How Does Crossing Roads with Friends Impact Risk Taking in Young Adolescents and Adults?

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 726-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth E O’Neal ◽  
Yuanyuan Jiang ◽  
Kathryne Brown ◽  
Joseph K Kearney ◽  
Jodie M Plumert

Abstract Objective The goal of this investigation was to examine how crossing roads with a friend versus alone affects gap decisions and movement timing in young adolescents and adults. Methods Ninety-six 12-year-olds and adults physically crossed a single lane of continuous traffic in an immersive pedestrian simulator. Participants completed 30 crossings either with a friend or alone. Participants were instructed to cross the road without being hit by a car, but friend pairs were not instructed to cross together. Results Pairs of adolescent friends exhibited riskier road-crossing behavior than pairs of adult friends. For gaps crossed together, adult pairs were more discriminating in their gap choices than adult solo crossers, crossing fewer of the smaller gaps and more of the larger gaps. This pattern did not hold for 12-year-old pairs compared to 12-year-old solo crossers. To compensate for their less discriminating gap choices, pairs of 12-year-olds adjusted their movement timing by entering and crossing the road more quickly. For gaps crossed separately, both adult and 12-year-old first crossers chose smaller gaps than second crossers. Unlike adults, 12-year-old first crossers were significantly less discriminating in their gap choices than 12-year-old second crossers. Conclusions Compared to adults, young adolescents took riskier gaps in traffic when crossing virtual roads with a friend than when crossing alone. Given that young adolescents often cross roads together in everyday life, peer influences may pose a significant risk to road safety in early adolescence.

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 638-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandeep K. Dhami ◽  
Rocío García-Retamero

We used an open-ended survey to elicit Spanish young adults' perceptions of the benefits and drawbacks of speeding and not wearing a seatbelt (or helmet).Around half of the sample reported past engagement in these two risky behaviors, although forecasted engagement was low. Past and forecasted risk taking were positively correlated. Participants provided more drawbacks than benefits of each risky behavior. Drawbacks typically referred to a combination of behavioral acts and social reactions (e.g., accident, punishment) that occurred during the journey. By contrast, benefits largely referred to personal effects (e.g., save time, comfort) that occurred after the journey had ended (speeding) or during the journey (not wearing a seatbelt/helmet). These findings contribute to our theoretical understanding of young adults' risk taking on the road, and to the development of road safety programs.


Author(s):  
Shah Md. Azimul Ehsan

Since the Dhaka City's population is increasing, there is an urgency for sustainable transport policy forDhaka to retain and expand the modal share of walking trips, which share the bulk of all short tripsmade. However, pedestrian facilities are perhaps the most neglected and unattended ones in transportplanning of Dhaka city. Day by day, the rate of fatality is increasing in an unabated manner. If the ratehas to be controlled, it is imperative to know the various factors which result in the violation of trafficregulations by the pedestrians. This paper aims to know the various underlying reasons behind thepedestrians' non-compliance with the road safety regulations using both qualitative and quantitative toolsof social research. The findings of the study suggest that the existing road crossing facilities (overpass,zebra crossing) are inadequate as per demand. Poor monitoring and maintenance of the overpasses havemade them a hub for hawkers, beggars, addicts which demotivates the pedestrians in using them. Failureto provide and maintain road signs and markings, lack of education of road users, poor enforcement oftraffic regulations etc. are some of the other factors which result to traffic rules violation by thepedestrians. The study provides a modest suggestion to the government that they should think of givingroad safety issue a priority in the policy agenda. Moreover, necessary steps should be taken to increasethe current road crossing facilities along with the formation of a watchdog body that will monitor theviolations from time to time. Lastly, mass awareness building programs have to be initiated for educatingboth the pedestrians and the drivers regarding the road safety regulations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5899
Author(s):  
Yeonsoo Jun ◽  
Juneyoung Park ◽  
Chunho Yeom

This paper evaluates experimental variables for virtual road safety audits (VRSAs) through practical experiments to promote sustainable road safety. VRSAs perform road safety audits using driving simulators (DSs), and all objects in the road environment cannot be experimental variables because of realistic constraints. Therefore, the study evaluates the likelihood of recommendation of VRSA experimental variables by comparing DSs experiments and field reviews to secure sustainable road safety conditions. The net promoter score results evaluated “Tunnel”, “Bridge”, “Underpass”, “Footbridge”, “Traffic island”, “Sign”, “Lane”, “Road marking”, “Traffic light”, “Median barrier”, “Road furniture”, and “Traffic condition” as recommended variables. On the contrary, the “Road pavement”, “Drainage”, “Lighting”, “Vehicle”, “Pedestrian”, “Bicycle”, “Accident”, and “Hazard event” variables were not recommended. The study can be used for decision making in VRSA scenario development as an initial effort to evaluate its experimental variables.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2039
Author(s):  
Juan F. Dols ◽  
Jaime Molina ◽  
F. Javier Camacho-Torregrosa ◽  
David Llopis-Castelló ◽  
Alfredo García

The analysis of road safety is critical in road design. Complying to guidelines is not enough to ensure the highest safety levels, so many of them encourage designers to virtually recreate and test their roads, benefitting from the evolution of driving simulators in recent years. However, an accurate recreation of the road and its environment represents a real bottleneck in the process. A very important limitation lies in the diversity of input data, from different sources and requiring specific adaptations for every single simulator. This paper aims at showing a framework for recreating faster virtual scenarios by using an Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)-based file. This methodology was compared to two other conventional methods for developing driving scenarios. The main outcome of this study has demonstrated that with a data exchange file in IFC format, virtual scenarios can be faster designed to carry out safety audits with driving simulators. As a result, the editing, programming, and processing times were substantially reduced using the proposed IFC exchange file format through a BIM (Building Information Modeling) model. This methodology facilitates cost-savings, execution, and optimization resources in road safety analysis.


Author(s):  
Puspa Raj Pant ◽  
Sudhamshu Dahal ◽  
Kannan Krishnaswamy ◽  
Sunil Kumar Joshi ◽  
Julie Mytton
Keyword(s):  

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 3661
Author(s):  
Noman Khan ◽  
Khan Muhammad ◽  
Tanveer Hussain ◽  
Mansoor Nasir ◽  
Muhammad Munsif ◽  
...  

Virtual reality (VR) has been widely used as a tool to assist people by letting them learn and simulate situations that are too dangerous and risky to practice in real life, and one of these is road safety training for children. Traditional video- and presentation-based road safety training has average output results as it lacks physical practice and the involvement of children during training, without any practical testing examination to check the learned abilities of a child before their exposure to real-world environments. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a 3D realistic open-ended VR and Kinect sensor-based training setup using the Unity game engine, wherein children are educated and involved in road safety exercises. The proposed system applies the concepts of VR in a game-like setting to let the children learn about traffic rules and practice them in their homes without any risk of being exposed to the outside environment. Thus, with our interactive and immersive training environment, we aim to minimize road accidents involving children and contribute to the generic domain of healthcare. Furthermore, the proposed framework evaluates the overall performance of the students in a virtual environment (VE) to develop their road-awareness skills. To ensure safety, the proposed system has an extra examination layer for children’s abilities evaluation, whereby a child is considered fit for real-world practice in cases where they fulfil certain criteria by achieving set scores. To show the robustness and stability of the proposed system, we conduct four types of subjective activities by involving a group of ten students with average grades in their classes. The experimental results show the positive effect of the proposed system in improving the road crossing behavior of the children.


Author(s):  
Alaparthi Maneesha

This paper describes how to overcome accidents at Ghat roads. In the developing countries accident is the major cause of death. If we look at the top 10 dangerous roads in the world we can see that all of them are mountain roads and curve roads. In the mountain roads there will be tight curves and the roads will be narrow. In these kinds of situations the driver of a vehicle cannot see vehicles coming from opposite side. Thousands of people lose their lives each year because of this problem. The solution to this problem is developing the Aurdino based project to provide safe and secure journey while travelling to the Ghat roads, Hill Stations, etc. It is provided by alerting the driver about the vehicle coming from opposite side. This is done by keeping a sensor in one side of the road before the curve and keeping a LED light after the curve, so that if vehicle comes from one end of the curve sensor senses and LED light glows at the opposite side. By looking at the LED light on/off criteria driver can become alert and can slow down the speed of the vehicle.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document