Analysis Reporting System Research Articles

Time and place of death from automobile crashes: Research endpoint implications.

Vehicle crashes are a leading cause of US injury and death. Early death, however, has almost entirely been studied in-hospital. The US Department of Transportation Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database captures both prehospital and in-hospital mortality. FARS location (prehospital, in-hospital) and time of death were reviewed (1978-2013), and a 2003-2005 subgroup of 55,537 early deaths (i.e., between 5 minutes and 4 hours after injury) was analyzed to quantify risk of death over time. There has been an overall decrease in 1978-2013 US vehicle-related deaths (from 3.3 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled to 1.1 and from 22.6 per 100,000 population to 10.4). Snapshots of the death data reveal an overall downward trend of total in-hospital and prehospital deaths. The proportion of hospital deaths decreased by 58%, whereas the proportion of deaths in the prehospital period increased to 56%. Subgroup analysis revealed a rate of mortality risk of 0.4% per minute for the first 30 minutes, 1% per minute for the next 60 minutes, and 0.2% per minute and plateauing thereafter. Analysis of census FARS data of motor vehicle crash-related deaths showed an overall 35% decrease in mortality over a period of 36 years. The disproportionate reduction in in-hospital deaths is perhaps a testament to the effectiveness of trauma centers. However, there is a demonstrable need to focus on prehospital deaths with resuscitative and adjuvant therapy research and trauma system design. Quantifying risk of death over time should help focus emergency medical services, trauma system, and resuscitation goals. Epidemiologic study, level III.

Association of Graduated Driver Licensing With Driver, Non-Driver, and Total Fatalities Among Adolescents.

Graduated driver licensing systems typically require an extended learner permit phase, and create night-time driving or passenger restrictions for adolescent drivers. Restricted driving might increase the use of alternative transportation to replace driving and consequently increase crashes and injuries for passengers, bus riders, pedestrians, and bicyclists. This study examined whether graduated driver licensing increases non-driver fatalities among adolescents, and whether it reduces total traffic fatalities combining drivers and non-drivers. Longitudinal analyses were conducted using data from the 1995-2012 U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System. Adjusted rate ratios were estimated for being fatally injured in a crash according to: (1) presence/absence of a graduated driver licensing system; and (2) four levels of graduated driver licensing systems (absent, weak, medium, strong). Analyses were conducted in 2015. Among adolescents aged 16 years, graduated driver licensing was not associated with increased passenger fatalities (adjusted rate ratio, 0.96; 95% CI=0.90, 1.03) or pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities (adjusted rate ratio, 1.09; 95% CI=0.85, 1.39), but was associated with an 11% reduction in total traffic fatalities. Among those aged 17 years, graduated driver licensing was not associated with increased fatalities as passengers, pedestrians, or bicyclists, and was not associated with reduced total traffic fatalities. In general, graduated driver licensing systems were not associated with increased fatalities as passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and bus riders. Graduated driver licensing systems were associated with reduced total fatalities of adolescents aged 16 years.

Use of the pBUTR Reporter System for Scalable Analysis of 3' UTR-Mediated Gene Regulation.

Posttranscriptional control of mRNA subcellular localization, stability, and translation is a central aspect of gene regulation and expression. Much of this control is mediated via recognition of a given mRNA transcript's 3' untranslated region (UTR) by microRNAs and RNA-binding proteins. Here we describe how a novel, scalable piggyBac-based vector, pBUTR, can be utilized for analysis of 3' UTR-mediated posttranscriptional gene regulation (PTGR) both in vitro and in vivo. This vector is specifically designed to express a selection marker, a control reporter, and an experimental reporter from three independent transcription units. Expression of spliced reporter transcripts from medium-copy non-viral promoter elements circumvents several potential confounding factors associated with saturation and stability, while stable integration of these reporter and selection elements in the context of a DNA transposon facilitates experimental reproducibility.

Pavement Skid Number and Horizontal Curve Safety

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Report System, more than 25 percent of fatal crashes occur on horizontal curves. High Friction Surface Treatments are an innovative, cost-effective, and sustainable means of improving roadway safety, which could improve the safety of this alignment. This research involved a comprehensive review of crash data to identify the correlation between pavement skid number, roadway curvature degree, crash rate, and crash severity. The dataset showed that greater injury occurred on higher degrees of curvature, and lower skid numbers correlated to a higher percent of wet road crashes. Also, around a skid number of 55, an increase in skid number no longer resulted in decreased crash rates. The goal of this research is to use these correlations to develop Crash Modification Factor that would integrate pavement friction and horizontal curvature, to enhance the accuracy of the current Highway Safety annual performance function.

Us Child Safety Seat Laws: Are They Effective, and Who Complies?

This paper assesses the effectiveness of child safety seat laws. These laws progressively increased the mandatory age up to which children must be restrained in safety seats in cars. We use US Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data from 1978 to 2011 and rich state-time level variation in the implementation of these child safety seat laws for children of different ages. Increasing age thresholds is effective in increasing the actual age of child safety seat use. Across the child age distribution, restraint rates increase by about 30ppt in the long-run when the minimum age increases. However, we cannot reject the null hypothesis that restraining older children in safety seats does not reduce their likelihood to die in fatal accidents. We estimate that parents of 8.6M young children are legal compliers. They compose an important target group for policymakers because these parents alter their parenting behavior when laws change.

A96 Rising gasoline prices increase new motorcycle sales and fatalities in the United States

Abstract Background Motorcycle safety has received much attention from both researchers and policymakers in the United States (US), especially because motorcycle fatalities and injuries are increasing at the same time that overall motor vehicle fatalities have been decreasing. To our knowledge, no study has linked trends in gasoline prices with new motorcycle sales in the US. New motorcycle sales data are more likely to be associated with less experienced riders who may be entering motorcycling in response to escalating gasoline prices. We compare trends in gasoline prices with industry-provided data on new motorcycle sales, and then estimate the impact of new motorcycle sales on crash fatalities. Methods Data come from the Motorcycle Industry Council and Fatality Analysis Reporting System for 1984-2009. Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) regression is used to model the relationship of inflation-adjusted gasoline prices with sales. The impact of these new sales on fatalities is estimated. Results New motorcycles had their lowest sales with 186,000 units in 1992 and, afterward, grew every year until 2008, reaching 888,000 units—a 400% increase. Sales and gasoline prices are highly correlated (r=.78). ARIMA regression modeling predicts that for every $1 increase in gasoline prices, there are an additional 286,000 new motorcycle sales in the US (p Conclusions Although prior research shows a negative relationship between gasoline prices and driving, we present evidence that gasoline prices may be increasing incentives to purchase motorcycles, leading to an increase in fatalities from motorcycle crashes. These findings lend support to traffic safety initiatives to improve motorcycle safety gear and training requirements for new motorcycle riders.

Foundational Methodology for Creating Supplemental, FHWA-specific, Roadside Element Data Set, toward Using Big Data Techniques

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an agency of the United States Department of Transportation (US DOT), provides crashworthiness data sets serving as a starting point for highway research. Although the information has provided guidance to safety researchers and decision-makers for vehicle damage and occupant injury research, crash environment fields have been inadequate to serve the growing surveillance burden placed upon the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), another agency of the US DOT. Recent advances in NHTSA data reporting, however, have allowed for supplemental data acquisition, at no added cost.The 2008 Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) release marked the first instance in which the geographical location was reported for fatal crashes and placed in the public domain. This opened a technological linkage with mapping tools to improve understanding of the crash environment. Further, improved photography introduced in the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Study and concurrent improvements in image capture for the National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System provided better understanding of the crash scene.This paper provides the manual data extraction approach used in identifying candidate crashes and codification of roadside elements. Currently, FHWA is securing access to the Second Strategic Highway Research Program data, representing large stores of video. Leveraging recent FHWA Exploratory Advanced Research findings, in data mining and video capture, and lessons from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and National Institutes of Health, the current project seeks to extend the manual approach to big data extraction.

The association of graduated driver licensing with miles driven and fatal crash rates per miles driven among adolescents

BackgroundGraduated driver licensing (GDL) laws are associated with reduced crash rates per person-year among adolescents. It is unknown whether adolescents crash less per miles driven or drive less under GDL...

Drugs and Alcohol: Their Relative Crash Risk

The purpose of this study was to determine (a) whether among sober (blood alcohol concentration [BAC] = .00%) drivers, being drug positive increases the drivers' risk of being killed in a fatal crash; (b) whether among drinking (BAC > .00%) drivers, being drug positive increases the drivers' risk of being killed in a fatal crash; and (c) whether alcohol and other drugs interact in increasing crash risk. We compared BACs for the 2006, 2007, and 2008 crash cases drawn from the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) with control drug and blood alcohol data from participants in the 2007 U.S. National Roadside Survey. Only FARS drivers from states with drug information on 80% or more of the drivers who also participated in the 2007 National Roadside Survey were selected. For both sober and drinking drivers, being positive for a drug was found to increase the risk of being fatally injured. When the drug-positive variable was separated into marijuana and other drugs, only the latter was found to contribute significantly to crash risk. In all cases, the contribution of drugs other than alcohol to crash risk was significantly lower than that produced by alcohol. Although overall, drugs contribute to crash risk regardless of the presence of alcohol, such a contribution is much lower than that by alcohol. The lower contribution of drugs other than alcohol to crash risk relative to that of alcohol suggests caution in focusing too much on drugged driving, potentially diverting scarce resources from curbing drunk driving.

Analysis of spatial variations in the effectiveness of graduated driver’s licensing (GDL) program in the state of Michigan

Injury resulting from motor vehicle crashes is the leading cause of death among teenagers in the US. Few programs or policies have been found to be effective in reducing the risk of fatal car crashes for young novice drivers. One effective policy that has been widely implemented is Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL). Published articles have mostly reported on the temporal effectiveness of GDL in the US. This article reports on the development of spatial statistical modeling approaches to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of GDL policy across eighty-three counties in the state of Michigan. Data were gathered from several publicly available databases, including the US Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), US Census Bureau, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and US Department of Agriculture.To account for spatial dependence among crash counts from adjacent counties we invoke spatial random effects, which we provide with a Conditionally AutoRegressive (CAR) prior. Our analysis confirms previous findings that GDL in Michigan is an effective policy that significantly reduces the risk of fatal car crashes among novice teenage drivers. In addition, it indicates that rurality is an important contextual variable associated with spatial differences in GDL effectiveness across the state of Michigan. Finally, our findings provide information that can be used to strengthen GDL policy and its implementation to further enhance teenage-driver safety.

The relative risk of involvement in fatal crashes as a function of race/ethnicity and blood alcohol concentration

IntroductionThe literature presents a puzzling picture of Latinos being overrepresented in alcohol-related crashes, but not in noncrash drinking and driving. This report examines if, like other demographic variables in which some groups are at a higher crash risk than others (e.g., young drivers), different racial/ethnic groups face different crash risks. MethodThis study compares blood-alcohol information from the 2006–2007 U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) with control data from the 2007 U.S. National Roadside Survey. Logistic regression, including a dual interaction between BAC and race/ethnicity, was used to estimate crash risk at different BAC levels. ResultsIt was found that, although Hispanic and African-American drivers were less likely to be involved in single-vehicle crashes than their White counterparts, all drivers face similar BAC relative crash risk regardless of their group membership. The overrepresentation of Latino drivers in alcohol-related crashes could be explained by differences in patterns of consumption, driving exposure, lack of awareness of driving rules, and/or socioeconomics.

Uncertainty Analysis of Accident Notification Time and Emergency Medical Service Response Time in Work Zone Traffic Accidents

Objective: Taking into account the uncertainty caused by exogenous factors, the accident notification time (ANT) and emergency medical service (EMS) response time were modeled as 2 random variables following the lognormal distribution. Method: Their mean values and standard deviations were respectively formulated as the functions of environmental variables including crash time, road type, weekend, holiday, light condition, weather, and work zone type. Work zone traffic accident data from the Fatality Analysis Report System between 2002 and 2009 were utilized to determine the distributions of the ANT and the EMS arrival time in the United States. A mixed logistic regression model, taking into account the uncertainty associated with the ANT and the EMS response time, was developed to estimate the risk of death. Results: The results showed that the uncertainty of the ANT was primarily influenced by crash time and road type, whereas the uncertainty of EMS response time is greatly affected by road type, weather, and light conditions. In addition, work zone accidents occurring during a holiday and in poor light conditions were found to be statistically associated with a longer mean ANT and longer EMS response time. The results also show that shortening the ANT was a more effective approach in reducing the risk of death than the EMS response time in work zones. Conclusions: To shorten the ANT and the EMS response time, work zone activities are suggested to be undertaken during non-holidays, during the daytime, and in good weather and light conditions.

Why more male pedestrians die in vehicle-pedestrian collisions than female pedestrians: a decompositional analysis

ObjectivePedestrians account for a third of the 1.2 million traffic fatalities annually worldwide, and men are overrepresented. We examined the factors that contribute to this male-female discrepancy: walking exposure (kilometres...

Inverse propensity weighting to adjust for bias in fatal crash samples

BackgroundThe Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) has data from all areas of the United States, but is limited to fatal crashes. The National Automotive Sampling System–General Estimates System (NASS–GES) includes all types of serious traffic crashes, but is limited to a few sampling areas. Combining the strengths of these two samples might offset their limitations. MethodsLogistic regression (allowing for sample design, and conditional upon selected person-, event-, and geographic-level factors) was used to determine the propensity (PFC) for each injured person in 2002–2008 NASS–GES data to be in a fatal crash sample. NASS–GES subjects injured in fatal crashes were then reweighted by a factor of WFC=(1/PFC) to create a “pseudopopulation”. The weights (WFC) derived from NASS–GES were also applied to injured subjects in 2007 FARS data to create another pseudopopulation. Characteristics and mortality predictions from these artificial pseudopopulations were compared to those obtained using the original NASS–GES sample. The sum of WFC for FARS cases was also used to estimate the number of crash injuries for rural and urban locations, and compared to independently reported data. ResultsCompared to regression results using the original NASS–GES sample, unadjusted models based on fatal crash samples gave inaccurate estimates of covariate effects on mortality for injured subjects. After reweighting using WFC, estimates based upon the pseudopopulations were similar to results obtained using the original NASS–GES sample. The sum of WFC for FARS cases gave reasonable estimates for the number of crash injuries in rural and urban locations, and provided an estimate of the rural effect on mortality after controlling for other factors. ConclusionsWeights derived from analysis of NASS–GES data (the inverse propensity for selection into a fatal crash sample) allow appropriate adjustment for selection bias in fatal crash samples, including FARS.

Alcohol-related risk of driver fatalities: an update using 2007 data.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the relative risk of being involved in an alcohol-related crash has changed over the decade from 1996 to 2007, a period during which there has been little evidence of a reduction in the percentage of all fatal crashes involving alcohol. We compared blood-alcohol information for the 2006 and 2007 crash cases (N = 6,863, 22.8% of them women) drawn from the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) with control blood-alcohol data from participants in the 2007 U.S. National Roadside Survey (N = 6,823). Risk estimates were computed and compared with those previously obtained from the 1996 FARS and roadside survey data. Although the adult relative risk of being involved in a fatal alcohol-related crash apparently did not change from 1996 to 2007, the risk for involvement in an alcohol-related crash for underage women has increased to the point where it has become the same as that for underage men. Further, the risk that sober underage men will become involved in a fatal crash has doubled over the 1996-2007 period. Compared with estimates obtained from a decade earlier, young women in this study are at an increased risk of involvement in alcohol-related crashes. Similarly, underage sober drivers in this study are more at risk of involvement in a crash than they were a decade earlier.

A GFP-lacZ Bicistronic Reporter System for Promoter Analysis in Environmental Gram-Negative Bacteria

Here, we describe a bicistronic reporter system for the analysis of promoter activity in a variety of Gram-negative bacteria at both the population and single-cell levels. This synthetic genetic tool utilizes an artificial operon comprising the gfp and lacZ genes that are assembled in a suicide vector, which is integrated at specific sites within the chromosome of the target bacterium, thereby creating a monocopy reporter system. This tool was instrumental for the complete in vivo characterization of two promoters, Pb and Pc, that drive the expression of the benzoate and catechol degradation pathways, respectively, of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida KT2440. The parameterization of these promoters in a population (using β-galactosidase assays) and in single cells (using flow cytometry) was necessary to examine the basic numerical features of these systems, such as the basal and maximal levels and the induction kinetics in response to an inducer (benzoate). Remarkably, GFP afforded a view of the process at a much higher resolution compared with standard lacZ tests; changes in fluorescence faithfully reflected variations in the transcriptional regimes of individual bacteria. The broad host range of the vector/reporter platform is an asset for the characterization of promoters in different bacteria, thereby expanding the diversity of genomic chasses amenable to Synthetic Biology methods.

Analysis of driver casualty risk for different work zone types

Using driver casualty data from the Fatality Analysis Report System, this study examines driver casualty risk and investigates the risk contributing factors in the construction, maintenance and utility work zones. The multiple t-tests results show that the driver casualty risk is statistically different depending on the work zone type. Moreover, construction work zones have the largest driver casualty risk, followed by maintenance and utility work zones. Three separate logistic regression models are developed to predict driver casualty risk for the three work zone types because of their unique features. Finally, the effects of risk factors on driver casualty risk for each work zone type are examined and compared. For all three work zone types, five significant risk factors including road alignment, truck involvement, most harmful event, vehicle age and notification time are associated with increased driver casualty risk while traffic control devices and restraint use are associated with reduced driver casualty risk. However, one finding is that three risk factors (light condition, gender and day of week) exhibit opposing effects on the driver casualty risk in different types of work zones. This may largely be due to different work zone features and driver behavior in different types of work zones.

PHairyRed: A Novel Binary Vector Containing the DsRed2 Reporter Gene for Visual Selection of Transgenic Hairy Roots

We developed a new plant transformation vector, pHairyRed, for enabling high throughput, non-destructive selection of Agrobacterium rhizogenes-mediated 'hairy-root' transformation. pHairyRed allows easy in planta visualization of transgenic tissue with minimal disturbance to the plant. The DsRed2 reporter gene, encoding a red fluorescent protein, was cloned to yield pHairyRed (harbouring a multiple cloning site), which was used with the highly efficient K599 A. rhizogenes strain to infect soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill) plants. DsRed2 fluorescence was easily detected in planta for the duration of a 5-week study with negligible levels of background autofluorescence. This enabled visual selection of transformed roots and subsequent excission of non-transformed roots. pHairyRed-transformed roots nodulated normally when inoculated with Bradyrhizobium japonicum. Within the nodule, DsRed2 fluorescence was plant-specific, being absent in the bacteroid-dominated nodule infected zone. To test the reliability of pHairyRed as a high-fidelity binary vector reporter system, the gene encoding the soybean Nod factor receptor, GmNFR1α, was cloned into the vector for use in a complementation study with a non-nodulating nfr1α mutant of soybean. Complementation was achieved and, without exception, DsRed2 fluorescence was detected in all hairy roots that successfully formed nodules (100%, n = 34). We anticipate broad application of this reporter system for the further analysis of root-related events in soybean and related legumes.

Effectiveness of seven programs to reduce alcohol-impaired driving

This presentation reports on the results of a complex, seven-state demonstration program to reduce alcohol-impaired driving through well-publicised and highly visible enforcement. Each of the demonstration programs was unique and...

Investigation of Truck-Involved Angle Crashes Based on GES and FARS Crash Databases

Truck-car angle collisions have a higher crash frequency than other truck-involved collision types and tend to increase injury severity. This paper investigates both general and fatal truck-involved angle collisions using two national crash databases (2000-2004), General estimates system (GES) and Fatality Analysis Reporting system (FARS). In this study, two-vehicle angle collisions were classified into three groups based on fault roles of truck or car drivers in the acci- dents, including Truck-Car, Car-Truck, and Car-Car crashes. The occurrence conditions of the three angle crash types were compared to each other to identify the potential risk factors such as driver characteristics, road environments, and highway designs related to the truck-involved crashes. The multinomial logistic regression is used for the statistical analy- sis. Based on the result analysis of this study, it is suggested that truck-involved angle collisions should be considered as an important scenario design for retraining or education programs for the purposes of reducing older drivers' fatality rate; improving either the conspicuity of truck trailers or lighting design of the highway would reduce the frequency and sever- ity of truck-involved angle crashes; to improve incompatibilities between truck, car, and highway design, further studies should conduct in-depth analyses of geometric factors related to driver performances and behaviors in the car-truck con- flicts at intersections.