondingly, child pedestrian accidents are over-represented at such locations. Increasing the child's ability to recognise such dangers is a central challenge for road safety education.
                Practical training methods have proved effective in improving such judgments but are labour-intensive, time-consuming and therefore difficult to implement on a realistic scale. The study examined the possibility that volunteers from the local community might be capable of using such methods to promote children's pedestrian competence.
                Sixty children from the Primary 1 (Reception) classes of three Glasgow schools took part. Volunteers were ordinary parents from the same areas. None had 'formal' experience of working with children other than through being parents.
                Volunteers received experience of training children at courses organised in each school. Children learned in small groups, receiving two sessions of roadside training followed by four on a table-top model. Pre- and post-tests allowed the effectiveness of training to be assessed.
                Significant improvements relative to controls were found in all children following training. Improvements proved robust and no deterioration was observed two months after the programme ended. Comparison with a previous study in which training was undertaken by highly qualified staff showed that the volunteers were as effective as 'expert' trainers.
                Parent volunteers can significantly increase the pedestrian competence of children as young as five years. They constitute a most valuable 'resource' in road safety education. The opportunities afforded by involving the local community in educational interventions should be further explored. to evaluate the effectiveness of a school-based injury prevention program.
                Cluster randomised controlled trial.
                20 primary schools in Nottingham, UK.
                459 children aged 7 to 10 years.
                The "Risk Watch" program delivered by teachers, aimed at improving bike and pedestrian, falls, poisoning and fire and burns safety.
                Safety knowledge, observed safety skills and self-reported safety behaviour.
                At follow-up, intervention group children correctly answered more fire and burn prevention knowledge questions than control group children (difference between means 7.0% (95% CI 1.5% to 12.6%)). Children in intervention group schools were more likely to know the correct actions to take if clothes catch fire and the correct way to wear a cycle helmet (difference between school means 35.3% (95% CI 22.7% to 47.9%) and 6.3% (95% CI 1.4% to 11.1%) respectively). They were also more likely to know the correct actions to take in a house fire and on finding tablets (OR 2.80 (95% CI 1.08 to 7.22) and OR 3.50 (95% CI 1.18 to 10.38) respectively) and correctly demonstrated more safety skills than control group children (difference between means 11.9% (95% CI 1.4% to 22.5%)). There was little evidence to suggest the first year of the program impacted on self-reported safety behaviours.
                The Risk Watch program delivered by teachers in primary schools increased some aspects of children's safety knowledge and skills and primary schools should consider delivering this program. Longer term, larger scale evaluations are required to examine retention of knowledge and skills and impact on safety behaviours and child injury rates. Exploring how biological motion can make pedestrians more conspicuous to drivers at night, one-hundred-and-twenty participants were driven along an open-road route at night and pressed a button whenever they recognized that a pedestrian was present. A test pedestrian wearing black clothing alone or with 302 cm2 of retroreflective markings in one of four configurations either stood still or walked in place on an unilluminated sidewalk. Participants' response distances were maximal for the full biological-motion configuration and remained surprisingly long when convenient subsets of reflective markers were positioned on the pedestrian's ankles and wrists. When the pedestrian wore a reflective vest, the responses were no better than when he wore no reflective markings. The biological-motion advantage actually results from interacting form-perception and motion-perception mechanisms. These results confirm that basic perceptual phenomena-observers' sensitivity to human form and motion can be harnessed to reduce an important problem of traffic safety. This study investigated the effects of drivers' age and low light on speed, lane keeping, and visual recognition of typical roadway stimuli.
                Poor visibility, which is exacerbated by age-related changes in vision, is a leading contributor to fatal nighttime crashes. There is little evidence, however, concerning the extent to which drivers recognize and compensate for their visual limitations at night.
                Young, middle-aged, and elder participants drove on a closed road course in day and night conditions at a "comfortable" speed without speedometer information. During night tests, headlight intensity was varied over a range of 1.5 log units using neutral density filters.
                Average speed and recognition of road signs decreased significantly as functions of increased age and reduced illumination. Recognition of pedestrians at night was significantly enhanced by retroreflective markings of limb joints as compared with markings of the torso, and this benefit was greater for middle-aged and elder drivers. Lane keeping showed nonlinear effects of lighting, which interacted with task conditions and drivers' lateral bias, indicating that older drivers drove more cautiously in low light.
                Consistent with the hypothesis that drivers misjudge their visual abilities at night, participants of all age groups failed to compensate fully for diminished visual recognition abilities in low light, although older drivers behaved more cautiously than the younger groups.
                These findings highlight the importance of educating all road users about the limitations of night vision and provide new evidence that retroreflective markings of the limbs can be of great benefit to pedestrians' safety at night. Every year numerous occupational fatalities result from pedestrians being struck by motor vehicles intruding into work zones.
                Attributes of retroreflective personal safety garments on pedestrian conspicuity at night were assessed in a field study. Using instrumented vehicles on a closed track, participants drove through simulated work zones attempting to detect pedestrians located in the work zones.
                Configuration of the retroreflective trim, trim color, placement in the work zone, and driver age significantly affected pedestrian conspicuity. Intensity and the amount of retroreflective trim did not.
                Personal safety garments incorporating retroreflective trim significantly improve pedestrian conspicuity in work zones.
                The results emphasize the importance of retroreflective trim on personal safety garments, particularly if the trim is located on garment sleeves.
                We examine the design attributes that contribute to making a personal safety garment conspicuous. The results have implications regarding preferred garment designs, industry standards, and service life of personal safety garments. This field study investigated potential effects of retroreflector positioning on recognition of nighttime pedestrians. The subject's task was to press a response button whenever he/she recognized a pedestrian on or alongside the road, while in a car with low-beam lamps on that was driven at a constant speed on a dark road. The results showed that each retroreflector configuration yielded significantly longer recognition distances than the no-retroreflector configuration. More importantly, the retroreflective markings attached to the limbs led to significantly longer (about 60-80%) recognition distances than when the retroreflective markings were attached to the torso. Furthermore, a pedestrian was more recognizable while crossing the road than while approaching the subject vehicle, except for configurations involving no retroreflective markings. To evaluate the effectiveness of educational counselling programmes aimed at increasing parents' practice of childhood safety in Monterrey, Mexico, and to provide information aimed at helping to improve the effectiveness of future efforts in this field.
                Three different counselling programmes were designed to meet the needs of the upper, middle and lower socioeconomic strata. Evaluation involved the use of baseline questionnaires on parents' existing safety-related practices for intervention and control groups and the administration of corresponding questionnaires after the programmes had been carried out.
                Data were obtained on 1124 children before counselling took place and on 625 after it had been given. Overall safety scores (% safe responses) increased from 54% and 65% for the lower and upper socioeconomic strata, respectively, before counselling to 62% and 73% after counselling (P <0.001 for all groups). Improvements occurred both for activities that required caution and for activities that required the use of safety-related devices (e.g. helmets, car seats). However, scores for the use of such devices remained suboptimal even after counselling and there were wide discrepancies between the socioeconomic strata. The post-counselling scores for the use of safety-related devices were 55%, 38% and 19% for the upper, middle and lower socioeconomic strata, respectively.
                Brief educational interventions targeting parents' practice of childhood safety improved safe behaviours. Increased attention should be given to specific safety-related devices and to the safety of pedestrians. Educational efforts should be combined with other strategies for injury prevention, such as the use of legislation and the improvement of environmental conditions. We assessed the effectiveness of speed cameras on Barcelona's beltway in reducing the numbers of road collisions and injuries and the number of vehicles involved in collisions.
                We designed a time-series study with a comparison group to assess the effects of the speed cameras. The "intervention group" was the beltway, and the comparison group consisted of arterial roads on which no fixed speed cameras had been installed. The outcome measures were number of road collisions, number of people injured, and number of vehicles involved in collisions. We fit the data to Poisson regression models that were adjusted according to trends and seasonality.
                The relative risk (RR) of a road collision occurring on the beltway after (vs before) installation of speed cameras was 0.73 (95% confidence interval [CI]=0.63, 0.85). This protective effect was greater during weekend periods. No differences were observed for arterial roads (RR=0.99; 95% CI=0.90, 1.10). Attributable fraction estimates for the 2 years of the study intervention showed 364 collisions prevented, 507 fewer people injured, and 789 fewer vehicles involved in collisions.
                Speed cameras installed in an urban setting are effective in reducing the numbers of road collisions and, consequently, the numbers of injured people and vehicles involved in collisions. To improve asthma control and reduce readmission rates through increased knowledge and the development of self management skills, a brief (three hour) adult education programme was developed.
                The course was designed to improve inhaler skills and to teach how to adjust drug doses according to peak flow (PEF) measurements and a treatment plan. It was evaluated in a randomised controlled trial in 76 patients admitted to hospital for asthma by using questionnaires, spirometry, and home monitoring of PEF at entry and at five and 10 months after intervention. The questionnaire provided measures of knowledge about asthma, self management behaviour appropriate to asthma control, asthma symptom frequency and severity, and psychosocial disturbance attributable to asthma.
                During the 10 months observation period the readmission rate for the educated group was one seventh that of the control group and attendance at accident and emergency departments also decreased. No consistent differential improvements were observed in spirometric results, average PEF, or mean daily variability of PEF. Both groups showed improvements in measures of asthma knowledge, behaviour, symptoms, and psychosocial disturbances. However, the intervention group showed a significantly greater improvement in some measures of asthma knowledge and self management skills.
                Despite minimal effect on measures of airway function, substantial changes in illness behaviour and use of health care facilities can be achieved by a brief asthma education programme. We evaluated the effectiveness of a community-based injury prevention program designed to reduce the incidence of burns, falls in the home, motor vehicle occupant injuries, and poisonings and suffocations among children ages 0-5 years. Between September 1980 and June 1982, we implemented five injury prevention projects concurrently in nine Massachusetts cities and town; five sites, matched on selected demographic characteristics, were control communities. An estimated 42 percent of households with children ages 0-5 years were exposed to one or more of the interventions over the two-year period in the nine communities. Participation in safety programs increased three-fold in the intervention communities and two-fold in the control communities. Safety knowledge and practices increased in both intervention and control communities. Households that reported participatory exposure to the interventions had higher safety knowledge and behavior scores than those that received other community exposure or no exposure to intervention activities. We found a distinct reduction in motor vehicle occupant injuries among children ages 0-5 years in the intervention compared with control communities, associated with participatory exposure of about 55 percent of households with children ages 0-5 years. We have no evidence that the coordinated intervention programs reduced the other target injuries--although exposure to prevention messages was associated with safety behaviors for burns and poisonings. A community-based programme for motorcycle rider education was provided for motorcyclists in all villages of 3 randomly selected subdistricts in Mae Sot District, Tak Province, northern Thailand, between January and March 1995. To determine the extent of changes in risk-taking behaviours, we conducted an interview survey of motorcyclists in 3 villages selected by systematic sampling from the 3 intervention subdistricts and in 3 control (without intervention) villages for comparison in March 1997, 2 years after the programme. Motorcyclists in the intervention villages (69.7%) were significantly more likely to have valid licences than those in the control villages (46.5%). The proportion of motorcyclists who always or often wore helmets was significantly greater in the intervention sample (46.0%) than in the control sample (20.5%). In 1994, the annual incidence rate of motorcycle-related injuries was slightly higher in the intervention areas than in the control areas Following the education programme, the injury rates for 1995 and 1996 were significantly lower in the intervention than in the control population. The annual number and rate of fatal motorcycle injuries decreased after the intervention although there was no significant difference between the two populations. Motorcycle rider education may be a promising intervention for prevention of motorcycle-related injuries in rural areas where road safety measures, particularly enforcement activities, are commonly limited.
Pedestrian safety education can result in improvement in children's knowledge and can change observed road crossing behaviour, but whether this reduces the risk of pedestrian motor vehicle collision and injury occurrence is unknown. There is evidence that changes in safety knowledge and observed behaviour decline with time, suggesting that safety education must be repeated at regular intervals.