Posted by Benji Riggins on April 4, 2011 under Interesting Info | 
There may be more on the line in major sporting events than many sports fans think.
Closely contested major sporting events are followed by a significant increase in traffic fatalities for fans of the winning team, according to new research from North Carolina State University.
“A previous study showed that traffic fatalities increased in the hours following the Super Bowl. We wanted to see if that held true for other high-profile sporting events and, if so, whether the number of fatalities was influenced by whether the game was a close one,” said Dr. Stacy Wood, Langdon Distinguished Professor of Marketing at N.C. State and lead author of a paper describing the research. “Are blow-outs more dangerous because they’re boring, and people may drink more? Or are close games more dangerous because the excitement drives up testosterone levels?”
Games rated as nail-biters are far more likely to result in traffic fatalities — but only for fans of the winning team.
Wood and researchers from the University of South Carolina (USC) evaluated traffic fatalities after 271 games played between 2001 and 2008, including championship, tournament and rivalry games in professional and college football and basketball. The researchers looked at traffic fatality data in the area where the game was played, and in the hometowns of the winning and losing teams.
The researchers also used a panel of experts to rate how close each game was on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being a blow-out and 5 being a nail-biter.
They found that traffic fatalities increased significantly after close games, and that games which were rated as nail-biters were far more likely to result in traffic fatalities than blow-outs. Each increase in the closeness rating was associated with a 21 percent increase in fatal accidents at the game site. To go from a blow-out to a nail-biter resulted in a 133 percent increase in observed fatal accidents.
Furthermore, researchers found that the increase in fatalities occurred only in places where there were winners – the site of the competition and the hometown of the winning team. “This pattern of results is important in that it suggests that the cause of the relationship might be associated with competition-induced testosterone,” Wood said.
“During a close game, testosterone increases for the fans as well as the players – that has been established by previous studies,” Wood said. “After the game, testosterone levels drop for the losing side, but spike for the winning side. Because testosterone is linked to aggressive behavior and potentially aggressive driving, we hypothesize that this may play a role in the increased number of traffic fatalities in areas with a high proportion of winning fans.”
The paper, “The Bad Thing about Good Games: The Relationship between Close Sporting Events and Game-Day Automobile Fatalities,” is forthcoming from the Journal of Consumer Research and was co-authored by Dr. Melayne Morgan McInnes, a professor of economics at USC, and David Norton, a Ph.D. student at USC.
N.C. State’s Department of Business Management is part of the university’s Poole College of Management.
Posted by Benji Riggins on March 30, 2011 under Interesting Info |
North Carolina lawmakers already have banned young drivers from using cellphones and everyone else from texting or emails while behind the wheel. Now they’re considering whether to go further.
A House Commerce subcommittee debated a measure Wednesday that would make using a cellphone while driving illegal unless the motorist can talk hands-free, such as using a Bluetooth or a voice-activated phone.
Fines would be $100 or more but wouldn’t lead to driver’s license points that could result in higher insurance premiums. There would be exceptions for making 911 calls and for law enforcement officers and first responders performing official duties.
Like previous debates that led to restrictions on new drivers and texting, the committee’s discussion centered again on whether safety and enforcement trumps personal freedoms to dial while driving.
Chief bill sponsor Rep. Garland Pierce, D-Scotland, who sponsored the texting ban bill in 2009, said the extra limitations are worth protecting the public on the roads. Eight states and the District of Columbia already ban the use of hand-held phones while driving, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“We’ve got to send a message ourselves we’re willing to (choose) convenience over highway safety,” Pierce told the committee. “It’s about highway safety — your family, my family — getting home safe at night.”
Studies show distracted driving contributes to automobile accidents, said Tom Crosby, a spokesman for the AAA Carolinas motor club, which backs the limit to hands-only calling.
A 2008 study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved a form of driver inattention seconds before the accident. Cellphones are a primary cause of inattention, the study said.
But some lawmakers questioned how the law could be enforced or whether cellphones are the greatest distraction.
The bill could be “another reach by the government to tell us what we can or can’t do,” said Rep. Craig Horn, R-Union. “To me holding a hot cup of coffee is a whole lot more distracting because if that thing spills, we’re all going to be hurting.”
Coffee is very different from a phone that you hold to your head, countered Rep. Bill Brawley, R-Mecklenburg.
“When you’re going into traffic, you don’t have to pick the cup of coffee up,” he said, and “the cup of coffee doesn’t talk to you, so it’s easy to ignore.”
Similar broad bans have failed to get traction in the legislature in recent years, but House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, said he’s interested in finding ways to reduce the number of accidents caused by inattention. He visited the state Highway Patrol’s training track last month with Pierce to drive golf carts while talking on a cellphone.
“There’s a compelling amount of statistical data that says distracted driving is causing accidents in this state,” Tillis said this week. “It’s increasing insurance rates and it’s having other negative outcomes.”
Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said he’s been opposed to cellphone restrictions but expects the fate of a bill like Pierce’s would be considered by the entire chamber and not just him.
The committee heard from a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who was struck in September by a car driven by a fellow student who was on the phone, according to Joe Capowski, who witnessed the accident from the deck of his home.
“Since then, my life has been totally disrupted,” said the student, Krista Slough of Charlotte, who was hospitalized with a cerebral hemorrhage. Today she still deals with severe headaches and fatigue.
Capowski, a former UNC-Chapel Hill professor, said studies show drivers using hands-free phones aren’t any safer than drivers with hand-held phones and a motorist who is considered legally drunk. He urged the Legislature to ban cellphone use completely while driving.
“Tell me about one phone call that is so important that it justifies endangering other people on the roads to the same extent as a drunk driver does,” he told lawmakers.
Written by
Gary D. Robertson
Posted by Benji Riggins on March 4, 2011 under Interesting Info |
N.C. legislator wants to use revenue from the tickets to help schools.
Automated speed cameras had a brief history in North Carolina, but they might have a big future.
The state would start using cameras to nab speeders around schools and road construction sites under new legislation filed by Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat.
Glazier wants a pilot program to authorize speed cameras in up to 15 school zones and 15 highway work zones at a time. It would continue for 15 years, with the potential to generate millions of dollars from speeding tickets worth $125 to $250 apiece.
That brings up the purpose of Glazier’s bill: Use speed cameras to repay a big state debt to N.C. schools.
A 2008 ruling by the N.C. Court of Appeals found that $748 million in various civil penalties collected across the state over nine years should have been paid to local schools – but wasn’t – under language in the state Constitution. So far, the legislature has paid down only $18 million of that debt.
Under Glazier’s proposal, 25 percent of the speed camera ticket proceeds would go straight to an existing schools fund, to use for driver education. The other 75 percent would be paid to local schools to “satisfy the judgment” against the state in the 2008 ruling.
“We believe this is a great way to do it,” said Leanne Winner, spokeswoman for the N.C. School Boards Association, the plaintiff in that court case. She said her group helped Glazier draft the bill.
“This will generate dollars to help the state pay off the judgment, and it will provide safety in areas that we know are very unsafe: work zones on state-maintained roads, and school zones.”
Speed cameras measure how fast a car is moving, as a live officer would do with a radar gun, and snap photos of the speeders’ license plates. The car owners get tickets in the mail, along with photos and other evidence.
Police in Charlotte used 22 speed cameras to nab 43,000 violators in 2005. Authorities said the cameras made city streets safer, with less speeding and fewer crashes. Highway safety experts at the University of North Carolina said the same thing.
But a ruling in a related court case forced Charlotte to switch off its speed cameras in 2006, after using them for only two years.
Charlotte had used most of the fees collected from speeders to finance the camera program technology. The court said that money belonged instead to the schools. City leaders said they couldn’t afford to start spending local tax money for the cameras.
Charlotte was the only city with speed cameras, but it was one of several forced in the same case to stop using similar cameras to catch red-light runners. (Raleigh and Cary still have red-light cameras because the law that authorized them has not faced a similar court challenge.)
Glazier’s bill proposes civil penalties close to what a driver would face with a regular ticket: $250 for speeding in a highway work zone, $125 for speeding in a school zone. No insurance points would go on the driver’s record. Signs would be posted to warn drivers of the speed cameras ahead.
There are plenty of questions about how the camera system would work and how much money it would raise. Glazier could not be reached for comment Monday.
Reduced speed limits around schools are posted only for school days – and only for a few hours a day, when children are walking and biking to school in the morning and home in the afternoon. Other states have used speed cameras to reduce accidents around schools, Winner said.
DOT does not cut speed limits around road-work sites as frequently as it did in past years, and it long ago dropped the “highway work zone” language still used in state law. Nowadays, DOT engineers are likely to post reduced speed limits – with flashing signs that warn of $250 penalties – for only a few hours or days at a time.
Mikael Gross, a legislative staff attorney who helped draft Glazier’s bill, said it would be up to DOT to decide where and how to use the cameras.
Glazier would have DOT pay for the cameras, estimated at $11 million a year, from its Highway Fund. DOT would recoup the cost by reducing money it now transfers to schools for driver education, about $31 million a year, Gross said.
By Bruce Siceloff
bruce.siceloff@newsobserver.com
Posted: Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011
Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/02/22/2081823/speed-cameras-may-be-on-the-road.html#ixzz1Enj0PuBE
Posted by Benji Riggins on October 25, 2010 under Safety |
At a glance:
Help protect trick-or-treaters by following these driving safety tips on Halloween, or on the night your community hosts Halloween activities. Be especially careful between 4 and 8 p.m., when most severe vehicle/young pedestrian collisions happen.
Drive slowly, and don’t pass stopped vehicles. The driver might be dropping off children.
Park your mobile phone. Avoid distractions by waiting until you’ve stopped to call, text, or surf.
Watch for children darting into the street. Kids can cross the street anywhere, and most young pedestrian deaths happen at spots other than intersections.
Yield to young pedestrians. Children might not stop, either because they don’t see your vehicle approaching or don’t know how to safely cross the street.
Communicate with other drivers. Always use your turn signals. And if you have to pull over to drop off or pick up your kids, turn on your hazard lights.
And, to keep your own trick-or-treaters safe:
Teach them how to safely cross streets. They should look both ways and cross only at corners and crosswalks.
Consider indoor community Halloween programs for younger kids. Some communities also offer to help you inspect your kids’ treats to make sure they’re safe to eat.
Brighten them up. Give them flashlights and glow sticks, and/or use reflective tape on their costumes, so drivers can see them.
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Posted by Benji Riggins on September 16, 2010 under Safety |
Eight percent of all drivers, as many as 17 million people, have driven drunk at least once during the past year.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released that data as the U.S. Department of Transportation kicked off the annual Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest. campaign aimed at getting drunk drivers off the road.
NHTSA’s research revealed that about one in five Americans have driven within two hours of drinking alcohol in the past year. Four out of five Americans identified drunk driving as a “major threat” to their own and their family’s safety.
The survey noted that those who reported that they drink and drive consumed alcohol more regularly than individuals who drink but choose not to drive afterwards. More than one in four drinking drivers, 28 percent, consumed alcoholic beverages three or more days a week, compared to 10 percent of drivers who drink but do not drive afterwards.
The law enforcement crackdown will run through Labor Day and involve thousands of police agencies from across the nation. Enforcement efforts are supported by $13 million in television and radio advertising from NHTSA.
“Drunk driving is deadly, it’s against the law, and unfortunately, it’s still a problem,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “With the help of law enforcement around the country, we are going to continue doing all that we can to stop drunk driving and the needless tragedies that result from this reckless behavior.”
“Our message is loud and clear. If you drive drunk you will be arrested and prosecuted. There will be no exceptions and no excuses. And if you’re below the age of 21, there is zero tolerance for any alcohol in your system whatsoever. That’s why we’re out there with law enforcement, tackling this major safety issue head on,” NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said.
According to Strickland, the study revealed a particularly concerning rate of drinking and driving behavior among young drivers, especially young male drivers. Few 16 to 20 year-old respondents admitted to driving after drinking in the survey, but those that did admit to drinking said they drank almost six alcohol beverages at one sitting. While this admission in the survey was inclusive of all drinking occasions, and not just drinking and driving, it does suggest that when young people decide to combine the two, they are drinking more heavily.
Personal drinking behavior can also lead to an increased likelihood of riding with impaired, unsafe drivers. According to the survey, 8 percent of the population 16 and older rode in the past year with a driver they thought may have consumed too much alcohol to drive safely.
The latest survey was administered in 2008 by telephone to 6,999 respondents 16 years and older, and over-sampled teenagers and young adults 16-24 years of age. The survey is conducted on a periodic basis to monitor the public’s attitudes, knowledge, and self-reported behavior regarding drinking and driving.
Read more: http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2010/08/26/112764.htm#ixzz0xjp19bgS
Posted by Benji Riggins on January 12, 2010 under Safety |
New crash tests from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety are raising questions about the safety of child booster seats.
After the tests, only 25 percent of the booster seats got a “good” or “best” rating from the Insurance Institute. Eleven booster seats are not recommended because the belts don’t provide a good fit.
Officials said children 4-8 years old in booster seats are 45 percent less likely to suffer serious injuries in accidents.
However, even kids in booster seats who aren’t properly belted in are at risk. Seat belts that cross the stomach can cause abdominal injuries. Plus, belts that cross the neck or are too low on the chest can cause spine and head injuries.
Twenty five states have laws requiring a booster until the age of eight. Three states — Florida, Arizona and South Dakota — don’t require booster seats at all.
Crash tests show seat belts alone do not protect a child, which is why safety experts say even booster seats that don’t get the top safety recommendation can still protect kids.
Officials said age is not the most important factor. It’s actually based more on the child’s height and how well they fit into adult seat belts.
Tags: auto insurance, auto insurance nc, auto insurance North Carolina, auto safety, booster seat, car insurance, car insurance nc, car insurance north carolina, car safety, child safety seat, driving safety, insurance agency, insurance agent
Posted by Benji Riggins on December 16, 2009 under Safety |
Karen Cordova, a 17-year-old high school student and part-time supermarket cashier, admits she sometimes texts friends while driving home from work late at night, lonely and bored.
The Arizona teenager knows it’s illegal in Phoenix and dangerous. She once almost drifted into oncoming traffic while looking at her phone.
But would a nationwide ban stop Cordova and her friends from texting in their cars? No way, she said.
“Nobody is going to listen,” Cordova said.
With momentum building in Washington for all 50 U.S. states to outlaw text messaging behind the wheel, there is evidence that the key demographic targeted by such legislation, teen drivers, will not pay much attention.
At least one major study has found that, with mobile devices now central to their lives, young people often ignore laws against using cell phones or texting in the car.
The number of text messages is up tenfold in the past three years and Americans sent an estimated 1 trillion in 2009.
Some police agencies, while strongly in favor of such mandates, say its tough for officers to enforce them.
The California Highway Patrol has handed out nearly 163,000 tickets to drivers talking on hand-held phones since mid-2008. But it has issued only 1,400 texting citations since January in a state of 23 million drivers—not for lack of trying.
“The handheld cell phone is relatively easy for us to spot, we can see when somebody has their phone up to their ear,” CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader said.
“But with the texting it’s a little bit more of a challenge to catch them in the act, because we have to see it and if they are holding it down in their lap it’s going to be harder for us to see.”
Already 19 states and the District of Columbia ban texting by all drivers, while 9 others prohibit it by young drivers.
TEXTING CAUSES ACCIDENTS
In July, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, citing a study that found texting drivers were 23 times more likely to be in an accident, introduced a bill requiring states to prohibit the practice or risk losing federal highway funds.
Since then, Senator Jay Rockefeller has offered his own bill that would achieve the ban through grants to states.
In October, during a three-day conference in Washington on distracted driving, President Barack Obama signed an executive order barring federal employees from texting behind the wheel.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he would seek to expand that rule to bus drivers and truckers who cross state lines and called the conference “probably the most important meeting in the history of the Department of Transportation.”
But a much-cited study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that usage of cell phones for calls and texting in North Carolina actually ticked up slightly after the state banned them for drivers under the age of 18.
A study by the Automobile Club of Southern California found that texting by drivers dropped after the state’s law took effect, but it did not break down the data by age.
“What I would say is that texting and cell phone devices have become such a component of life for teens and for young people that it’s hard for them to differentiate between doing something normal and doing something wrong,” said Steven Bloch, senior research associate for the Automobile Club.
The problem is not unique to the United States. In Britain, a public service announcement on texting while driving drew worldwide attention for its extremely graphic imagery.
The spot shows three texting teen girls in a horrific head-on collision with another car, and lingers on shots of their bloodied faces shattering the windshield as a child whose parents have been killed cries for her dead mother to wake up.
In 2007, Phoenix became one of the first U.S. cities to ban texting while driving, although Arizona still has no statewide law.
Out of a group of four high school students interviewed by Reuters in Phoenix, three admitted texting while driving and a fourth said he had stopped only after his cousin caused a serious traffic accident while sending a message.
Cordova’s classmate, 17-year-old Anna Hauer, says she often texts her boyfriend when she drives and doubts she or her friends would stop because of new legislation.
“By the time they pull you over, the chances are you are going to be done with your text anyway so they can’t exactly prove that you were texting,” she said.
Posted by Benji Riggins on November 23, 2009 under Safety |
As regulation continues to swirl regarding texting while driving, a recent survey suggests that children and road rage provide larger threats to drivers.
Conducted by LeaseTrader.com, the survey of more than 3,000 drivers found that for 18.3 percent of men, road rage was the most dangerous distraction, followed by eating/drinking at 14.7 percent, watching other drivers at 10.9 percent, and children in the car at 9.8 percent.
For women, kids in the car ranked highest at 26.3 percent, followed by putting on makeup at 16.6 percent, the radio at 10.4 percent and navigation at 9.5 percent.
Finally, only 7.6 percent of men and 4.2 percent of women said texting while driving provided a dangerous distraction.
