Given the lack of protective structural barriers and advanced restraints, motorcyclists are vulnerable road users. In 2020 in the United States, motorcycle-involved fatalities occurred 28 times more ...frequently per vehicle mile traveled than passenger car occupant fatalities, causing 5,579 motorcycle-related fatalities—the highest number of motorcyclists killed since 1975. By identifying patterns and relationships between key contributing factors, strategies for reducing motorcycle crashes can be developed. In addition to current efforts, additional research must be conducted using innovative avenues, with increased funding. Bayesian networks can better discover the relationships between potential speed compliance variables. This study used six years (2014 to 2019) of motorcycle crash data in Louisiana to determine the conditional probabilities of the influential factors. In addition to the high contribution of alcohol involvement, two-way undivided roadways, 35 to 44 year-old drivers involved in improper driving behaviors, and crash types are the underlying factors associated with a considerable increase in motorcycle crash severity. The findings of this study can also be used for decision making and strategy development for motorcycle safety.
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Machine brakes and safety gears of traction lifts are two critical components of the biggest safety concerns, as the main braking system and redundant fail-safe mechanism respectively stop and hold ...lift cars from unintended car movement, overspeed or under a free-fall condition during emergency. There are challenges of routine maintenance on how to continually verify the effectiveness of them to mitigate risk potentials of equipment failure. This pilot study intends to design, implement and test low-cost, non-intrusive and on-line prototype testers with the aid of sensors for real-time monitoring of critical parameters of these safety devices. Critical parameters that are measurable include real-time variations of brake lining temperature, brake solenoid current, vibrational patterns of brake arms and lift car, position of lift car, and the actuating status of safety gears. Critical parameters after processing include a newly defined energy of brake arm operation and estimated deceleration rate of a fully loaded car by safety gears operation on an unloaded car. Early signs of abnormalities of these two safety devices can be detected before they fail. Additionally, the prototype testers can facilitate more frequent unloaded full-speed testing of safety gears to verify the effectiveness. The proof-of-concept prototype could be a quick monitoring alternative to existing and new traction lift systems.
•The patients of spine injury were predominantly male, which was in a visible agreement with other kinds of traffic accidents.•Fracture localization was related with gender and male patients were ...more likely to suffer from thoracic vertebral fractures.•Multivertebral fractures, ASOI and ALOS were related to spine injury.•Helmet use and protective clothing or similar safety gear is necessary for electric bicycle users.
Electric bicycles related collisions could lead to severe consequences in spine injuries, while no study had comprehensively investigated the epidemiology and demography of spine injuries in electric bicycles related collisions.
The aim of this study is to (1) describe the epidemiological characteristics of spine injuries in electric bicycles related collisions, (2) develop clinical guideline of spine injuries in electric bicycles related collisions and (3) support the new road safety policy for electric bicycle riders.
A retrospective review of spine injuries in electric bicycle related collisions was performed from 86 patients in an urban trauma center between 2018 and 2020. The variables including gender, age, radiographic findings, associated injuries, neurologic injuries, treatment, average length of stay were fully collected. Chi-square test and paired sample mean t-test were used to test for statistically significant differences. All statistical analyses were performed using Statistical Product and Service Solutions 20.0.0 software. A P<0.001 was considered as significant.
A total of 86 cases were involved in electric bicycles related collisions lead to spine injuries. The spine injuries victims were predominantly male (79.07%) and middle-aged (41-60years, 44.19%). The most common spine injuries were L1 fractures (10.48%). The most common fracture type was AO Fracture Classification type A (71.40%). Age and multivertebral fractures had significant difference between patients who suffered from an ASOI and from those who did not (P-value: 0.005, 0.005). There was significant difference between patients who suffered from neurologic injuries and from those who did not in AO Classification, multivertebral fractures and ASOI (P-value: 0.0001, 0.001, 0.032). Age, AO Classification, multivertebral fractures, ASOI and neurologic injuries had significant difference to influence patients’ ISS and ALOS.
Spine injuries in electric bicycles related collisions may make patients suffer from severe consequences including their potential permanent disability, economic cost, or even life safety. Patients with spine injuries in electric bicycles related collisions should be paid close attention to avoid missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis. Helmet, protective clothing or other safety gear should be required to use to provide greater protection for electric bicycle riders.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ
•We consider the carrying of safety equipment by ski tourers as a decision process.•We surveyed 359 ski tourers at Taubenstein (Germany) about their carrying behavior.•For analysis, we use the ...machine learning algorithm ‘decision tree’ (high accuracy).•According to their carrying behavior, we classify ski tourers into three types.•Unlike previous papers, we find environmental factors’ dominance in the decision.
Ski touring is a winter sport activity that enjoys increasing popularity. Recreationists practice it exclusively without using ski lifts in the backcountry, where conditions continuously and rapidly change, and avalanche danger exists. Ski tourers can increase their own and others’ avalanche survival chances, among others, by carrying standard avalanche safety equipment (i.e., transceiver, probe, and shovel). Recent studies among backcountry recreationists identify various aspects to influence the decision to ‘carry or not’ this equipment by testing each factor individually for its statistical significance for the decision. This explorative study, in contrast, applies a new methodological approach and considers ‘carry or not’ as a decision process. The analysis bases on the behavioral decision theory and uses the machine learning algorithm decision tree to illustrate the decision process and examine the relative importance of each influencing feature. Therefore, we conduct a researcher-administered survey (n = 359) among ski tourers in a German touring region. According to their carrying behavior, this study classifies ski tourers into three different types: weather-oriented, complex, and conformist. Conformists always carry the avalanche equipment and are known in research. Weather-oriented ski tourers, who predominantly base their decision on environmental conditions (i.e., avalanche danger level and weather), are as new as the complex type, which relies on various features. In contrast to previous findings, personal traits play a subordinate role in the decision process of any type. Furthermore, we interpret environmental aspects in decision-making as decision heuristics that awareness-raising measures and education programs need to address.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ
Safety gear is one of the most important devices of elevators for its core function is to brake the over-speed cabin with friction. The frictional braking of elevator safety gear is a fully coupled ...thermo-mechanical process, and therefore both the thermal performance and the mechanical properties during braking should be comprehended for the tribological design of a high-speed elevator safety gear. In this work, a fully coupled model is developed to investigate the thermo-mechanical behaviors during emergency braking of a progressive safety gear. In the proposed model, the frictional sliding during braking is treated as the interfacial failure of the contact surface, and the transient thermo-mechanical analysis is performed using the explicit scheme. With the developed model, the contact temperature, the braking deceleration, the stress and deformation are examined. The analysis shows that the predicted temperature at the check points is consistent with results of experiment, and the simulated braking deceleration agrees well with the test results. The developed model can be utilized to simulate the braking performance of safety gear for a high-speed elevator.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
•Status of Electric Personal Assistive Mobility Device (EPAMD) on roadways and sidewalks.•Present rules and regulation of EPAMD in the USA and the rest of the world.•Safety requirements and existing ...policy gap of EPAMD.•Recommendation to the existing policy gap of EPAMD.
This paper reviewed the existing policy implemented to operate Electric Personal Assistive Mobility Device (EPAMD) on roadways, walkways, or sidewalks. The study examined the transportation policy of EPAMD for about 30 countries in the world, 50 states, and the District of Columbia in the U.S.A. The review focused on rules, regulations, and legislative issues related to EPAMD from diverse sources, including government websites and journal articles. The paper identified the gap(s) in the current policies and recommended changes to integrate and safely operate EPAMDs in the transportation system. The outcomes of this research will help the transportation agencies and policymakers to propose and implement the necessary rules and legislation for EPAMDs to improve the operations and safety of all road users.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ
This study investigated the prevalence rate and identified the associated factors influencing helmet use in Kumasi, Ghana.
The data used in this study were collected from motorcycle riders in the ...Kumasi metropolis through questionnaire survey. The contributing factors influencing helmet use were determined using a logistic regression model.
The results show that the rate of helmet use was about 47% and the influential factors include rider's gender, marital status, educational attainment, ownership of a helmet, and motorcycle license. The most important reasons influencing noncompliance with helmet use as reported by the riders include discomfort, distance traveled, not owning a helmet, and forgetfulness.
The findings highlight the need for policymakers to set up policy guidelines to enforce compliance with helmet use. For instance, any effort seeking to increase helmet use may first have to deal with helmet ownership, which also relates to the cost of helmet. In addition, helmet producers should conform to high quality standards in order to avoid discomfort while wearing a helmet.
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BFBNIB, GIS, IJS, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
Despite the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1851 Personal Protective Equipment Care and Maintenance guidelines, little is known about the routine cleaning of firefighter bunker gear. In ...collaboration with a large Florida firefighter union, a mobile phone text survey was administered, which included eight questions in an item logic format. In total, 250 firefighters participated in the survey of which 65% reported cleaning their bunker gear in the past 12 months. Approximately 32% (n = 52) indicated that they had above average confidence in gear cleaning procedures. Arriving at a fire incident response was a significant predictor of gear cleaning in the 12 months preceding survey administration. Using mobile phone–based texting for periodic queries on adherence to NFPA cleaning guidelines and safety message distribution may assist firefighters to increase decontamination procedure frequency.
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Objective: Although electric bicycle-related injuries have become the most common reason for hospitalization due to a road crash in China, no study has comprehensively investigated electric bicycle ...collisions and their impact on orthopedic injuries; such a study may provide evidence to support a new road safety policy.
Methods: A retrospective review of orthopedic injuries from electric bicycle collisions was performed in an urban trauma center. We collected variables including age, gender, location of fracture, presence of open or closed fractures, concomitant vascular, and neurologic injuries.
Results: A total of 2,044 cases were involved in electric bicycle collisions. The orthopedic injury victims were predominantly male and middle aged. The most common orthopedic injury was a femur fracture. Open fractures frequently involved the forearm and tibia/fibula. Male patients were more likely to suffer from multiple fractures and associated injuries than female patients. Fewer patients age 60 years old or older wore helmets at the time of the accident compared to those in other age groups.
Conclusions: Orthopedic injuries from electric bicycle-related accidents cause patients substantial suffering that could lead to serious social consequences. Helmet use and protective clothing or similar safety gear, especially for electric bicycle users, should be required to provide greater protection.
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Industrial safety gears such as hardhats, vests, gloves and goggles are vital in safety of workers. With the advancement of vision technologies, most industries are moving towards automatic safety ...monitoring systems for its enforcement. However, most of the industrial safety monitoring systems are plagued by the following problems. To begin with, object detection which is the principal component of this system suffers from the problem of false detections and missed detections which are extremely costly resulting in wrong safety monitoring alerts and safety hazards. Further, while video object detection has seen a large traction through ImagenetDet and MOT17Det challenges, to the best of our knowledge there is no work till date in the context of industrial safety. Finally, unlike existing areas of object detection where there is the availability of large datasets, best of existing research works in detecting industrial safety gears is restricted to mostly hardhats due to lack of large datasets. In this work, we address these previously mentioned challenges by presenting a unified industrial safety system. As part of this developed system, we firstly introduce safety gear detection dataset consisting of 5k images with the previously mentioned classes of safety gears and present exhaustive benchmark on state-of-the-art single frame object detection. Secondly, to address wrong/missed detections we propose to exploit temporal information from contiguous frames by conditioning the object detection in the current frame on results of re-identification of objects computed in prior frames. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments using the developed Re-ID conditioned object detection system with various state-of-the-art object detectors to show that the proposed system produces mAP of 85%, 87%, 92% and 78% with average improvements of 5% mAP across the previously mentioned safety gears under complex conditions of illumination, posture and occlusions.
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