Dangerous Crossings Research Articles

Age, sex, sensation-seeking, and road-crossing: How does risk context impact children’s street-crossing?

Objective Child pedestrian injuries are a significant public health problem, largely because children have underdeveloped cognitive-perceptual capacity to judge traffic unsupervised. This study used a virtual reality (VR) environment to examine the impact of children’s age, as well as sex and sensation-seeking personality, on pedestrian behavior in different risk contexts. Methods 405 Norwegian children (7–10-year-olds) engaged in street-crossing scenarios within a VR environment. Children crossed a bicycle path and urban roadway six times, each with increasing density and complexity of traffic. Hits and near hits were recorded. Self-reported sensation-seeking personality was assessed. Results Children were more likely to experience crashes in the tasks that offered higher probability risk. Overall, 106 children crossed safely in all tasks. Dangerous crossings were associated with male sex, higher thrill and intensity seeking personality, and denser traffic. Age was not related to any traffic safety outcomes. Conclusion As expected, children were struck by vehicles more often in complex traffic contexts than in less complex ones. The results support previous findings and suggest that boys and sensation seekers have elevated risk of pedestrian injury, and that individual differences in children, rather than age alone, must be considered when determining if children are capable of safely negotiating traffic unsupervised.

Application of immersive virtual reality for assessing chronic neglect in individuals with stroke: the immersive virtual road-crossing task

ABSTRACT Background Neglect can be a long-term consequence of chronic stroke that can impede an individual’s ability to perform daily activities, but chronic and discrete forms can be difficult to detect. We developed and evaluated the “immersive virtual road-crossing task” (iVRoad) to identify and quantify discrete neglect symptoms in chronic stroke patients. Method The iVRoad task requires crossing virtual intersections and placing a letter in a mailbox placed either on the left or right. We tested three groups using the HTC Vive Pro Eye: (1) chronic right hemisphere stroke patients with (N = 20) and (2) without (N = 20) chronic left-sided neglect, and (3) age and gender-matched healthy controls (N = 20). We analyzed temporal parameters, errors, and head rotation to identify group-specific patterns, and applied questionnaires to measure self-assessed pedestrian behavior and usability. Results Overall, the task was well-tolerated by all participants with fewer cybersickness-induced symptoms after the VR exposure than before. Reaction time, left-sided errors, and lateral head movements for traffic from left most clearly distinguished between groups. Neglect patients committed more dangerous crossings, but their self-rated pedestrian behavior did not differ from that of stroke patients without neglect. This demonstrates their reduced awareness of the risks in everyday life and highlights the clinical relevance of the task. Conclusions Our findings suggest that a virtual road crossing task, such as iVRoad, has the potential to identify subtle symptoms of neglect by providing virtual scenarios that more closely resemble the demands and challenges of everyday life. iVRoad is an immersive, naturalistic virtual reality task that can measure clinically relevant behavioral variance and identify discrete neglect symptoms.

The effect of age and sensation seeking on pedestrian crossing safety in a virtual reality street

A wide range of individual, interpersonal and environmental factors influence the safety of pedestrians crossing the street, including human development (children take more risks than adolescents and adults) and sensation seeking (individuals higher in sensation seeking have greater risk). The interaction between those two variables has not been carefully studied, however. Does the effect of sensation seeking on pedestrian safety vary across human development as cognitive and other skills improve? This study investigated the primary effects of age and sensation seeking, plus their joint effects, on pedestrian crossing in a virtual reality environment. 209 children (10–13 years old), adolescents (14–18 years old) and young adults (20–24 years old) screened to be high and low level in sensation seeking participated. A 3 (age group: child vs adolescent vs young adult) × 2 (sensation seeking: high vs low) × 2 (traffic condition: easy vs harder crossing) mixed factorial design was conducted. Three pedestrian safety outcomes – start delay, missed opportunities and dangerous crossings – were considered. Results showed that when the traffic condition was easier to cross within, the start delay to enter traffic gaps was significantly shorter for children than for adolescents and young adults. There were no significant differences across age groups when the traffic condition was harder to cross within. Pedestrians also missed more opportunities to cross the road when the traffic condition was harder to cross within. Pedestrians low in sensation seeking missed more opportunities to cross than those high in sensation seeking. All age groups had more dangerous crossings during the harder crossing scenario than in the easier one, and adolescents had more dangerous crossings than young adults or children. Finally, the results of hierarchical regression models predicting dangerous crossings showed that traffic condition had a significant predictive effect on children's dangerous crossing behavior, and both high sensation seeking and harder traffic conditions predicted adolescents’ dangerous crossing behavior. No included variables significantly predicted adults' dangerous crossing behavior. We conclude that both age and sensation-seeking contribute to pedestrian safety. The effect of sensation seeking does not vary widely by age group, but its effect on adolescents was somewhat stronger than in the other age groups studied.

Analysis of Pedestrian Behavior in the City of Pila

Every year, many people lose their health and/or lives on Polish roads. One of the reasons for this is behavior of pedestrians at pedestrian crossings, which affects the road safety. The aim of the article was to conduct experimental research, the idea of which was to study the behavior of pedestrians at pedestrian crossings in the city of Pila, the results of which can be applied to Poland. During the research, the behavior of pedestrians and the impact on the probability of a road accident were analyzed. Undoubtedly, the prevailing epidemic, during which people are in many respects limited, had an impact on the results obtained, therefore the number of people at the analyzed crossings may have decreased. The conducted research confirmed the Police statistical data that the most dangerous crossings for pedestrians are those without traffic lights.

Stress, migration, and allostatic load: a model based on Mexican migrants in Columbus, Ohio

BackgroundImmigration is a disruptive event with multiple implications for health. Stressors, including family separation, acculturation, job insecurity, restricted mobility, sojourns, dangerous border crossings, stigmatization, and marginalization, shape immigrant health in ways we are only beginning to untangle. Around the world, there are over 200 million international migrants. In 2015, there were 43.2 million immigrants living in the US, 26.8% of whom were born in Mexico. Investigating how stress affects health among migrants facilitates better understanding of their experiences.MethodsHere, we review existing research on stress and how allostatic load varies among migrants with specific attention to Mexican migrants in the US. Next, we explore research incorporating biomarkers of allostasis and narratives of migration and settlement to examine disease risks of Mexican migrants residing in Columbus, Ohio. This mixed-methods approach allowed us to examine how social stressors may influence self-reports of health differentially from associations with assessed discrimination and physiological biomarkers of health.ResultsThese data sources are not significantly associated. Neither narratives nor self-reports of health provide significant proxies for participants’ physiological health.ConclusionsWe propose, the pairing of objectively assessed health profiles with narratives of migration better illustrate risks migrants face, while allowing us to discern pathways through which future health challenges may arise. Immigration and acculturation to a new nation are biologically and culturally embedded processes, as are stress and allostatic responses. To understand how the former covary with the latter requires a mixed-methods bioethnographic approach. Differences across multiple social and physiological systems, affect individual health over time. We propose incorporating physiological biomarkers and allostatic load with migrants’ narratives of their migration to unravel complex relationships between acculturation and health.

Contours of Asian American political theory: introductions and polemics

ABSTRACTThis essay claims that Asian American political theory (AAPT) exists but needs to be more explicitly articulated. I contour AAPT as the practice and tradition of critical theoretical reflection upon Asian American politics. I then situate Claire Kim’s Dangerous Crossings (2015) and Lisa Lowe’s The Intimacies of Four Continents (2015) within this contour. I read Claire Kim’s approach to localized Asian American conflicts as a case of ethically and nationally inflected AAPT, while I read Lisa Lowe’s approach to global Asian/Asian American figures as a case of historically and transnationally inflected AAPT. These examples show that AAPT fits within some parameters of political theory and political science, but also anticipates a wider reconfiguration of basic concepts such as Asian American politics. My proposal is that AAPT be conceived and developed as a disciplinary and transdisciplinary project.

A novel framework to evaluate pedestrian safety at non-signalized locations

This paper proposes a new framework to evaluate pedestrian safety at non-signalized crosswalk locations. In the proposed framework, the yielding maneuver of a driver in response to a pedestrian is split into the reaction and braking time. Hence, the relationship of the distance required for a yielding maneuver and the approaching vehicle speed depends on the reaction time of the driver and deceleration rate that the vehicle can achieve. The proposed framework is represented in the distance-velocity (DV) diagram and referred as the DV model. The interactions between approaching vehicles and pedestrians showing the intention to cross are divided in three categories: i) situations where the vehicle cannot make a complete stop, ii) situations where the vehicle’s ability to stop depends on the driver reaction time, and iii) situations where the vehicle can make a complete stop. Based on these classifications, non-yielding maneuvers are classified as “non-infraction non-yielding” maneuvers, “uncertain non-yielding” maneuvers and “non-yielding” violations, respectively. From the pedestrian perspective, crossing decisions are classified as dangerous crossings, risky crossings and safe crossings accordingly. The yielding compliance and yielding rate, as measures of the yielding behavior, are redefined based on these categories. Time to crossing and deceleration rate required for the vehicle to stop are used to measure the probability of collision. Finally, the framework is demonstrated through a case study in evaluating pedestrian safety at three different types of non-signalized crossings: a painted crosswalk, an unprotected crosswalk, and a crosswalk controlled by stop signs. Results from the case study suggest that the proposed framework works well in describing pedestrian-vehicle interactions which helps in evaluating pedestrian safety at non-signalized crosswalk locations.

Dangerous Crossings: Voices from the African Migration to Italy/Europe

Africans continue to migrate across the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea, where tens of thousands have drowned. In Libya, many suffer enslavement and other harsh treatment as they flee persecution or poverty, or both. Yet there have been few studies of their journey. This study, based primarily on some sixty interviews by the author in 2014–2016 with African migrants in Italy and France, provides a portrait of resilience, courage, and strategic decisions that differs sharply from media images of helplessness. It suggests reconsidering migrant networks and typologies in view of the breakdown and attempted repair of networks on these journeys, where categories blur, ranging from free to slave and back to free.

Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age by Claire Jean Kim (review)

Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age by Claire Jean Kim (review)

Dangerous crossings: race, species, and nature in a multicultural age

Dangerous Crossings offers an interpretation of the impassioned disputes that have arisen in the contemporary United States over the use of animals in the cultural practices of nonwhite peoples. It examines three controversies: the battle over the 'cruelty' of the live animal markets in San Francisco's Chinatown, the uproar over the conviction of NFL superstar Michael Vick on dogfighting charges, and the firestorm over the Makah tribe's decision to resume whaling in the Pacific Northwest after a hiatus of more than seventy years. Claire Jean Kim shows that each dispute demonstrates how race and species operate as conjoined logics, or mutually constitutive taxonomies of power. Analyzing each case as a conflict between single optics (the optic of cruelty and environmental harm vs the optic of racism and cultural imperialism), she argues for a multi-optic approach that takes different forms of domination seriously, and thus encourages an ethics of avowal among different struggles.

Enforcement and illegal migration

Border enforcement of immigration laws attempts to raise the costs of illegal immigration, while interior enforcement also lowers the benefits. Border and interior enforcement therefore reduce the net benefits of illegal immigration and should lower the probability that an individual will decide to migrate. While some empirical studies find that border and interior enforcement serve as significant deterrents to illegal immigration, immigration enforcement is costly and carries significant unintended consequences, such as an increase in fraudulent and falsified documents and rising border death rates as migrants undertake more dangerous crossings.

The impact of waiting time and other factors on dangerous pedestrian crossings and violations at signalized intersections: A case study in Montreal

Pedestrian violations of traffic signals and dangerous crossings at intersections are common. The objective of this study is to determine the impact of pedestrian waiting time at an intersection on the proportion and type of pedestrian violations and dangerous crossings. The amount of waiting depends on signal phasing, time of arrival, and the presence of a pedestrian signal. Thirteen intersections with similar geometry and traffic conditions but different maximum waiting times, seven of which had a pedestrian signal, were observed over at least 2h to collect crossing information. Data was collected manually for the main analysis and complementary video data was used for validation.Several factors were identified as having an impact on the proportion of pedestrian violations. In accordance with the literature, age, sex, group size, pedestrian flow and pedestrian signals are associated to pedestrian violations. In addition, other factors were identified in this research, such as maximum waiting time (red phase). It was also determined that an intersection clearing time had an impact on violations and on the proportion of dangerous crossings committed. Also, pedestrians’ speeds depended on the type of crossing. The results underline the importance of providing pedestrian signals including countdown displays, which is significantly and negatively linked to dangerous violations and crossings. The results also highlight the importance of pedestrian maximum waiting time as well as clearing time. When designing cycle and phase lengths, particular attention should be paid to pedestrian waiting times that are positively correlated to violations. Minimizing waiting times for pedestrians is expected to reduce dangerous pedestrian behaviors at signalized intersections.

Railroad-Associated Mortality Hot Spots for A Population of Romanian Hermann's Tortoise (Testudo Hermanni Boettgeri): A Gravity Model for Railroad-Segment Analysis

Abstract Road-kill can lead to a sharp local decline of herpetofauna species. For this reason, transportation agencies are more and more interested to implement mitigation measures in order to eliminate this threat. The present study proposes to identify the railroad network induced threats at a railroad segment spatial scale on Getic Tableland, south-western Romania, by highlighting associated mortality hot spots for Testudo hermanni boettgeri. The railroad segment was chosen due to the reported road-kills and high traffic volume. In order to identify road associated mortality hot spots, we adapted a gravity model by including a weighting coefficient for overtaking obstacles. The model was adapted after observing that the cuts, fills, ditches and guardrails can change the tortoises behavior, making them avoid dangerous crossings, thus influencing the distribution of hot spots. As a main result, our study managed to adapt a gravity model for a more accurate assessment of railroad associated mortality. The average value of inter-habitat interaction is reduced by 23.37% after introducing the coefficient of overtaking the obstacles. However, despite the numerous obstacles, at a home range spatial scale, the maximum inter-habitat interaction value is not decreased, the range being stable (range = 0 - 99.66). Instead, the spatial extent of the hot spots is modified because of the increased territorial dependence and home range multi-annual stability, both severely threatening the tortoise that have a home range bisected by a major railroad. Our study accurately identifies the hot spots, which is particularly important in planning mitigation efforts, for building effective underpasses and fences systems.

Individual status, foraging effort and need for conspicuousness shape behavioural responses of a predator to moon phases

The effects of moon phases on predator–prey relationships have so far been mainly investigated from the prey’s perspective. The response of a predator to moon phases may represent a complex trade-off between overcoming the antipredator strategies of its prey and balancing other needs/constraints (e.g. individual status and condition). We explored the year-round effects of the lunar cycle on radiotagged breeders and dispersers of an avian predator, the eagle owl, Bubo bubo, from the perspective of movement patterns, foraging effort and display intensity. In general, the movements of breeders suggested an increase in activity around the time of the full moon. This may be related to an increase in both the time needed to detect prey (on brighter nights prey are more concealed and wary) and the time the predator devotes to visual displays (the full moon increases the conspicuousness of signalling). However, hunting activity also peaked during dark nights, when prey might be harder to see. In contrast, the behaviour of dispersing owls was not affected by lunar cycles. Natal dispersal involves potentially dangerous crossings of unknown landscapes (which probably requires similar effort throughout the year), and because of the absence of reproductive constraints should not require greater activity when food profitability is low. The status of individuals may thus play a crucial role in cost–benefit considerations and behavioural decisions, by directly affecting the time and effort individuals need to allocate to various activities related to their most immediate needs (e.g. breeding successfully versus overcoming dispersal costs).

Perceived Barriers To Walking To School Among Parents Of 8-9 Year Old Children

Walking to school is a key target behavior for increasing physical activity among children, but effective behavior change interventions require understanding of barriers. PURPOSE: To identify parents' perceived socio-economic, environmental, planning, and safety barriers to walking to school among their children. METHODS: Participants were elementary school children (n = 136, 57% male) and one of their parents (n = 136) from 5 elementary schools representing high and low socio-economic status areas according to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. Parents provided information on their employment, housing status, and car ownership, and completed a previously validated tool for measuring perceived barriers to walking to school (Forman et al., 2008). Children self-reported their usual mode of travel to school. Potential barriers were compared between walkers and non-walkers using descriptive statistics. Univariate binary logistic regression was used to identify which barriers were related to walking to school. Significant predictors were entered into a multivariate binary logistic regression model, controlled for clustering at the school level. RESULTS: 67% of children walked to school. 60% of children came from a home with at least one income and 72% of households had at least one car. 57% of children lived within 1 mile of their school. Gender and socio-economic factors did not significantly (p >.05) predict travel mode. In univariate logistic regression, the odds of walking to school were increased when parents did not perceive the following as being barriers (Odds Ratio, 95% CI): Distance (4.7, 2.1 - 10.5); Hills on route (7.9, 1.5 - 41.5); Too much traffic (4.6, 1.9 - 11.0); Dangerous crossings (3.1, 1.2 - 7.7); Too much stuff to carry (2.8, 1.1 - 7.0); Easier to drive (7.9, 3.3 - 18.8); Too far (3.4, 1.2 - 9.6). The multivariate model significantly predicted walking to school (c2 (df = 8) = 45.2, p < 0.001). Only 3 variables were significant in the multivariate model: Distance (4.5, 1.4 - 14.2); Hills on route (14.0, 1.8 - 111.2); Easier to drive (6.7, 2.3 - 19.2). CONCLUSIONS: The majority of children walked to school. Many barriers were nonsignificant. Further research with those who walk and have low barriers may inform behavior change strategies for non-walkers.

Examination of Highway–Rail Grade Crossing Collisions Nationally from 1998 to 2007

Most studies of highway–rail grade crossing collisions have looked at specific classes of warning devices (e.g., gates). Some limited work on crossings with passive warnings is available. This study, using FRA data, examines 10 years of collisions nationally at public crossings with the four primary crossing warning systems: crossbucks only, stop signs, flashing lights, and gates. The study examines and compares collisions and collision rates. Overall, crashes and fatalities at highway–rail crossings have been decreasing while the number of crossings, vehicles, and train movements has been increasing. The number of public highway–rail crossings, the number of collisions, and the percentage of collisions resulting in a fatality are not well correlated. Some important characteristics of collisions are these: a train striking a vehicle is more likely to cause a fatality, male drivers outnumber female drivers by three to one, drivers younger than 25 are overrepresented, and drivers older than 65 are more likely to be killed than those in other age groups. Additionally, collisions are more likely to occur during the day and in clear weather. As timetable speeds increase, drivers are less likely to run into a train. The highest collision rates based on traffic volume occur where stop signs are used. Collision rates vary by state, and the ranking in rates by device also varies substantially from state to state. Finally, though useful, the databases maintained by FRA could be improved to be more comprehensive, both for research and for identification of potentially dangerous crossings.

Pedestrian traffic injuries in Mexico: A country update

Road traffic injuries in general and pedestrian injuries in particular are a major public health problem in Mexico, especially in large urban areas. Analysis of mortality and road crashes at the national level was done using routine data recorded on death certificates. Fatality rates for different age groups were estimated by region for the year 2000. These data were supplemented by a cross-sectional study of pedestrian injuries in Mexico City based on death certificates information for pedestrians who lived and died in Mexico City between 1994 and 1997. Participant observation of physical spaces where crashes occurred was carried out. The spaces were filmed and in-depth interviews of survivors conducted. Road traffic crashes were responsible for approximately 17,500 deaths in Mexico during 2000. The mean age of the victims was 37 years. Mexico lost an average of 30 years of productive life for each individual who died in a traffic crash – 525,000 years in 2000. An estimated 9500 (54.3%) of all fatalities were pedestrians, and for every pedestrian death there were 13 others who sustained nonfatal injuries requiring medical care. The overall crude mortality rate for pedestrian injuries in Mexico City was 7.14 per 100,000 (CI 6.85-7.42). A concentration of deaths was observed in 10 neighborhoods at specific types of street environments. The underlying factors included dangerous crossings and the absence or inadequacy of pedestrian bridges, as well as negative perceptions of road safety by pedestrians. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the importance of elucidating the underlying contextual determinants of pedestrian injuries.

Dangerous Crossings: Politics and Epistemology in Post-Cold War American Studies

The topic of this paper is the epistemic and political directions American studies has taken in the past decades. I will try to show that while in the United States and Western Europe the changes, originally triggered by the political movements of the 1960s, became epistemic by the 1970s and 1980s, east of the Iron Curtain these changes have only occurred belatedly, in the 1990s: the changes brought about by the political changes of 1989-1990 needed time to turn into an epistemic shift. But American studies, I will insist, is a veritable pull factor in this sense, boiling down to being a new methodology in the humanities and social sciences. Of course, American studies seems to have played a rather special role in East-Central Europe from the start, different from the role of French or German studies, for example. Indeed, all along this has been a subversive role, American studies being a subversive field, its teaching a subversive enterprise. "Old American studies," as one might call the first, Cold War phase of the discipline, was for a long time dangerous territory in East-Central Europe both because of its idealized message concerning "the meaning of America" and its structuralist-phenomenological methodology. "New American studies" that emerged towards the end of the Cold War and has been characterized by severe rifts and paradigm debates became problematic in East-Central Europe for its critical stance and its poststructuralist-postmodern-multicultural-post-hegemonic [End Page 563] assumptions. In fact, both "Old American studies" and "New American studies" were problematic epistemically in East-Central Europe: the former for being framed by the modern episteme (at a time when no theoretical and methodological alternatives to Marxism were tolerated), the latter for being framed by the postmodern episteme (at a time when only structuralism was tolerated as an auxiliary to Marxism). Given the very different political and ideological developments in the U.S. and Western Europe, on the one hand, and East-Central Europe, on the other, the mission of post-Cold War scholarship includes a "sixties"-type politicization, where the 1960s must be folded, so to speak, into the 1990s. At home, this mission means the spreading of advanced ideas, and rests on the application of American studies as methodology. Internationally it can hold up a synthesis of idealism and pragmatism: of what I will expound as the "respect mode" of "old American studies" and the "attack mode" of "new American studies." East of the Iron Curtain the 1960s were not "the sixties" as usually understood: these 1960s were characterized by the tightening of police control and the lack of any civil rights politicization whatsoever. Here the 1960s was not the decade of emergent feminism, demands for social equality, or the critique of racism and sexism. At best, our 1960s were characterized by a belated disillusionment among leftist intellectuals in communism. This disillusionment was triggered by the Prague events of 1968—not the uprising but rather its crushing by Warsaw Pact tanks—occurring twelve years after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a landmark historical event with the potential for many of revealing the downsides of the communist system. So, the real "sixties" had to wait until the 1990s, after the fall of communism and its totalitarian regimes. Therefore, in East-Central Europe the intellectual had to "do the sixties" in the 1990s, when finally there emerged a demand, say, for both feminist activism and feminist criticism, for gay and lesbian consciousness-raising as well as queer theory, for social activism in general as well as the desire for a finer understanding and critique. Together with all these new activities and ideas often packaged in the United States, there came an unprecedented influx of U.S. products. U.S. business and cultural presence has proved equally difficult to figure out; this is where American studies is beginning to have a social role: to help identify what...

Dangerous Crossings: The First Modern Polar Expedition, 1925

This dramatic account fully documents the pioneering overflight of some 30,000 square miles of the High Arctic in open-cockpit biplanes.

Dangerous Crossings: The First Modern Polar Expedition 1925, by John H. Bryant and Harold N. Cones

Dangerous Crossings: The First Modern Polar Expedition 1925, by John H. Bryant and Harold N. Cones