Belt Usage Research Articles

Examining Seat Belt Use Habits in Wyoming: A Bayesian Hierarchical Logit Approach

Wyoming has one of the lowest seat belt law compliance rates in the United States. Understanding the factors associated with seat belt non-use is crucial for the development of appropriate mitigation measures that aid in increasing seat belt usage rates. In this study, Bayesian binary logistic regression models were developed to: i) investigate the factors associated with daytime seat belt non-use using observational survey data; and ii) assess the factors related to seat belt non-use in fatal crashes while accounting for possible intra-class correlation (effects of unobserved factors common to occupants in the same vehicle). The results indicated that males were less likely to use seat belts than females. Also, trips made in pick-up trucks, those made within urban areas, those made during weekdays, and those made by means of vehicles with Wyoming license plates were likely to involve seat belt non-use. Furthermore, counties with thriving oil and gas industries had lower seat belt use rates. It was also inferred that young occupants, rear seat occupants, impairment, weekdays, traveling around midnight, traveling on collector roads, and traveling on local roads were associated with seat belt non-use. A strong correlation in seat belt non-use among occupants within the same vehicle warrants the implementation of the hierarchical logistic model to investigate seat belt use among occupants involved in fatal crashes. The findings of this study highlight remarkable trends in seat belt use habits in Wyoming, which will aid legislatures in proposing road safety measures aimed at raising seat belt usage proportions.

Influence of Demographic Disparities on Seat Belt Compliance in an Urban Area (Washington, DC)

This study evaluated the potential influence of demographic factors on seat belt compliance rates in an urban area. Washington D.C., which is the capital of the United States, is an urban area with mixed and diverse population. The city (and all states) conducts seat belt compliance surveys annually as a requirement of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This article used compliance rates obtained from the field for 2014 through 2020 and matched those with demographic data for the same timeframe. The demographic data for the city was obtained from the United States Census Bureau. Demographic variables including race, educational and income levels for the eight wards in Washington D.C. we extracted for analysis. Overall, seat belt compliance usage in Washington ranged from 93% to 95.7% between 2014 and 2020. Approximately 42.3% of its population are Caucasian while 43.9% are African Americans with the remaining being Asian, Hispanics and other races. In addition, seat belt usage was reported by ward. Using single factor analysis of variance, it was determined that compliance rates in the wards were not statistically influenced by race, educational level, or income level at 5% level of significance. However, when comparing yearly seatbelt compliance from 2014 to 2020, the compliance rates of 2014 versus 2019, and 2014 versus 2020 were determined to be statistically different. Seat belt use should be encouraged for everyone in all jurisdictions. The analysis shows that, in this urban area, the three demographic variables do not have any influence on the compliance rates.

Observed relationships between driver and passenger restraint use in the front and rear seats

Objective Seat belt usage has increased substantially since the 1960s, yet driver use continues to affect passenger usage. Recent observational restraint use findings for Maryland will examine the relationship between driver and passenger usage, including adults and children in the rear seat. Methods Analyses were based on observational front and rear seat studies administered in parallel from 2016 to 2019. A statistically rigorous front seat project yielded weighted results among drivers and outboard passengers. A study of adults and children in the rear seat was based on a convenience sample of vehicles. Restraint usage results were presented as frequencies and proportions among occupants with known belt use, along with the 95% confidence interval for overall rates. Results Overall restraint usage rates averaged 90.9% in the front seat study and 81.1% in the rear seat sample. In vehicles with two front seat occupants and a belted driver, the proportion of belted passengers averaged 93.0% over four years. However, among unbelted drivers, only 41.6% of passengers were belted on average. In the rear seat study, an average of 82.7% were belted in vehicles driven by a restrained driver, differing for children (92.0%) versus adults (70.4%). Analysis of vehicles with an unbelted driver revealed an average of 45.0% of belted rear seat occupants, with a considerable difference for children (65.0%) compared with adults (21.0%). Conclusions Observational seat belt studies in Maryland in recent years have shown that, despite overall rates above 80%, passenger use in both the front and rear seats is associated with driver restraint use.

Seat Belt Restraint Evidence Generated by Unrestrained Occupant Interaction in a Rollover

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Assessment of the physical evidence on a seat belt restraint system provides one source of data for determining an occupant’s seat belt use or non-use during a motor vehicle crash. The evidence typically associated with loading from a restrained occupant has been extensively researched and documented in the literature. However, evidence of loading to the restraint system can also be generated by other means, including the interaction of an unrestrained occupant with a stowed restraint system. The present study evaluates physical evidence on multiple stowed restraint systems generated via interaction with unrestrained occupants during a full-scale dolly rollover crash test of a large multiple passenger van. Unbelted anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) were positioned in the driver and right front passenger seats and in all designated seating positions in the third, fourth, and fifth rows. Occupant kinematics during the dolly rollover were evaluated through on-board and off-board real-time and high-speed video, and physical evidence on the restraint systems was documented. Analysis of the occupant kinematics demonstrated multiple ATD interactions with stowed restraint systems in the vehicle, which generated corresponding physical evidence on those restraint systems. The findings of the present study demonstrate that the presence of physical evidence on the restraint system alone is insufficient for determination of occupant seat belt usage. A methodology for assessing restraint webbing and hardware evidence in the context of occupant seat belt use versus non-use is detailed. Thorough documentation of the restraint system physical evidence, evaluation of the occupant kinematics and injury patterns, and evaluation of the restraint system evidence as it relates to the body habitus of the occupant of interest can provide an objective scientific basis for the determination of occupant restraint status.</div></div>

Comparative analysis of construction materials used for fastening elements of six-point safety belts in rally cars

Safety belts are one of the most significant elements of car equipment classified as passive safety. This paper provides a comparative material analysis of critical components of a trusted manufacturer's six-point harness used in motorsports racing with commercially available imitation belts. Despite the FIA certification labels, the imitation belts are characterized by extremely poor quality in the selection of materials for components such as the snap hooks and the locking sleeves in the central fastening mechanism, posing a real hazard to unaware belt users. At the same time, the results of the research are also intended to build consumer awareness of the risks associated with the purchase of passive safety equipment from unreliable sources or/and at discount prices, which entails real threats to life and health.

Exploring Factors in a Crossroad Dataset Using Cluster-Based Association Rule Mining

Investigating the contributory factors in crossroad accidents is a high-priority issue in the traffic safety analysis. This study exploits a method based on association rules to analyze these contributory factors. Using data about one year of crossroad traffic accidents in Isfahan, Iran, 63 and 156 association rules are generated for non-serious and serious accidents, respectively. The results show that both accident severity levels are associated with head-to-the-side collisions and the spring season. The frequency of non-serious accidents is about 38% higher than that of serious accidents. However, the association analysis results show that serious accidents are associated with more influencing factors than non-serious. Seat belt usage and road surface condition are additional decisive factors for serious accidents but not so for non-serious. The association analysis reveals that many influencing factors (such as traffic lights and the existence of a traffic enforcement camera) exhibit effects only under some specific circumstances (e.g., the peak of traffic).

An analysis of single-vehicle truck crashes on rural curved segments accounting for unobserved heterogeneity

Introduction:Medium to large truck crashes, particularly on rural curved roadways, lead to a disproportionately higher number of fatalities and serious injuries relative to other passenger vehicles over time. The intent of this study is to identify and quantify the factors affecting injury severity outcomes for single-vehicle truck crashes on rural curved segments in North Carolina. The crash data were extracted from the Highway Safety Information System (HSIS) from 2010 to 2017. Method: This study applied a mixed logit with heterogeneity in means and variances approach to model driver injury severity. The approach accounts for possible unobserved heterogeneity in the data resulting from driver, roadway, vehicle, traffic characteristics and/or environmental conditions. Results’ Conclusion: The model results indicate that there is a complex interaction of driver characteristics such as demographics (male and female drivers, age below 30 years, and age between 50 to 65 years), driver physical condition (normal driving condition and sleepy while driving), driver actions (unsafe speed, overcorrection, and careless driving), restraint usage (lap-shoulder belt usage and unbelted), roadway and traffic characteristics (undivided road, medium right shoulder width, graded surface, low and medium speed limit, low traffic volume), environmental conditions (rainy condition), vehicle characteristics (tractor-trailer and semi-trailer), and crashes characteristics (fixed object crashes and rollover crashes). In addition, this study compared the contributing factor leading to driver injury severity for curved and straight rural segments. Practical Applications: The results clearly indicate the importance of driving behavior, such as, exceeding the speed limit and careless driving along the high-speed curved segments, need to be prioritized for the trucking agency. Similarly, the suggested countermeasures for roadway design and maintenance agency encompass warning signs and advisory speed limit, roadside barrier with chevrons, and edge line rumble strips are important concerning curved segments in rural highways.

Child safety in cars: An observational study on the use of child restraint systems in The Netherlands

Objective To minimize children’s injuries due to car accidents, children must be transported in approved child restraint systems (CRS). The European Union optimized child protection by implementing R129 legislation for CRS in 2013. However, compliance with CRS recommendations after introduction of this newer standard has been scarcely evaluated. The main objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of various types of CRS misuse and to investigate the use of ISOFIX and i-Size seats and parental knowledge regarding safe transportation of children in cars 5 years after the introduction of the newer R129 standard. Methods During a cross-sectional observational study in the summer of 2018, parking lots of sites in the Netherlands were visited by researchers. Arriving or departing Dutch drivers who transported children under 9 years old were interviewed by means of a questionnaire and the misuse of CRS was directly observed using a checklist. Misuse was defined as CRS inappropriate for the child (based on height and weight) and/or CRS wrongly installed in the car and/or child improperly restrained in CRS. Results In total, 392 drivers and 470 children were included in the study. Results showed that 83% of the children were transported with at least 1 misuse of their CRS: 7% of the CRS were inappropriate for the child, 49% of the CRS were wrongly installed in the car, and 59% of the children were improperly restrained in a CRS. Most CRS were installed using the seat belt (88%) compared to ISOFIX (12%). ISOFIX usage did not result in less CRS installation misuse (P = .338). The number of observed i-Size CRS was low (n = 13, 3%). Most drivers were familiar with ISOFIX (76%), but only 13% of the drivers had heard of i-Size. Conclusions For 9 out of 10 children, CRS misuse was observed. Many children were transported in an appropriate CRS, but various mistakes were made when installing the CRS in the car and restraining children in the CRS. Moreover, ISOFIX usage did not result in statistically significant less CRS installation misuse compared to traditional seat belt usage, and i-Size CRS are still rather unknown 5 years after their introduction.

Isolated vehicle rollover is not an independent predictor of trauma injury severity.

ObjectivesThe objective of this study was to determine if vehicle rollover in a motor vehicle crash is an independent predictor of major injury.MethodsA retrospective cohort study of all patients injured in motor vehicle crashes presenting to a major trauma center between July 2012 and June 2016 was conducted. Crashes were classified into groups: non‐rollover, isolated rollover (without other mechanisms of injury), or mixed‐mechanism rollover (with other mechanisms of injury). Associations between rollover group, other covariates (entrapment, encapsulation, ejection, death on scene, high speed, seat belt usage, airbag deployment, trauma team activation), and major injury (injury severity score >15, major surgery, intensive care unit admission, or in‐hospital death) were tested using binary logistic regression models. Vehicle rollover was categorized either as “present” or “absent” on 1 model or as either “none,” “isolated,” or “mixed mechanism” in the other.ResultsIn 2446 motor vehicle crashes, there were 423 rollovers (196 isolated, 227 mixed mechanisms). Compared with crashes without rollovers, the prevalence of patients with major injury was lower in crashes with isolated rollovers and higher in crashes with mixed‐mechanism rollovers (13.8% vs 9.5% vs 27.5%, respectively; P < 0.001). Rollover (present vs absent) was not an independent predictor of major injury (odds ratio [OR], 1.10; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.78–1.53). Patients in crashes with mixed‐mechanism but not isolated rollovers had increased odds (OR, 2.04; 95% CI, 1.41–2.96) of major injury compared with patients from crashes without rollovers.ConclusionsPatients from crashes with isolated vehicle rollovers may not need to be transported to a trauma center as they carry a lower risk of injury.

Pattern of Injuries Sustained in Cases of Four Wheelers without wearing Seat Belt Infatal Road Traffic Accidents in Mangalore

Introduction: Road traffic accidents (RTAs) have been the bane of the modern civilization accounting for considerableloss to the nation. General callous attitude for safety measures, poor law enforcement and uncontrolled motorizationhave caused significant increase in incidence of RTAs. World Health Organization (WHO) puts RTAs as the sixthleading cause of deaths in India, with a greater share of hospitalizations, deaths, disabilities and socioeconomic lossesin young and middle aged population.Aims and Objective: To study the pattern of injuries sustained in cases of four wheelers without wearing seat beltin fatal road traffic accidents in Mangalore.Materials and Method: All cases of road traffic accidents involving fatal head injuries among four wheelers withoutseat belt which underwent autopsy at the Wenlock District Hospital and Justice K.S Hegde charitable Hospital,Mangalore from January 2009 to December 2013 were included in the study. A proforma was prepared, the detailsabout the pattern of skull fractures and also about intracranial haemorrhages were obtained.Results:Majority of the victims of four wheeler not using seat belt were in the age group of 30-39 Years and 40-49Years (26.83% each). Majority of the victims were male (85.37%).Abrasion (46.34%) was the most common Injuryto face and head followed by laceration (29.27%) was observed.Rib fractures was the most common associatedinjury (43.90%) while no associated injury was observed in 56.10%.Diffuse Extravasation of Blood from Scalp wasobserved in 53.66% while from occipital are was seen in 26.83% victims. Linear Type of fracture in vault was seenin 36.59% of victims. Occipital and frontal bone fracture was observed in 29.27% and 24.39% victims respectively.While studying the Base of skull fractures it was seen that ACF was seen in 24.39% victims while PCF in 19.51%and MCF in 14.63% victims. Most common intra cranial haemorrhage was Sub arachnoid haemorrhage (90.24%)followed by sub dural haemorrhage (82.93%). Brain Oedema was seen in 73.17% victims while Contusion to brainwas seen in 26.83% victims. Frontal lobe of brain was injured in 46.34% victims while diffuse brain injury was seenin 29.27% victims.Conclusion:We conclude that the four wheeler accident among the non seat belt users was common in middle agedmales. Head injury and rib fracture was the most common type of injury observed. Liner fracture of skull withoccipital and frontal bone involvement was common. Most common intra cranial haemorrhage was Sub arachnoidhaemorrhage followed by sub dural haemorrhage. Brain Oedema and Contusion to brain were common brain injury.Frontal lobe brain injuries were common followed by diffuse brain injury.

Accounting for Attribute Non-Attendance and Common-Metric Aggregation in the Choice of Seat Belt Use, a Latent Class Model with Preference Heterogeneity

A choice to use a seat belt is largely dependent on the psychology of the vehicles’ occupants, and thus those decisions are expected to be characterized by preference heterogeneity. Despite the importance of seat belt use on the safety of the roadways, the majority of existing studies ignored the heterogeneity in the data and used a very standard statistical or descriptive method to identify the factors of using a seatbelt. Application of the right statistical method is of crucial importance to unlock the underlying factors of the choice being made by vehicles’ occupants. Thus, this study was conducted to identify the contributory factors to the front-seat passengers’ choice of seat belt usage, while accounting for the choice preference heterogeneity. The latent class model has been offered to replace the mixed logit model by replacing a continuous distribution with a discrete one. However, one of the shortcomings of the latent class model is that the homogeneity is assumed across a same class. A further extension is to relax the assumption of homogeneity by allowing some parameters to vary across the same group. The model could still be extended to overlay some attributes by considering attributes non-attendance (ANA), and aggregation of common-metric attributes (ACMA). Thus, this study was conducted to make a comparison across goodness of fit of the discussed models. Beside a comparison based on goodness of fit, the share of individuals in each class was used to see how it changes based on various model specifications. In summary, the results indicated that adding another layer to account for the heterogeneity within the same class of the latent class (LC) model, and accounting for ANA and ACMA would improve the model fit. It has been discussed in the content of the manuscript that accounting for ANA, ACMA and an extra layer of heterogeneity does not just improve the model goodness of fit, but largely impacts the share of class allocation of the models.

Accommodating Taste and Scale Heterogeneity for Front-Seat Passenger’ Choice of Seat Belt Usage

There is growing interest in implementation of the mixed model to account for heterogeneity across population observations. However, it has been argued that the assumption of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) error terms might not be realistic, and for some observations the scale of the error is greater than others. Consequently, that might result in the error terms’ scale to be varied across those observations. As the standard mixed model could not account for the aforementioned attribute of the observations, extended model, allowing for scale heterogeneity, has been proposed to relax the equal error terms across observations. Thus, in this study we extended the mixed model to the model with heterogeneity in scale, or generalized multinomial logit model (GMNL), to see if accounting for the scale heterogeneity, by adding more flexibility to the distribution, would result in an improvement in the model fit. The study used the choice data related to wearing seat belt across front-seat passengers in Wyoming, with all attributes being individual-specific. The results highlighted that although the effect of the scale parameter was significant, the scale effect was trivial, and accounting for the effect at the cost of added parameters would result in a loss of model fit compared with the standard mixed model. Besides considering the standard mixed and the GMNL, the models with correlated random parameters were considered. The results highlighted that despite having significant correlation across the majority of the random parameters, the goodness of fits favors more parsimonious models with no correlation. The results of this study are specific to the dataset used in this study, and due to the possible fact that the heterogeneity in observations related to the front-seat passengers seat belt use might not be extreme, and do not require extra layer to account for the scale heterogeneity, or accounting for the scale heterogeneity at the cost of added parameters might not be required. Extensive discussion has been made in the content of this paper about the model parameters’ estimations and the mathematical formulation of the methods.

Moving Knowledge to Action: Applying Community Coalition Action Theory (CCAT) to Bus Seat Belt Usage.

BackgroundThe Community Coalition Action Theory (CCAT) is a form of theories for the change across organizations. A community coalition is a structured arrangement where all members can work together on a common goal and objective. This article aimed to present how to use of CCAT framework to design interventions for increase seat belt in the bus.MethodsThe current article focuses on applications of the CCAT to provide framework for the development of activities and interventions related to bus seat belt usage.ResultsThe CCAT have fourteen constructs include stages of development, community context, lead agency or convening group, coalition membership, processes, leadership and staffing, structures, pooled membership and external resources, member engagement, collaborative synergy, assessment and planning, implementation of strategies, community change outcomes, health/social outcomes and community capacity.ConclusionCCAT is one of the best practices that can be achieved through joint activities of multiple organizations that lead to improved health behaviors.

Understanding effect of traffic and driver related characteristics on seat belt usage in Mumbai city using random parameter logit approach and time series analysis

Safety seat belt usage has been a great interest to the transportation community. Understanding factors that influence driver’s decision of wearing a safety seat belt or not is essential in determining ways to enhance safety seat belt usage rate. A modeling approach is made to observe the trend of seat belt usage in Mumbai city and to understand the effect of vehicle type, ownership type, driver’s sociodemographic, and environmental characteristics on safety seat belt usage in Mumbai City. Data were collected by roadside observational surveys at various locations in Mumbai during the years 2015 through 2018. The time series model estimate confirms declining trend of drivers not wearing safety seat belt. When vehicles are disaggregated into different build types, buses are found to be associated with no use of safety seat belt as compared to other type of vehicles, and even male drivers follow the same trend in the city. By using random parameter logit model unobserved heterogeneity was captured among individuals. Findings can be used by policymakers to develop intervention strategies to increase seat belt usage in Mumbai and other cities having similar traffic characteristics and social environment features.

Click it or give it: Increased seat belt law enforcement and organ donation.

Laws mandating that individuals wear a seat belt have the presumed goal of reducing motor vehicle accident fatalities, but the prevailing view is that they may reduce the number of organs available. I provide a conceptual model identifying mechanisms whereby the law could either increase or decrease organ donation. Exploiting variation across states and time in the adoption of primary seat belt enforcement, I investigate these mechanisms and estimate the effect of the law on the supply of organs. The law increases seat belt usage and decreases motor vehicle accident fatalities, which translates to a sizeable reduction in the number of motor vehicle accident-based organ donors. In contrast, the law is not associated with changes in the number of organ donors from nonmotor vehicle accident-based sources and is robust to controlling for hospital-specific effects. The effects are concentrated within organs expected to be most negatively impacted by the seat belt. Although primary enforcement represents a net-gain to society in terms of lives saved, the negative impact on organ donation suggests further emphasis be placed on policies aimed at increasing the availability of organs.

Prevalence of Vaping and Behavioral Associations of Vaping Among a Community of College Students in the United States.

We investigated the prevalence of vaping among college students in South-central Appalachia in the United States and explored factors which were associated with and could predict vaping among the college students. A sample of 498 enrolled students voluntarily completed a self-report REDCap health survey questionnaire in 2018. Outcome variable was use of electronic cigarettes categorized as yes/no. Independent variables included risky behaviors such as texting or emailing while driving, riding in a car with someone who had been drinking, history of protected and unprotected sexual intercourse, age at first intercourse, and type of contraceptive used. Covariates were age, gender, ethnicity/race and high school location. The first category was used as reference. Binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with and predicting vaping. Mean age of participants was 20.93(± 8.26), 62.9% were female, a majority (76.5%) were non-Hispanic White, and 43.2% reported vaping at some point in their lives. Initial univariate analysis showed gender (p < 0.0001), seat belt usage (p = 0.002), texting or emailing while driving (p = 0.002), riding in a car with someone who had been drinking (p = 0.001), history of sexual intercourse (p < 0.001), coitarche (p = 0.026), use of birth control pills and withdrawal method were associated with vaping. Adjusting for co-variates, gender (p < 0.002), county of high school (p < 0.009) and texting and e-mailing while driving (0.05), seat belt usage (0.04) remained significant. Vaping was highly prevalent(43.2%) among our participants. Gender, location of high school, texting/emailing while driving and seat belt usage are predictors of vaping among these students.

Identifying heterogeneous factors for driver injury severity variations in snow-related rural single-vehicle crashes

Snowy weather is consistently considered as a hazardous factor due to its potential leading to severe fatal crashes. A seven-year crash dataset including rural highway single vehicle crashes from 2010 to 2016 in Washington State is applied in the present study. Pseudo elasticity analysis is conducted to investigate significant impact factors and the temporal stability of model specifications is tested via a likelihood ratio test. The proposed model based on the seven-year dataset is able to capture the individual-specific heterogeneity across crash records for four significant factors, i.e., surface ice, male, and airbag combine deployment for minor injury, and male for serious injury and fatality. Their estimated parameters were found to be normal distribution instead of fixed value over the observations. Other significant impact factors with fixed effects are: inroad object, animal, overturn, surface wet, surface snow, unusual horizontal design, medium and high speed limits, driver age, impaired condition, no belt usage, vehicle type, airbag deployment. Especially, when compared to significant factors for crashes under other weather conditions, male indicator and impaired condition show significant higher effects in snow-related crashes. The results of temporal stability test show that the model specification is generally not temporally stable for driver injury severity model based on the years of crash data that were used, especially for longer period (more than 3-year dataset). Models that allow the explanatory variables to track temporal heterogeneity, are of great interest and can be explored in future research.

Determinants of Bus Seat Belt Usage Behavior: A Qualitative Study

Seat belt use is one of the most effective behaviors for saving lives and reducing injuries in bus accidents. This behavior among Iranian bus passengers has not received enough attention. The aim of this study was to discover the determinants of the use and lack of use of bus seat belts in a sample of bus drivers and passengers, traffic police, and related experts. In this qualitative study, data were gathered through 60 semi-constructed interviews. A data analysis was conducted using the inductive content analysis method. A purposive and non-probability sampling approach was employed to recruit participants. After the data analysis, 493 primary codes were extracted, and multiple revisions and merging of these codes based on similarity were carried out. Two categories were identified as determinants of bus seat belt usage behavior. The results of this study provide a comprehensive view of the determinants of bus seat belt usage behavior in Iran and suggest the necessity of interventions in bus passengers’ attitudes and perceptions and more attention to environmental issues, such as the appropriate availability of bus seat belts.

Seating preferences in highly automated vehicles and occupant safety awareness: A national survey of Chinese perceptions

Objective: The potential challenge for providing occupant protection accompanying seating preferences is an essential safety prerequisite for highly automated vehicle (HAV) popularization. This research is aimed toward identifying Asia-specific individualized seating preferences in HAVs and occupant safety awareness via a national survey in China.Methods: An online questionnaire survey was performed to investigate seating preferences (i.e., sitting posture, seating orientation, and position) and occupant safety awareness (i.e., seat belt usage and receptiveness to extended or additional restraints beyond the conventional three-point seat belt). We assessed whether perceptions were modulated by individual characteristics via bivariate and correlation analyses. The possibility of wearing seat belts was estimated by binary logistic regression.Results: The final survey data set includes 1,018 respondents after a rigorous validity check (response rate: 59.2%). The results show that preferred sitting postures and seating orientation were significantly associated with sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., gender, age, city tier) (p < 0.05). The rear seat was preferred in both the conventional (65.6%) and “face-to-face mode” seating configurations (77.6%), largely due to the fact that customers subjectively viewed it as being safer than sitting in a front seat in case of collisions. Despite the current trend of an increasing usage rate of seat belts, 48.5% of respondents preferred to be unrestrained in rear seats, especially for the subgroups who were from less developed cities and with a higher usage rate of public transport (p < 0.01). Low receptiveness to extended restraint and high comfort requirements were confirmed for the young, high-frequency road users, and for those who were from developed areas (p < 0.05).Conclusions: Diversified and specific seating preferences of Chinese occupants were identified facing emerging use of HAVs. Next generation occupant protection systems shall be adapted to account for the individualized expectations and needs on seating designs from certain population groups. Balanced restraint design between safety and comfort was required to exceed the existing strong dependence on exogenous causes of restraint use (e.g., legal restrictions) in Asia.

A temporal analysis of driver-injury severities in crashes involving aggressive and non-aggressive driving

Aggressive driving has become a national traffic-safety concern, with increasing congestion and other stress-inducing factors making it more likely drivers take out their frustrations by driving aggressively. Looking at single-vehicle crashes, this study investigates differences between resulting crash-injury severities when aggressive and non-aggressive driving behavior is observed, and how these differences changed over time. Using three years of crash data from 2015 to 2017 (inclusive), random parameters multinomial logit models with unobserved heterogeneity in means and variances were estimated. The available crash data included a wide variety of factors known to influence driver-injury severity including data related to the crash, vehicle, driver, spatial and temporal characteristics, roadway attributes, and traffic volume. Model estimates show that there were significant differences in driver-injury severities resulting from aggressive and non-aggressive driving, and that the effect of factors that determine injury severities changed significantly over time (statistically significant temporal instability). However, it is noteworthy that crashes involving non-aggressive drivers had many explanatory variables that produced temporally stable marginal effects, whereas crashes involving aggressive drivers had only one such variable (restraint belt usage). This suggests the possibility that temporal instability found in many recent safety studies may be driven by a subset of the crash population, and that there may be temporal stability in many crashes. Exploring this possibility is a promising direction for future empirical investigation.