Extended investigation on road fatality in Brunei

Road fatality is one of the leading causes of death in Brunei with 79 deaths in 1993, the highest ever recorded. The Brunei government has been trying to reduce this by implementing new traffic measures and successfully reduced fatalities to 24 fatalities in 2014. Yearly road fatality has been fluctuating, but there has been a declining tendency overall. The aim of this study is to investigate road fatality in Brunei by extending the research. We developed a multiple regression model and carried out an analysis on road fatality in Brunei. Our analysis indicates that the road fatality appears to rise depending on the increase in the number of young drivers between 15 to 24 years and the number of unemployed people. Comparisons of Brunei road fatality rate per 10,000 vehicles are made with some other countries and we conclude that Brunei has approximately the same rate as Australia in 2014.     

Alcohol as a risk factor for unintentional rail injury fatalities during daylight hours

Railway fatalities account for approximately 10% of transport fatalities in Cape Town. The objective of this study was to examine alcohol intoxication as a risk factor during daylight hours by conducting a case - control study to compare rail passenger and pedestrian fatalities (cases) with motor vehicle passenger and pedestrian fatalities (controls). Rail passenger and rail pedestrian fatalities were defined as cases with motor vehicle passenger and pedestrian fatalities as the respective controls. Data were collected from post-mortem reports at two mortuaries from 1994 to 1996. Blood alcohol concentration was the dependent variable. The independent variables were age, gender, date of death, day of week, time of injury and external cause of death. The late afternoon and early evening period from 1600 hours to 1900 hours had the highest frequency of fatalities for all case and control groups. Of the 56 predominately male (89%) railway passenger cases with an average age of 34.5 (SD 12.5) years, Friday (27%) was the most frequent day of death. Railway pedestrian cases (89% male, average age 36.8 years (SD 13.3)) were more likely to be killed on a Monday (11% of cases). Among the controls, motor vehicle passengers (63% male, average age 39.9 (SD 15.5)) were more likely to die on a Sunday (25%) and pedestrians (82% male, average age 41 (SD 14.7)) on a Saturday (21%). The study showed that alcohol consumption is an important risk factor for rail fatalities during daylight hours, with rail passenger fatalities being 4.71 (1.72 - 12.88) and rail pedestrian fatalities 1.62 (0.98 - 2.69) times more likely to be intoxicated than the respective controls. The results provide more evidence for public health campaigners to tackle endemic alcohol abuse and to develop diverse interventions that do not exclusively target motor vehicle drivers.     

Impact of the effect of economic crisis and the targeted motorcycle safety programme on motorcycle-related accidents, injuries and fatalities in Malaysia

In 1997, a Motorcycle Safety Programme (MSP) was introduced to address the motorcycle-related accident problem. The MSP was specifically targeted at motorcyclists. In addition to the MSP, the recent economic recession has significantly contributed to a reduction of traffic-related incidents. This paper examines the effects of the recent economic crisis and the MSP on motorcycle-related accidents, casualties and fatalities in Malaysia. The autocorrelation integrated moving average model with transfer function was used to evaluate the overall effects of the interventions. The variables used in developing the model were gross domestic product and MSPs. The analysis found a 25% reduction in the number of motorcycle-related accidents, a 27% reduction in motorcycle casualties and a 38% reduction in motorcycle fatalities after the implementation of MSP. Findings indicate that the MSP has been one of the effective measures in reducing motorcycle safety problems in Malaysia. Apart from that, the performance of the country's economy was also found to be significant in explaining the number of motorcycle-related accidents, casualties and fatalities in Malaysia.     

Developing and assessing critical thinking skills in marketing students: The power of making explicit problem-solving processes

Applied research is a course that has been taught to develop and effectively assess critical thinking skills in marketing students. A modified version of the problem-solving model using explicit problem-solving processes is employed in the design of course material and delivery. Assessment data support students’ ability to critically think at both lower and higher levels. Assignments include creative and timely experiential exercises to reinforce important marketing concepts, encourage student interest, and develop critical thinking skills.     

The impact attenuation performance of materials used under indoor playground equipment at child care centers

In this article, we have investigated the pattern of road fatality in Brunei. It is seen from this analysis that road fatality in Brunei was one of the highest in the world in the early 1990s, but has been significantly reduced over the years, and is now one of the lowest in the world. Preliminary investigation shows that young male drivers are responsible for most road fatalities in Brunei. We have also fitted a linear regression model and found that road fatality is significantly positively related to people aged 18–24 years and new registered vehicles, both of which are expected to grow with the growth of population and economic development. Hence, road fatality in Brunei is also expected to grow unless additional effective road safety countermeasures are introduced and implemented to reduce road toll. Negative coefficient is observed for trend variable, indicating the reduction of road fatality due to the combined effects of improvements of vehicle safety, road design, medical facilities and road safety awareness among road user groups. However, short-term road fatality analysis based on monthly data indicates that the coefficient of the trend variable is positive, implying that in recent months road fatalities are increasing in Brunei, which is supported by media reports. We have compared Brunei's road fatality data with Australia, Singapore and Malaysia and found that Brunei's road fatality rate is lower than Singapore and Malaysia, but higher than Australia. This indicates that there are still opportunities to reduce road fatalities in Brunei if additional effective road safety strategies are implemented like in Australia without interfering in the economic and social development of Brunei.     

Measurement and dimension of road fatality in Brunei

In this article, we have investigated the pattern of road fatality in Brunei. It is seen from this analysis that road fatality in Brunei was one of the highest in the world in the early 1990s, but has been significantly reduced over the years, and is now one of the lowest in the world. Preliminary investigation shows that young male drivers are responsible for most road fatalities in Brunei. We have also fitted a linear regression model and found that road fatality is significantly positively related to people aged 18-24 years and new registered vehicles, both of which are expected to grow with the growth of population and economic development. Hence, road fatality in Brunei is also expected to grow unless additional effective road safety countermeasures are introduced and implemented to reduce road toll. Negative coefficient is observed for trend variable, indicating the reduction of road fatality due to the combined effects of improvements of vehicle safety, road design, medical facilities and road safety awareness among road user groups. However, short-term road fatality analysis based on monthly data indicates that the coefficient of the trend variable is positive, implying that in recent months road fatalities are increasing in Brunei, which is supported by media reports. We have compared Brunei's road fatality data with Australia, Singapore and Malaysia and found that Brunei's road fatality rate is lower than Singapore and Malaysia, but higher than Australia. This indicates that there are still opportunities to reduce road fatalities in Brunei if additional effective road safety strategies are implemented like in Australia without interfering in the economic and social development of Brunei.     

Are child passenger fatalities and child passenger severe injuries equally affected by child restraint legislation? The case of Chile

The objective of this study is to determine the contribution of Chile's 2005 child restraint legislation to the reduction of child passenger fatalities and severe injuries. We analysed motor vehicle injury and fatality data from Chile's National Road Safety Commission of the Ministry of Transport from 2000 to 2012 to determine the effect of Chile's 2005 mandatory child restraint legislation. Using interrupted time-series Poisson regression models, we assessed the effect of the law on two dependent variables: (1) number of child fatalities in car and (2) number of children severely injured. The independent variable was the 2005 enactment of Chile's mandatory child restraint legislation. Coefficients from the interrupted time-series Poisson regression models indicate that Chile's enactment of child restraint legislation in 2005 is significantly associated with a total of 35% reduction in child passenger severely injured but only three years after its enactment, and significant associations between this policy and child fatalities were less evident.     

Culture's Influence on Business Negotiations in Four Countries

The usefulness of a theoretical model of the determinants of business negotiation outcomes is tested in a simulation with business people from four countries (the United States, Japan, Brazil and Spain). The article is an extension of Graham, Mintu, and Rodgers (1994), and also directly tests Hofstede's and Hall's theories of culture. A problem-solving approach results in higher negotiation outcomes for Americans when their partners reciprocate. Role (buyer or seller) is the key determinant of profits for Japanese negotiations; that is, buyers do better than sellers. For the Spanish negotiators, a problem-solving approach actually yielded lower profits. For the Brazilians, interpersonal attractiveness lead to higher partner satisfaction.     

Estimating national road crash fatalities using aggregate data

Injuries and fatalities from road traffic crashes have emerged a major public health challenge in Pakistan. Reliable estimates of road crash fatalities (RCF) of a country, is a vital element needed for identification and control of key risk factors, road-safety improvement efforts and prioritizing national health. Reliability of current annual RCF estimates for Pakistan becomes highly questionable due to serious underreporting. This study aimed to predict annual RCF for Pakistan using data from World Health Organization and International Road Federation sources. An ordinary least square (OLS) regression model that relates fatality rate with different explanatory variables was developed. RCF were predicted for Pakistan for year 2012 and 2013, and results were compared with national police reported estimates. Study results indicated that there is serious underreporting of RCF in Pakistan and immediate measures are needed to improve the existing road crash recording and reporting system at the national and subnational levels.     

Road traffic mortality in Estonia: alcohol as the main contributing factor

Traffic fatalities are the leading cause of death among the young and middle-aged population in Estonia. The objective of this study was to reveal the pattern of traffic fatalities among the population aged 15 - 64 years and to determine the role of alcohol in their fatalities. The data were collected from post-mortem reports at the Estonian Bureau of Forensic Medicine from 2000 to 2002. Alcohol-related deaths were those with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) equal or above 0.05 g/100 ml. Out of 512 victims, 401 were males and 111 were females. The greatest group were car occupants (58%) followed by pedestrians (31%). The portion of alcohol-related deaths was 70% among men and 44% among women. The mean BAC and percentage of alcohol-related deaths was significantly higher in pedestrian than in driver fatalities. Alcohol intoxication was identified as the most powerful contributing factor to traffic fatalities. The results provide more evidence for politicians to tackle alcohol abuse and unsafe traffic environments.     

Diversity and Communication in Teams: Improving Problem-Solving or Creating Confusion?

Despite the rich and interdisciplinary debate on the role of diversity and communication in group problem-solving, as well as recognition of the interactions between the two topics, they have rarely been treated as a joint research issue. In this paper, we develop a computational approach aimed at modeling problem-solving agents and assess the influence of various levels of diversity and communication in teams on agents’ performance in problem-solving. By communication, we intend a conversation on the persuasiveness of the features characterizing problem-setting. By diversity, we mean differences in how agents build problem representations which allow them to access various solutions. We deploy the concept of diversity along two dimensions: knowledge amplitude, which accounts for the level of available knowledge allowing access to poorer or richer problem representations (compared with complete problem representations), and knowledge variety, which pertains to the differences in the constituents of agents’ representations. We define performance as the frequency with which diverse agents choose the same alternative representation of an agent displaying complete representations of the problem. Our results indicate that communication is more effective when agents elaborate from relatively richer problem representations, as this provides a basis for integrating the variously diverse beliefs of their teammates. Conversely, poorer diverse representations may lead to worse performance when knowledge variety also applies. Lastly, we show that the influence of communication is not monotonically positive, as increasing communication intensity performance may worsen at any level of knowledge availability and knowledge variety.     

A Time-Bound Framework for Negotiation and Decision Making of Virtual Manufacturing Enterprise

Virtual manufacturing has 2 characteristics as an agent-based electronic commerce environment: dynamic nature of resource status and variety of agents' decision-making (i.e., scheduling) model. To reflect the characteristics, a relevant negotiation protocol should be designed and an appropriate decision-making model should be developed. In this article, from the perspective of a sales agent that is a middle man between customers and manufacturers in a virtual manufacturing environment, we provide a case study that suggests a time-bound framework for external negotiation between sales agents and customer agents, and internal cooperation between sales agents and manufacturing agents. We assume a job shop as the production model of a virtual manufacturing enterprise and formulate the optimal order selection problem with mixed integer programming, but its computation time is not acceptable for real-world problems. For this time-constrained decision making, we develop a genetic algorithm as an anytime problem-solving method for the scheduling of the production model, which shows a reasonable computation time for real-world cases and good incremental problem-solving capability.     

Compulsory child restraint seat law and motor vehicle child occupant deaths and injuries in Japan 1994-2005

The purpose of child restraint seats (CRS) is to reduce the number of individuals killed or injured in motor vehicle (MV) crashes. Japanese Road Traffic Law 17-3-4 (April 2000) specifies a requirement that CRS be used for all children aged 0-5 years. The objective of this evaluation was to determine the legislative impact on fatalities in Japan for the period 1994-2005. Data were obtained from the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis. A time-series Poisson regression model was used to analyse the change (6 years pre/post) in incidence rate ratios of fatality and injury in MV crashes among children ages 0-5 years. Despite increases in CRS use, fatalities failed to decrease significantly after enactment of the law (incidence rate ratio: 0.80; 95% CI: 0.49-1.31). In 2005, 67% of children aged 0-5 years, who were killed as MV occupants were not seated in CRS. Between 2000 and 2005, the lack of CRS led to 43% of front seat passenger deaths, 54% of rear seat deaths, 143 children died in total and 500 + children were seriously injured. It was found that the compulsory CRS law enacted in April 2000 did not result in a statistically significant reduction in child MV occupant fatalities and injuries in Japan.     

Gender and geographic differences in intentional and unintentional injury mortality among children in Illinois, 1988–1998

Road traffic crashes and injuries constitute a major health, economic and developmental challenge for many African countries. With only 4% of the world's motor vehicles, African roads witness more than 10% of the world total collision fatalities. With further motorisation, the number of road traffic crashes, injuries and fatalities are expected to grow. This study updates on the status, trends, causes, countermeasures and issues in traffic safety in African countries by reviewing studies published in the past 12 years. The study found that traffic fatalities continued its upward trend in recent years. Similar to those in motorised countries, the study identified that human behaviour and incapacitation account for more than 85% of the contributing factors reported by police in Africa. Unlike in developed countries, the victims of traffic casualties are primarily vulnerable road users. Pedestrians alone account for more than 40% of the total fatalities on African roads. Limited countermeasures were reported in the literature. The outcomes of these programmes are mixed and the research methods have inconsistent validity. Investigation in the feasibility of transferring proven programmes from motorised countries is suggested as an efficient measure for traffic safety improvement.     

Gauging the Effects of Lowering the Blood Alcohol Concentration from 0.10 to 0.08 on the Hospitality Industry

ABSTRACT

Every year in the US, over 20% of all traffic fatalities are caused by drunk drivers. The average Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of fatally injured drivers is 0.17, with almost half of these have a BAC of 0.20 or higher. In October of 2000, a new federal law was passed requiring states to lower the BAC from 0.10 to 0.08 or lose millions in highway funding. Proponents of this legislation feel it will save over 500 lives a year. Those opposed feel this law will target the social drinker, overburden the justice system, and will not address the real problem, the habitual drunk driver. This study looks at these issues concentrating on: other laws that could affect the number of alcohol-related fatalities; the number of fatalities involving habitual offenders; legislative efforts in the state of Indiana; and the effect this legislation could have on the hospitality industry.     

Intervention strategies to eliminate truck-related fatalities in surface coal mining in West Virginia

The main objective of this review was to build upon a previous study on the root causes of truck-related fatalities in surface coal mining operations in West Virginia, and to develop intervention strategies to eliminate these fatalities. This review considers a two-pronged approach to accident prevention: one that is fundamental and traditional (safety regulations, training and education, and engineering of the work environment); and one that is innovative and creative (e.g., applying technological advances to better control and eliminate the root causes of accidents). Suggestions for improving current training and education system are proposed, and recommendations are provided on improving the safety of mine working conditions, specifically safety conditions on haul roads, dump sites, and loading areas. We also discuss various currently available technologies that can help prevent haul truck-related fatal accidents. The results of this review should be used by mine personnel to help create safer working conditions and decrease truck-related fatalities in surface coal mining.     

Road trauma perceptions and the potential influence of the media

The United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011–2020) recognises the urgency of addressing global road trauma. Road crashes and attempts to reduce risky driving, including public education campaigns, receive media attention in many countries. In Australia, road fatalities have declined significantly. However, the extent of awareness about this success and of fatalities overall is unclear. A survey of 833 Australian drivers revealed the majority of participants under-estimated fatalities. Unexpectedly, some under-estimates appear based on recollections of media reports. The findings suggest lack of awareness of the extent of road deaths and that, paradoxically, media reports might contribute to under-estimations. This represents a major public health challenge. Engaging community support for road safety, relative to other health/safety messages, may prove difficult if the extent of road trauma is misunderstood. Misperceptions about fatality levels may be a barrier to road users adopting safety precautions or supporting further road safety countermeasures.     

An investigation of problem-solving support and relaxation motivations on e-WOM

As a consequence of greater computer-mediated consumer-to-consumer communication within the firm's marketing communications, there has been a growing need to understand these digital interactions more explicitly. That is, we still know little about the exact extrinsic and intrinsic motivations that drive electronic word-of-mouth. The purpose of the paper is to better understand why members within community-based websites develop a need to exchange and/or develop a social bond within the community. Questionnaire data were gathered from 147 members of an online beauty forum in Australia. The findings highlight that those members seeking problem-solving support in combination with elements of relaxation will be more inclined to exchange with other community members and develop a social bond within that community. Marketing managers can capitalise these findings by strengthening problem-solving support systems and creating environments where community members can also relax and unwind to increase the exchange between members and also increase the social bonds within the community.     

Trends in road traffic crashes and associated injury and fatality in the People’s Republic of China, 1951–1999

The burden of road traffic injuries in the People’s Republic of China is increasing as evidenced by trends since 1951. Data from the National Statistical Office, Ministry of Communications and the Traffic Administration Bureau were analyzed. Absolute numbers of crashes, fatalities, and injuries, as well as fatalities per 100,000 population and motorization (number of vehicles per 1000 population) were used as indices to measure trends. Regional variations in trends and the characteristics of people injured or killed were also analyzed. Road traffic crashes increased 68- fold, from around 6000 in 1951 to 413,000 in 1999. Excessive speed was the main reported cause of the crashes. The injuries increased 56-fold – from around 5000 to 286,000 – and fatalities 97-fold – from 852 to around 84,000 – over the same period. The crash, fatality and injury rates also increased after 1985, due to increased motorization spurred by rapid economic growth. The number of four-wheel motor vehicles increased from 60,000 in 1951 to just under a million four-wheel motor vehicles in 1975 and to 10 million in 1987. The number of four-wheel motor vehicles then rose to 50 million in 1999, with an additional 30 million motorcycles. The increase in motorization and fatalities affected all the provinces. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for populations up to the age of 45 years and the leading cause of working-life years lost in China.