Objective:
The aim of this study was to outline a conceptual framework for understanding driving style and, on this basis, review the state-of-the-art research on driving styles in relation to road ...safety.
Background:
Previous research has indicated a relationship between the driving styles adopted by drivers and their crash involvement. However, a comprehensive literature review of driving style research is lacking.
Method:
A systematic literature search was conducted, including empirical, theoretical, and methodological research, on driving styles related to road safety.
Results:
A conceptual framework was proposed whereby driving styles are viewed in terms of driving habits established as a result of individual dispositions as well as social norms and cultural values. Moreover, a general scheme for categorizing and operationalizing driving styles was suggested. On this basis, existing literature on driving styles and indicators was reviewed. Links between driving styles and road safety were identified and individual and sociocultural factors influencing driving style were reviewed.
Conclusion:
Existing studies have addressed a wide variety of driving styles, and there is an acute need for a unifying conceptual framework in order to synthesize these results and make useful generalizations. There is a considerable potential for increasing road safety by means of behavior modification. Naturalistic driving observations represent particularly promising approaches to future research on driving styles.
Application:
Knowledge about driving styles can be applied in programs for modifying driver behavior and in the context of usage-based insurance. It may also be used as a means for driver identification and for the development of driver assistance systems.
Influence of oncoming traffic on drivers’ overtaking of cyclists Bianchi Piccinini, Giulio Francesco; Moretto, Claudia; Zhou, Huiping ...
Transportation research. Part F, Traffic psychology and behaviour,
11/2018, Letnik:
59, Številka:
Part A
Journal Article
Recenzirano
•A diving simulator was used to study overtaking of cyclists with oncoming traffic.•The TTC between subject and oncoming vehicle affected drivers’ overtaking strategy.•The TTC between subject and ...oncoming vehicle influenced safety margins to cyclists.•Safer margins of 0.93 m were found for drivers not waiting for oncoming traffic.•Different speeds were adopted by drivers depending on the overtaking strategy.
Active transportation - such as cycling - can provide health benefits to the population. However, cycling safety remains a major threat to favour the use of bicycles and, for this reason, more efforts are needed to reduce the number of crashes involving cyclists. One crash scenario which deserves special attention is driver’s overtaking of cyclists since it has an increased likelihood to lead to severe injuries. During the overtaking manoeuvre, the monitoring of subjective risk can influence the decision-making process and lead to different outcomes. In this context, the present driving simulator study aims to investigate how the time to collision between oncoming traffic and subject vehicle affected the overtaking strategy, and the minimum safety margins towards the overtaken cyclist. The results show that a decrease in time to collision against the oncoming vehicle significantly affects the drivers’ overtaking strategy (accelerative vs. flying), inducing more drivers to choose an accelerative overtaking manoeuvre. The decrease in time to collision also produces a decrease in minimum safety margins to the cyclists for drivers who opt for a flying overtaking strategy. Finally, the current research shows that the minimum lateral safety margins were smaller and the mean speed higher in flying manoeuvres compared to accelerative manoeuvres. Overall, the combination of lower safety margins and higher mean speeds in flying overtaking manoeuvres seems to pose a risk for cyclists’ safety. The findings of the study provide some implications for the design of automated driving.
Using naturalistic data to assess e-cyclist behavior Dozza, Marco; Bianchi Piccinini, Giulio Francesco; Werneke, Julia
Transportation research. Part F, Traffic psychology and behaviour,
08/2016, Letnik:
41
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Display omitted
•Collected naturalistic e-cycling data and analyzed risk with odds ratios.•Risk increased at intersections and when vehicles stopped on the bike lane.•E-cyclists were faster than ...traditional cyclist and experienced different conflicts.•Increasing e-bikes conspicuity to facilitate identification may increase safety.•E-bikes may enable intelligent transport systems and cooperative applications.
In Europe, the use of electric bicycles is rapidly increasing. This trend raises important safety concerns: Is their use compatible with existing infrastructure and regulations? Do they present novel safety issues? How do they impact other traffic? This study sought to address these concerns, using instrumented electric bicycles to monitor e-cyclists’ behavior in a naturalistic fashion. Data was collected from 12 bicyclists, each of whom rode an instrumented bicycle for two weeks. In total, 1500km worth of data were collected, including 88 critical events (crashes and near-crashes). Analysis of these critical events identified pedestrians, light vehicles and other bicycles as main threats to a safe ride. Other factors also contributed to crash causation, such as being in proximity to a crossing or encountering a vehicle parked in the bicycle lane. A comparison between electric and traditional bicycles was enabled by the availability of data from a previous study a year earlier, which collected naturalistic cycling data from traditional bicycles using the same instrumentation as in this study. Electric bicycles were found to be ridden faster, on average, than traditional bicycles, in addition to interacting differently with other road users. The results presented in this study also suggest that countermeasures to bicycle crashes should be different for electric and traditional bicycles. Finally, increasing electric bicycle conspicuity appears to be the easiest, most obvious way to increase their safety.
The Adaptive Cruise Control is an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) that allows maintaining given headway and speed, according to settings pre-defined by the users. Despite the potential ...benefits associated to the utilization of ACC, previous studies warned against negative behavioral adaptations that might occur while driving with the system activated. Unfortunately, up to now, there are no unanimous results about the effects induced by the usage of ACC on speed and time headway to the vehicle in front. Also, few studies were performed including actual users of ACC among the subjects.
This research aimed to investigate the effect of the experience gained with ACC on speed and time headway for a group of users of the system. In addition, it explored the impact of ACC usage on speed and time headway for ACC users and regular drivers.
A matched sample driving simulator study was planned as a two-way (2×2) repeated measures mixed design, with the experience with ACC as between-subjects factor and the driving condition (with ACC and manually) as within-subjects factor.
The results show that the usage of ACC brought a small but not significant reduction of speed and, especially, the maintenance of safer time headways, being the latter result greater for ACC users, probably as a consequence of their experience in using the system.
The usage of ACC did not cause any negative behavioral adaptations to the system regarding speed and time headway.
Based on this research work, the Adaptive Cruise Control showed the potential to improve road safety for what concerns the speed and the time headway maintained by the drivers. The speed of the surrounding traffic and the minimum time headway settable through the ACC seem to have an important effect on the road safety improvement achievable with the system.
•Two novel measurements were adopted to continuously assess the time headway.•Real users of ACC were included in the study as participants.•The ACC usage did not cause a negative effect on traveling speed.•The ACC usage generated a positive effect on the observance of safety distances.•ACC users and regular drivers differed about the observance of safety distances.
•Negative behavioural adaptations to ACC were observed during system’s failure.•The ACC users’ mental model of the system influences the reaction to ACC failure.•The driver’s trust in ACC does not ...have an effect on the reaction to ACC failure.•The mental model of ACC became more accurate after experiencing ACC failure.•The driver’s trust in ACC did not change after experiencing ACC failure.
Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) is a system that maintains driver-selected speed and headway to a preceding vehicle. The system presents some limitations that are, in part or totally, unknown to the users. Hence, many drivers exhibit a rudimentary mental model of the system and place excessive trust in the device. As a consequence, negative effects on road safety can easily occur. However, to date, many studies conducted on ACC have comprised participants who had never used ACC previously. Therefore, there is limited knowledge of how ACC affects the driving performance of experienced users of the system. To shed light on this point, twenty-six participants, divided into two groups (ACC users and non-users) drove twice in the simulated environment (once with the ACC and once manually). During both drives, the participants experienced a critical situation (stationary vehicle stopped in the cruising lane of the highway). The results show that negative behavioural adaptations to the ACC resulted from the usage of the system with regard to the critical situation: the risk of collision during the driving with ACC was increased compared with the manual driving for both groups of drivers. Besides, the research stresses the negative large correlation between the driver’s mental model of ACC operation in the critical situation and the safety margins maintained by the ACC users during the same situation. Finally, it was found that the drivers’ trust in the system does not have an influence on the drivers’ behaviour during the trial with the ACC.
Endostatin, a Mr 20,000 fragment of collagen XVIII, potently inhibits the growth of experimental tumors implanted in mice. Here we report the cloning, expression, and antitumor activity of the rat ...form of endostatin. When tested on breast carcinomas arising in female virgin rats after intragastric administration of 9,10-dimethyl-1,2-benzanthracene (DMBA), endostatin induced significant inhibition of mammary tumor growth in all of the treated rats during a 4-week treatment period without signs of systemic toxicity. Interestingly, this arrest of tumor growth persisted throughout a four-week off-therapy period. Moreover, endostatin was effective in counteracting the development of multiple primary tumors. These results confirm that rat endostatin is a potent anticancer agent in a carcinogen-induced, spontaneously arising rat breast cancer model. It not only stops the growth of existing tumors but also decreases the incidence of the development of multiple neoplastic lesions.
Adriamycin (ADR) is known to exert a severe negative inotropic effect on isolated myocardial preparations; a role for free radical generation has been hypothesized. Spin-trapping of free radicals has ...been extensively exploited in ESR studies, both in cell-free systems and in intact tissues. The interaction between spin-traps and free radicals should in principle stop the reaction cascade leading to cellular damage. Based on this hypothesis, the possible cardioprotective action of three spin-trapping agents, 5,5-dimethyl-l-pyrroline-N-oxide (DMPO), N-tert-butyl-a-phenylnitrone (PBN) and α-(4-pyridyl 1-oxide) N-tert-butyl-initrone (POBN), was tested on isolated rat atria incubated in the presence of ADR; maximal noncardiotoxic concentrations were used (50, 10 and 50 mM respectively) in order to achieve a maximal spin-trapping effect. A varying degree of protection was observed with the three compounds, directly correlated to their hydrophobicity, as assessed by chloroform/water partition coefficients. It is proposed that ADR-induced free radical generation is responsible for the acute cardiotoxic effects of the drug; this seems to be a site-specific mechanism restricted to one or more hydrophobic cellular compartment/s, since only lipophilic spin-trapping agents are able to prevent the development of the negative inotropic effect of ADR.
We have analysed the expression of three calcium-independent isoforms of protein kinase C (PKC), PKC delta , PKC epsilon and PKC\g?\, in an in vitro model of colon carcinogenesis consisting of the ...nontumorigenic rat colonic epithelial cell line D/WT, and a derivative src-transformed line D/src. While PKC\g?\ and PKC epsilon showed similar protein levels, PKC delta was markedly decreased in D/src cells when compared to the D/WT line. To assess whether down-regulation of PKC delta was causally involved in the neoplastic phenotype in D/src cells, we prepared a kinase-defective mutant of PKC delta . Stable transfection of this sequence caused morphological and growth changes characteristic of partial transformation in D/WT cells. Moreover, to test whether PKC delta was involved in growth control and transformation in this model, we overexpressed PKC delta in D/src cells. Transfected cells underwent marked growth and morphological modifications toward the D/WT phenotype. In a late stage in culture, transfected cells ceased to proliferate, rounded up and degenerated into multinucleated, giant-like cells. We conclude that PKC delta can reverse the transformed phenotype and act as a suppressor of cell growth in D/src cells. Moreover, our data show that downregulation of this isoenzyme of PKC may cooperate in the neoplastic transformation induced by the src oncogene in D/WT cells.
In Europe, the use of electric bicycles is rapidly increasing. This trend raises important safety concerns: Is their use compatible with existing infrastructure and regulations? Do they present novel ...safety issues? How do they impact other traffic? This study sought to address these concerns, using instrumented electric bicycles to monitor e-cyclists’ behavior in a naturalistic fashion. Data was collected from 12 bicyclists, each of whom rode an instrumented bicycle for two weeks. In total, 1500 km worth of data were collected, including 88 critical events (crashes and near-crashes). Analysis of these critical events identified pedestrians, light vehicles and other bicycles as main threats to a safe ride. Other factors also contributed to crash causation, such as being in proximity to a crossing or encountering a vehicle parked in the bicycle lane. A comparison between electric and traditional bicycles was enabled by the availability of data from a previous study a year earlier, which collected naturalistic cycling data from traditional bicycles using the same instrumentation as in this study. Electric bicycles were found to be ridden faster, on average, than traditional bicycles, in addition to interacting differently with other road users. The results presented in this study also suggest that countermeasures to bicycle crashes should be different for electric and traditional bicycles. Finally, increasing electric bicycle conspicuity appears to be the easiest, most obvious way to increase their safety.
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