Posted by Benji Riggins on October 10, 2009 under Safety | 
•Be especially attentive from sunset to midnight and during the hours shortly before and after sunrise. These are the highest risk times for deer-vehicle collisions.
•Drive with caution when moving through deer-crossing zones, in areas known to have a large deer population and in areas where roads divide agricultural fields from forest. Deer seldom run alone. If you see one deer, others may be nearby.
•When driving at night, use high-beam headlights when there is no oncoming traffic. The high beams will better illuminate the eyes of deer on or near the roadway.
•Slow down and blow your horn with one long blast to frighten the deer away.
•Brake firmly when you notice a deer in or near your path, but stay in your lane. Many serious crashes occur when drivers swerve to avoid a deer and hit another vehicle, or lose control of their cars.
•Always wear your seat belt. Most people injured in car/deer crashes were not wearing their seat belt.
•Do not rely on devices such as deer whistles, deer fences or reflectors to deter deer. These devices have not been proven to reduce deer-vehicle collisions.
•If your vehicle strikes a deer, do not touch the animal. A frightened and wounded deer can hurt you or further injure itself. The best procedure is to get your car off the road, if possible, and call the police.
Posted by Benji Riggins on September 29, 2009 under Safety |
Parents beware: Giving in to teens’ demands for their own cars can have dangerous consequences, new research suggests.
Teenagers with their own cars or free use of one are much more likely to get in crashes than those who share a car. And crashes are much less common among teens whose parents set clear driving safety rules.
The findings are in two studies by researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and funded by State Farm Insurance Co. They are in the October issue of Pediatrics.
The researchers say the findings can help parents keep their kids from becoming a grim statistic: Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, killing more than 5,000 each year.
Getting a driver’s license and car are often viewed as rite of passage for U.S. teens, and many parents underestimate the risks.
More than 7,000 people nationwide were killed in crashes involving teen drivers in 2007, government data show. More than 3,000 of these deaths were teen drivers, and more than 250,000 teen drivers were injured.
“With teen drivers, you have to recognize that it’s a public health issue,” said Dr. Jeffrey Weiss, a Phoenix pediatrician who co-wrote an American Academy of Pediatrics report on teen drivers.
The 2006 report encourages parents to highlight the seriousness of driving privileges by requiring teens to sign driving contracts promising to abide by safety rules.
The new research shows that kind of hands-on approach pays off.
“Families need to know that driving is different” from other steps toward independence,said Dr. Flaura Koplin Winston, the study’s lead author. “Just at the time their teen is pulling away, they need to get back involved to spare them heartache.”
The research is based on a nationally representative survey of more than 5,500 teens in grades nine through 11. Students at 68 high schools answered questionnaires in 2006.
More than 2,000 students who reported driving on their own were the focus of one study; 70 percent said they had their own cars or were the main drivers of cars they used.
Winston said it’s alarming that so many kids have their own cars or feel that they have free use of one. She said that freedom can lead to “a sense of entitlement about driving” that may make them less cautious.
Among these “main” drivers, 25 percent had been involved in crashes, versus just 10 percent of teens who shared driving access. Winston said the lower crash rate doesn’t reflect less driving time, but is likely due to having to ask for the car keys, which helps parents monitor their kids’ driving.
Compared with teens whose parents were uninvolved, kids who said their parents set clear rules and monitored their whereabouts without being overly controlling had half as many crashes and much better driving habits.
These teens were 71 percent less likely to drive while drunk and 30 percent less likely to use a cell phone while driving than kids with uninvolved parents.
Dr. Niranjan Karnik, a University of Chicago specialist in adolescent mental health, said the research underscores the importance of appropriate parenting and widely enacted graduated licensing laws for teens.
Debby Hendricks of Hatfield, Pa. made her daughters wait until age 17 to get their licenses, and gave them lots of driving practice beforehand.
The girls, aged 17 and 19, also share a family car, and can’t “just grab the keys and leave” without saying where they’re going and with whom, Hendricks said.
So far so good — neither girl has been in an accident, although the younger one, Leslie, has only had her license for a few months.
Leslie considers herself a safe driver, but adds, “I probably do underestimate the risks.”
Posted by Benji Riggins on September 9, 2009 under Safety |
The death toll on the nation’s highways dropped in 2008 to 37,261, a 9.7 decrease from the 2007 total and the lowest level since 1961, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The trend continued in the first quarter of 2009; the 7,689 traffic related fatalities from January through March represent a 9 percent decline from the same period a year ago. Plus, it was the twelfth consecutive quarterly decline the U.S. DOT statistics show.
In 1970 around 55,000 people were dying on U.S. roadways every year, so recent trends are definitely going in the right direction, says Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Speaking at a conference held by the Insurance Council of Texas in July 2009, Lund said much of the recent decrease in traffic fatalities has a lot to do with the economic downturn.
“When the economy tanks one of the few good things about it is people are driving less, they are driving more safely and we don’t kill as many people on the roads. That’s unfortunately why we’re down to 37,000 deaths in 2008,” Lund said. Vehicle miles traveled during the first three months of 2009 declined by about 11.7 billion miles, according to preliminary data collected by the Federal Highway Administration. Lund suggested that those numbers will start to creep back up as the economy recovers.
Aside from the economy, however, other influences have served to keep roadway deaths in check, including stricter traffic safety laws in most states and automobile safety improvements, such as side airbags and antilock brake systems. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a July 2009 announcement that increased seat belt use, a reduction in alcohol impaired driving, safer roads and highways, and improved vehicle safety have all played important roles in the declining death rate.
Top Safety Picks
Automobile manufacturers have realized that they can compete on safety, Lund said. As a result, the number of vehicles list of the IIHS’ Top Safety Pick rated automobiles has increased from around 13 or 14 a few years ago to more than 70 today. To be eligible for Top Safety Pick status a vehicle has to be a good performer for frontal crash protection, a good performer for side impact protection and a good performer for rear impact protection. “It also needs electronic stability control,” Lund said.
Real world data from automobile crashes show that side air bags in vehicles reduce the risk of fatalities by 30 percent, Lund said. “If you add the head protection you’ll see we’re up to 40 and 50 percent reductions in the risk of fatal injury,” he added, noting that every new vehicle sold in the U.S. after September of this year will be equipped with side airbags, the result of an agreement with automobile manufacturers.
While neck injuries are not life threatening, it is estimated that the insurance industry pays out between $8 billion and $10 billion a year for neck sprains caused automobile accidents. With a good rated head restraint system, as opposed to a poorly rated one, “we see about a 15 percent reduction in the likelihood there is a neck injury claim filed in a rear impact,” Lund said.
Electronic stability control (ESC), which basically is an extension of the vehicle’s anti-lock brake system, can apply the brakes to each individual wheel when it senses that the car is losing control, Lund explained. “ESC has a huge effect. We see about a 40 percent reduction in single vehicle crashes and overall about a 35 percent reduction in the risk of fatal crashes,” with ESC equipped vehicles, he said.
The IIHS plans to add another element to its list of requirements for Top Safety Pick status – vehicle roof strength. “We kill about 10,000 people each year in crashes where rollover is involved,” Lund said. One factor in whether or not one survives a rollover accident is the strength of the vehicle’s roof. The federal government requires a vehicle to support one and a half times its own weight, and “they all meet minimum standards. But there’s a range of performance out there and some manufacturers have built in a lot more protection than others,” he said.
The IIHS estimates that with a vehicle that supports four times its own weight the risk of death from a serious rollover accident is reduced by 50 percent. That standard “will be part of our Top Safety Pick program going forward,” Lund said.
Other examples of recent innovations in vehicle safety that are not yet included in criteria for Top Safety Picks but were available on vehicles in 2008 include crash avoidance technology such as forward collision warning, brake assist and lane departure warning systems. Blind spot protection and adaptive headlights that can rotate “to reveal what’s around the bend before you get to the bend,” are still other examples of new technologies designed to make driving safer, Lund said.
Challenges Going Forward
Despite more stringent traffic laws and vehicle safety improvements, Lund said in some ways driving is getting more dangerous. One of the main culprits is distracted driving in what is an increasingly multi-tasking society. Eating, applying make up and even smoking have long been seen as common but dangerous-while-driving activities. Cell phone use – both the voice and texting features – is now seen as a major contributor to the distracted driving problem.
“The thing about cell phone use is that we’ve actually been able to measure that,” Lund said. “We know that once the conversation begins there’s a four-fold increase in the risk of crashing.”
A few states and municipalities have implemented laws to prevent or limit the use of cell phones while driving and even more have enacted stricter provisions regarding seat belt use. At the same time however, travel speeds have been allowed to creep up.
Lund noted that Texas was the first state to get back to an 80 mile per hour speed limit, which is allowed in the western part of the state. Unfortunately, Lund said, “the faster you’re going out there when you crash the more likely it is that there are going to be severe consequences. And the faster you are going the more likely you are to crash in the first place.”
He also questioned whether consumers would continue to accept new safety features, such as crash avoidance technologies, some of which take automatic actions – such as braking – if they sense a crash is imminent. Lund said, for example, studies show that professional drivers tend to find the lane departure warning systems to be annoying and routinely disable them.
Posted by Benji Riggins on September 4, 2009 under Safety |
Auto and traffic safety efforts over the past 40 years have significantly reduced the number of accident-related injuries and fatalities, according to an analysis of government data.
The data shows a continuing drop in motor vehicle fatality rates over the 40-year period from 1968 to 2008, as well as a decline in the motor vehicle traffic injury rate despite an increase in vehicle miles traveled, according to the analysis by the American Insurance Association (AIA) .
For example, Americans drove close to one trillion miles in 1968, compared to nearly 3 trillion in 2008. Over those four decades, the motor vehicle traffic fatality rate dropped from 5.19 deaths per-100 million vehicles miles traveled in 1968 to a record-low 1.27 deaths per-100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2008.
Additionally, over the past 20 years the injury rate has dropped from 169 injuries per-100 million vehicle miles traveled in 1988 to 80 injuries per-100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2008.
The researchers said that by examining the underlying rates rather than simply looking at the total number of deaths and injuries, the statistics take into account any fluctuations in vehicle miles traveled and show that improved safety measures are the leading cause for the pronounced reduction in fatalities and injuries.
AIA’s analysis goes a step further to highlight how the safety-promoting efforts of the insurance industry and other groups have made a critical difference. By looking at the current year vehicle miles traveled and using the fatality rate of historical years, AIA has estimated the amount of people that would have been killed or injured had there been no improvements at all in vehicle and traffic safety.
Posted by Benji Riggins on August 21, 2009 under Safety |
At an event today kicking off a nationwide anti-drunk driving enforcement campaign, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood released a new study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that shows an increasing trend among women driving under the influence of alcohol.
The new analysis is based on an increase in the number of alcohol-impaired female drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2008 compared to the 2007 statistics.
“Impaired driving is an issue that cuts across all segments of society and, sadly, the number of arrests of women driving under the influence is on the rise,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “This is clearly a very disturbing trend.”
He pointed to statistics from the FBI showing that arrests for women driving under the influence increased by nearly 30 percent (28.8%) over the 10-year period from 1998 to 2007. Over that same decade, DUI arrests for men decreased by 7.5 percent, although the total number of men arrested during the period outstripped women by about four to one.
The NHTSA study confirmed the FBI statistics showing that impaired driving by women is becoming a national safety issue. According to the NHTSA analysis, the number of impaired women drivers involved in fatal crashes increased in 10 states, and remained flat in five states—despite an overall decline of 9 percent in all drunk driver crashes in 2008 from 2007.
Overall, about 2,000 fatalities a year involve an impaired female driver.
The 10 states with increases in the number of drunk female drivers involved in fatal crashes are: Ohio, New Hampshire, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, West Virginia, Indiana, Washington, Kansas and Tennessee. The five states where the number of alcohol-impaired female drivers remained unchanged in 2008 were Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Oklahoma and Utah.
The nationwide anti-drunk driving enforcement campaign targets drivers in the final weeks of summer before and during the Labor Day holiday weekend. The annual crackdown is intended to reduce the tragic toll caused by impaired drivers, nearly 12,000 fatalities in 2008.
The campaign is known as Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest. It will involve 11,000 police departments and other law enforcement agencies across the nation. The enforcement runs from August 21 through the Labor Day weekend. Police will be redoubling their efforts during this high-risk travel period to ensure that impaired drivers are detected and arrested. Over the Labor Day weekend last year, 40 percent of all fatal crashes involved a drunk driver.
Posted by Benji Riggins on August 18, 2009 under Safety |
Many drivers over age 70 realize that their reaction time is slower so they naturally compensate by driving more carefully, says Matthew Romoser, who studies age-related physical and cognitive function and driving skills at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The problem, according to his latest research, is that many older drivers don’t realize that danger is coming at them sideways, not from head-on as they assumed.
For his recent doctoral dissertation, Romoser’s study at the university’s Human Performance Laboratory found that drivers 70 to 89 years old can best learn to use more side-to-side glances when executing turns at intersections when they practice adding more side glances in a hands-on driving simulator, compared to hearing a lecture.
As people age, Romoser explains, they begin to process information more slowly, including visual information. This in turn makes it harder to process moving objects in the visual periphery. “The statistics reflect this,” he adds. “Rear-end, head-on, single-car and car-pedestrian accidents actually decrease among older drivers in this age group, probably because they do self-regulate. But side-impact crashes increase markedly over age 70, and findings from our head-movement studies suggest a reason: older drivers fail to compensate for the loss of peripheral processing. They don’t use enough side-to-side glances at intersections so they’re having accidents.”
“The problem is that, for some older drivers, once they cross the threshold into the intersection while making a turn, side-to-side scanning stops altogether. This is worrisome because without an additional quick glance over the shoulder at the beginning of a turn, older drivers are likely to miss the sudden emergence of a previously unseen car. Compared to younger drivers, older drivers tend to focus only in the direction of the turn once they commit themselves to an intersection,” he adds.
Romoser and colleagues tested three groups of 18 subjects each, ages 70 to 89, who either received:
classroom lectures on using more side glances at intersections (passive group)
active behind-the-wheel training in a driving simulator (active group)
no training (control group)
When comparing the results of a field drive before and after training, the active training group significantly increased side-to-side scanning from 44 percent of opportunities before active training to 83 percent after training, nearly doubling their use of additional side-to-side scanning in intersections (the target behavior). Meanwhile, both the passive training and control groups demonstrated no significant change in side-to-side scanning.
An unexpected and refreshing outcome of this study, says Romoser, is that he and colleagues did not meet the resistance or skepticism they had expected from drivers who, in essence, had to face up to significant driving mistakes. With only a single exception, the researcher says, “People were very receptive to learning more and doing better.”
Romoser said this willingness to receive instruction encourages him and colleagues as they develop a driving instruction course specifically geared toward older drivers. Expecting that as the population ages and states consider additional screening programs for testing older drivers, Romoser and colleagues plan to have a “training refresher” option available.
Romoser favors a tiered approach in which motor vehicle licensing agencies could screen drivers first on relevant variables such as response-time, peripheral information processing and cognitive workload capacity, for example, before re-licensing. The vast majority will pass without incident, but some drivers might be diverted for further instruction in a “safe driving after 70″ course to improve their performance and keep their operators’ licenses, for example, while others might be referred to a physician for further testing.
“We’re now designing a training program for older adults that is deployable to a driving instruction school,” says Romoser. As for the driver performance study, a one-year follow-up with the drivers in the active study group is just starting at UMass Amherst’s Human Performance Lab to see if these drivers are still using the new skills a full year or more after learning them.
Posted by Benji Riggins on August 13, 2009 under Safety |
Most older drivers are not aware of the potential dangers of driving while medicated, according to a report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
The study found that 78 percent of respondents used at least one medication, yet only a little more than one quarter were aware of the potential dangers of driving while medicated.
The study was based on interviews with 630 drivers aged 56 to 93, and was conducted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Just 18 percent of respondents said they had been warned about medications that could impair their ability to drive, such as ACE inhibitors, sedatives and beta blockers.
Finally, in early 2010, the AAA Foundation will release Roadwise RX, a free Web-based tool that will help raise awareness regarding the risks associated with driving and medication. Specifically, the resource will allow older drivers to enter medication information through a search function, which will then calculate risks based on age, gender and weight.
Posted by Benji Riggins on August 10, 2009 under Safety |
A new report has found that there is little or no evidence that North Carolina’s auto safety inspection program is effective and it’s difficult to gauge whether the auto emissions program does any good for the environment.
The report by the state’s Program Evaluation Division suggests that given improvements in seat belts, air bags and other safety features and the fact that only a small percentage of cars fail the tests, a safety inspection may no longer make sense. It recommends that lawmakers reevaluate both programs and either repeal the safety inspection program or at least exempt newer vehicles.
The report also criticizes state oversight of the programs.
The Joint Legislative Program Evaluation Oversight Committee asked the Program Evaluation Division to study the programs.
North Carolinians face two types of inspections: a safety inspection of various mechanical systems required by state law in all 100 counties for vehicles less than 35 years old; and a diagnostic emissions inspection to ensure proper functioning of pollution controls for all 1996 and newer model year vehicles. Only vehicles registered in 48 counties are subject to the emissions inspection.
North Carolinians spend $141 million annually on inspections. It costs the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the Division of Air Quality $40.8 million to administer both inspection programs.
Out of the state’s total 6.3 million inspections, 1.9 million are safety-only and 4.4 million are emissions inspections.
Failed inspections accounted for only 5 percent of all inspections overall. Vehicles failing the safety inspection were most likely to have defective tires (26%), stoplights (20%), windshield wipers (20%), license plate lights (15%) or steering mechanisms (14%), according to the report.
Among the 33 states with an emissions inspection program, 21 states exempt at least current model year vehicles from inspection; 10 states exempt at least vehicles from the three newest model years. North Carolina only exempts current model year vehicles from its inspection programs.
The researchers looked at whether the safety and emissions inspection programs are identifying mechanical defects and requiring their repair to keep unsafe cars from operating on North Carolina roadways, thereby reducing loss of life and property damage; and controlling the pollutants from mobile source emissions.
North Carolina’s crash data from the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) shows the number of cases in which a vehicle’s mechanical condition may have contributed to an accident was only 1 percent of all crashes statewide.
“Furthermore, because law enforcement personnel are not mechanics and receive a minimal amount of training in compiling and reporting accident data, it is unlikely a true assessment of how many accidents result from mechanical defects is possible,” the report says.
As for the emissions program, the researchers did find that in 2007—a year marked by severe drought and record-breaking heat— North Carolina violated ozone level on 66 days, compared to 101 “bad ozone” days a decade ago. However, the report says it is “not clear how much of the improvement can be attributed to the mobile emissions inspection program.”
The report criticizes a lack of thoroughness and uniformity in current auto inspections from inspection state to inspection station. While a complete inspection should take between 15 and 30 minutes, the researchers found, on average, inspections fail to meet this standard and there is “a wide fluctuation in inspection duration.”
“Given the average inspection lasted between five and six minutes, it is questionable how thorough an inspection the average consumer is receiving,” the report says.
The auditors found that technicians cheated on the inspections, sometimes omitting several required steps. During one of the observations, the technician told the customer that even if there was something wrong with the customer’s vehicle, he would still pass it because this customer is a “regular.”
Older vehicles are more likely to fail safety and emissions inspections. For safety inspections, vehicles from model year 1981 to 2001 had a higher failure rate than the overall safety failure rate (3.3%), whereas vehicles from model year 2002 and newer had lower failure rates.3
Similar results were found for emissions inspections. Vehicles from model year 1996 to 2001 had a higher failure rate than the overall emissions failure rate (2.6%), whereas failure rates for vehicles from model year 2002 to 2007 were lower.
“These findings indicate greater emphasis should be placed on monitoring the safety components and emissions functioning of older vehicles,” the report says.
The report recommends that because newer vehicles (model years 2002-2007) were found to be less likely to fail inspection, “it may be unnecessary to require them to undergo annual safety and emissions inspections.”
If the state repealed the safety inspection program, it would lose $2 million in fees. But citizens could save as much as $33 million in inspection related costs a year, according to the report.
Exempting older vehicles (three newest model years) from a safety inspection would affect about 15 percent of the state’s car owners and cost the state only $143,000 in fees. The analysis suggests that this exemption would not reduce the inspection program effectiveness.
It also recommends exempting newer vehicles from the emissions test since they are less likely to fail. If the state limited emissions inspections to older vehicles, there would be a $6.3 million reduction in fees collected.
The report alleges lax oversight of the inspections by the state DMV and urges lawmakers to require DMV to come up with an improvement plan.
Posted by Benji Riggins on July 15, 2009 under Insurance News |
North Carolina is ordering auto insurers to roll back their rates to 2006 levels and send up to $50 million in refunds to about 1 million policyholders in a settlement announced today by Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin.
The settlement does away with a rate increase of 9.4 percent implemented in 2008 and denies insurance companies’ 2009 request for an additional 1.4 percent rate increase. It further decreases rates another five percent.
The settlement with the industry’s rating organization, the North Carolina Rate Bureau, will go into effect on Nov. 1, and the rates are retroactive to Jan. 1.
Under the settlement, the NCRB may not file changes to auto rates until 2011, which means that the maximum allowable auto rates are locked in until Oct. 1, 2011 at the earliest.
According to Goodwin, the deal saves North Carolina policyholders an estimated $545 million over this time period.
“I’m thrilled that North Carolina drivers will see a decrease in their auto insurance rates,” said Goodwin. “Drivers will not only see lower rates, but many will also receive refund checks beginning in mid-2010 that may together total more than $50 million. In this economy, every dollar counts, and I am committed to protecting consumers through fair ratemaking.”
The refunds stem from a dispute between the state insurance department and the NCRB over rates ordered in 2008. During the appeals process, the NCRB implemented an interim 9.4 percent rate increase that went into effect on Jan.1 of this year. In cases where insurance companies charged policyholders more than the rates determined by this settlement, insurance companies are required by statute to refund the difference between the rates charged and the settled rates, with interest.
With this rate rollback, the effect is that rates will have been capped for the five year period spanning from 2006 through 2011, according to Goodwin.
