Current transport policies promote better use of existing roadways by using traffic management strategies such as high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes. International experience showed positive mobility impacts of HOV lanes, while research evidence on their safety implications is limited. In Israel, the first HOV lanes were introduced in 2019. This study examined the impacts of HOV lanes on road safety based on a detailed review of international research and accident analyses, which evaluated the safety effects of HOV lanes in Israel. The literature survey applied a systematic screening of research studies from the past two decades and found that HOV lanes were frequently associated with an adverse effect on road safety. Yet, findings were limited to the North American experience, with mostly left-side HOV lanes in use, while in Israel, right-side HOV lanes were introduced. In Israeli evaluations, before-after comparisons of accident changes with comparison groups were applied, with regression models fitted to monthly time series of 17 accident types. Results showed that HOV lanes’ operation led to increasing accident trends, particularly in interchange areas and in the daytime. In injury accidents on road sections, an average increase of 31–41% was found (yet non-significant), while at interchange areas, an increase was even higher and sometimes significant. Thus, adverse safety effects should be expected and accounted for in future planning of HOV lanes. Further research should explore the design features of HOV lanes to reduce their negative safety implications.

One way to promote public transport use in cities lies in establishing bus priority routes (BPRs) on main traffic arterials, to reduce bus travel times. But, BPRs require infrastructure changes in road layouts, creating more complex traffic settings that may have safety implications. Previous research indicated that design features affect BPRs' safety, but findings regarding the impacts of various BPR configurations are scarce. In this study, we examined the safety performance of three BPR configurations: barrier-separated central, open centre-lane and curbside BPRs, in Israel. Multivariate regression models were fitted to identify design features affecting accident occurrences on urban arterials with BPRs, using a database on all BPRs in operation. The comparative evaluations showed that barrier-separated BPRs were characterised by lower accident rates on road sections but by substantially higher accident numbers at junctions, relative to other BPR types, and particularly when bus-overtaking was possible. Hence, the use of barrier-separated bus routes should be reduced and bus-overtaking settings should be avoided, when implementing BPRs. In the comparison of curbside and center-lane BPRs none of them demonstrated a superior safety performance: the centre-lane BPRs were safer on sections while at junctions both types had advantages for certain accident types, thus, both forms are applicable in future BPR designs.

Demerit points systems (DPS) have been used in many countries as a means for improving road safety, by monitoring traffic law violations of drivers and applying corrective measures to repeat offenders, while knowledge on their safety impacts is yet incomplete. This study examined the DPS impacts on committing traffic offenses and accident involvement of drivers, in Israel, based on files of the national Licensing Authority and complementary accident files. Models were developed to evaluate changes in violation and accident rates of drivers, who underwent the DPS corrective measures, in after the treatment related to the before period, and accounting for changes observed in the matched comparison-groups. The findings showed that during the three-year period after the measures' implementation, the decrease in committing violations was of 70%, and simultaneously, there was a decrease in drivers' accident involvement, on average, of 1% in severe accidents and of 11% in total injury accidents. The effects were consistent across various groups of drivers by the corrective measures applied and the type of license. The study results support the continued use of the DPS, to improve drivers' behaviors and road safety. To increase its impacts at the national level, the DPS implementation should be supported by stable police enforcement and publicity efforts.

We often hear stories of corporate heroes who had to buck higher authorities to improve organizational or stakeholder welfare. Yet, little is known about the consequences of this behavior for the employees who undertake such unauthorized action. Drawing on and extending the emerging literature of followership, we suggest this display of unauthorized proactive followership threatens supervisors and consequently is hazardous to employees’ performance evaluations. A field study and three experiments demonstrate that, relative to passive followers who obediently do as they are told, not only is there substantial risk of derogation if unauthorized proactive followers fail (the rebel backlash effect), but there is also no reward and even denigration if they succeed (the unsung hero effect). Supervisor sense of threat mediates these negative effects. Thus, although organizations may benefit from unauthorized proactive followership, we warn that the best career advice for employees may be to just do exactly as they are told.

A variety of collective phenomena are understood to exist to the extent that workers agree on their perceptions of the phenomena, such as perceptions of their organization's climate or perceptions of their team's mental model. Researchers conducting group-level studies of such phenomena measure individuals' perceptions via surveys and then aggregate data to the group level if the mean within-group agreement for a sample of groups is sufficiently high. Despite this widespread practice, we know little about the factors potentially affecting mean within-group agreement. Here, focusing on work climate, we report an investigation of a number of expected contextual (social interaction) and methodological predictors of mean r(WG), a common statistic for judging within-group agreement in applied psychology and management research. We used the novel approach of meta-CART, which allowed us to assess the relative importance and possible interactions of the predictor variables. Notably, mean r(WG) values are driven by both contextual (average number of individuals per group and cultural individualism-collectivism) and methodological factors (the number of items in a scale and scale reliability). Our findings are largely consistent with expectations concerning how social interaction affects within-group agreement and psychometric arguments regarding why adding more items to a scale will not necessarily increase the magnitude of an index based on a Spearman-Brown "stepped-up correction." We discuss the key insights from our results, which are relevant to the study of multilevel phenomena relying on the aggregation of individual-level data and informative for how meta-analytic researchers can simultaneously examine multiple moderator variables.

Safety barriers provide forgiving roadsides for highways while their test performance should comply with uniform norms, e.g. EN1317. When selecting a barrier type for a median, the dilemma frequently compares between in-situ concrete and other barriers. In-situ concrete barriers require less space for their installation and rare maintenance, while steel guardrails can deflect, but require a wider median and higher maintenance, with associated crash risks during repair roadworks. This study compared the safety performance of highways with various median barrier types, in Israel, aiming to provide a background for more effective use of safety barriers. The study examined four barrier types: Step-shaped in-situ, pre-cast concrete and steel guardrails, as new barrier types (which satisfy the EN1317), and old NJ-shaped in-situ barriers. The database included 558 km of non-urban Israeli highways. Negative-binomial regression models were fitted for predicting crashes, and differences in crash expectancy were evaluated for various barrier types, while controlling for traffic volumes and other road infrastructure characteristics. The results showed that, on dual-carriageway roads, sections with Step-barriers had a better safety level relative to those with NJ-barriers and, sometimes, to other barrier types. On motorways, the safety level of sections with Step-barriers was better or similar to that with NJ-barriers, with no difference compared to the pre-cast barriers, while sections with steel guardrails had a better safety level, particularly at traffic volumes over 40,000 vehicles. The economic evaluations showed benefits for replacing the old NJ-barrier by a Step-barrier, on dual-carriageway roads, and by steel barriers, on motorways.

Research on family firms' employment practices remains equivocal with findings from studies framed on the basis of stewardship and socioemotional wealth (SEW) preservation perspectives suggesting that family firms are better employers than nonfamily peers, and findings from studies grounded on agency theory suggesting the opposite. Arguing that these two perspectives are not mutually exclusive, we theorize that, consistent with notions of compensating differentials, pay practices in family firms offer a compensatory balancing of lower base pay with pay forms and benefits signaling the kind of caring, support and long-term commitment typical of such firms. Accordingly, while, consistent with an agentic perspective, pay rates in nonfamily firms may be higher than in family firms, consistent with the stewardship/SEW perspective, we argue that pay and benefits may be structured to offer greater long-term reward security in family firms. Focusing on reward practices among employees in a single job in a single industry (i.e., truck drivers), we find that where there are differences, they generally favor family firms, with a significantly higher proportion of family firms paying on the basis of fixed salary (as opposed to more variable hourly/mile-based rates), and with those firms paying hourly offering typical and "floor" rates higher than those offered by nonfamily firms. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Objective: Advertisement billboards on roadsides distract drivers from driving tasks and may increase the risk of crashes. Yet, empirical evidence on the direct impact of advertisement signs on crashes is scarce. The Ayalon Highway in Israel is a suburban highway crossing the greater Tel Aviv-Yafo metropolitan area. Following debates in parliament, advertising billboards were removed from the road in 2008 and restored mid-2009. This study examined the impact of advertising billboards on crashes while considering 2 interventions: Removing (or covering) existing billboards and their subsequent restoration. Method: Three periods of billboard presence were defined: Period 0, when billboards were visible; period 1, when billboards were removed; and period 2, when billboards became visible again. Crash changes associated with each intervention were estimated by comparing period 1 vs. period 0 and period 2 vs. period 1, respectively, and by comparing vs. control groups. Negative-binomial regression models were fitted to the monthly crash counts, while controlling for time period, site group (treatment or control), and seasonal effect. Results: Removing the billboards was associated with a decrease of 30 to 40% in injury crashes and restoring the billboards was associated with an increase of 40 to 50% in injury crashes. The crash changes were consistent across various analyses. The estimated decrease in crash numbers during the removal period was up to 100 damage-only crashes and 50 injury crashes per year, and the estimated increase in crashes after billboard restoration was up to 120 damage-only crashes and 30 injury crashes a year. Conclusion: The study provided empirical evidence on the positive safety impact of removing billboard advertising from the roadsides of a suburban highway and of the negative safety impact of billboard restoration. The stronger impact values found in the study, compared to previous research, may be related to the high frequency of conspicuous billboards along the road and to complicated traffic conditions on the road-a heavily traveled route with a high density of interchanges-that might strengthen the negative impact of driver distraction due to advertising billboards.

This article examines the relationship between travel speeds and crashes on two-lane highways, accounting for traffic exposure and road infrastructure characteristics. The study's database included 179 road sections in Israel, which included free-flow travel speeds, 3-year injury crash data, traffic volumes, and road infrastructure characteristics. Preliminary analyses of in-data correlations supported the selection of appropriate speed and infrastructure indicators. Homogeneous groups of road sections were identified according to their characteristics. Negative binomial statistical models were fitted to injury crash counts for day and night hours, using speed indicators, section length, traffic volume, and the homogeneous road groups, which reflected various road design conditions. The models demonstrated a positive relation between mean speeds and crashes, while controlling for traffic and road characteristics. The expected crash change following higher travel speeds was more substantial for night hours. In line with previous research, section length, traffic volume, and worse road design were positively related to crashes.

There is an increasing interest in technology-based solutions that can assist drivers in reducing their risk of involvement in road crashes. Previous studies showed that driving events produced by in-vehicle data recorders (IVDR) are applicable for identification of unsafe driving patterns, while combined examinations of driving events and road infrastructure characteristics are rare. This study explored the relationship between the IVDR-driving events, road characteristics and crashes, to examine a potential of the events for predicting crashes and identification of high-risk locations on the road network. The study database included 3500 segments of the interurban roads in Israel, for which the automatically produced IVDR events were matched with road infrastructure characteristics and crashes. Negative-binomial regression models were adjusted for the relationships between road characteristics and driving events, and subsequently, between events and crashes, given the exposure. Significant impacts were found, yet various event types showed different relations to the infrastructure characteristics and different effects on crashes, on various road types. Better road conditions were associated with a decrease in "braking" events and an increase in the "speed alert" events, where road layout constraints and junction proximity were associated with an opposite effect on events. "Braking" and total events showed better potential for predicting crashes on single-carriageway roads, with a positive link to crashes, where for other road types the "speed alert" events were stronger related to crashes, but with a negative link. The heterogeneity of findings indicates a need in further research of the above relationship, with a particular focus on definitions of driving events produced by the IVDR or other technologies.

Constructing proper shoulders may improve road safety on two-lane roads. Previous research reported crash reductions following shoulder widening. This study aimed to examine the relationship between shoulder characteristics and crash occurrences on two-lane rural roads in Israel. The study database combined information on crash numbers, traffic volumes and road infrastructure characteristics of 3594 road sections. To examine a relationship between shoulder characteristics and crashes, given other road characteristics, two types of statistical models were developed: case-control and negative-binomial regression models, for several crash types. We found that the impacts of shoulder width and other road characteristics on crashes were generally consistent across various models and crash types, where a non-monotonous link between the shoulder width and crashes was typically observed. For various crash types, the models showed an increase in crash risk with an initial extension of the total shoulder, up to 2.2 m, and a consequent decrease in crashes with a further shoulder widening, over 2.2 m, by 2-6% and 1-4%, respectively, for each 0.1 m of shoulder extension. An increase in the width of unpaved shoulders, over 0.9 m, was associated with increased crash risk, in injury and total crashes, by 5% for each 0.1 m of shoulder extension. Lowest crash risks were found for total shoulder widths of about 3m or more, but also for narrow total shoulders, below 1 m. Conversely, medium total shoulders, of 1.8-2.4 m in width, and unpaved shoulders of over 1 m, were associated with an increase in crash risk and, hence, are not re-commended for use. The tools developed in the study may assist in decision-making during the design stages of a new road or upgrading existing road sections, on two-lane local roads.

In Study 1 of this two-part investigation, we present a "central tendency approach" and procedures for assessing overall interrater agreement across multiple groups. We define parameters for mean group agreement and construct bootstrapped confidence intervals around the mean population parameters for rWG, AD, and ICC(1). In Study 2, we extend assessments of overall interrater agreement by developing a "matched difference approach" and procedures for assessing real versus pseudo agreement in a sample of groups. Here, we use random group resampling and the matched difference between assessments of the respective rWG, AD, and ICC(1) values for actual and pseudo groups, with the establishment of bootstrapped confidence intervals around such differences. In both studies, we employ simulated and real data to demonstrate the accuracy and practical utility of the new procedures for assessing agreement with respect to groups. Notably, to generate simulated data for Studies 1 and 2, we developed a new underlying model for multilevel data and procedure for data generation, and we discuss its potential utility for enhancing research in group-level studies. Moreover, we discuss, relative to current practices, how and why the new inference procedures provide information about mean interrater agreement in the population, which can improve data aggregation decisions and interpretations of findings from group-level studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

This article presents a method for investigating the spatial distribution of vehicle and pedestrian traffic crashes relative to the volume of vehicle and pedestrian movement in urban areas. This method consists of two phases. First, vehicle and pedestrian traffic volumes on the street network are modeled using a space syntax configurational analysis of the network, land use data, and observed traffic data. Second, crash prediction models are fitted to the traffic crash data, using negative binomial regression models and based on traffic volume estimates and street segment lengths. The method was applied in two areas in Tel Aviv, Israel, which differ in their morphological and traffic characteristics. The case-studies illustrated the method's capability in identifying hazardous locations on the network and examining relative crash risks. The analysis shows that an increase in vehicle or pedestrian traffic volume tends to be associated with a decrease in relative crash risk. Moreover, the spatial patterns of relative crash risks are associated with the design characteristics of urban space: areas characterized by dense street networks encourage more walking, and are generally safer for pedestrians, while those with longer street segments encourage more driving, are less safe for pedestrians, but safer for vehicles.

This study explored the impacts of pedestrian-crossing configurations and other design features, on accident occurrences at signalized junctions situated on central public transport routes (PTRs) of urban arterials. Statistical tests and negative-binomial regression models were applied to identify factors affecting accidents and to examine accident numbers of the PTR junctions as opposed to comparison-sites. At the PTR junctions, a consistent impact of pedestrian-crossing configurations on accidents was found, where a gradated-crossing with mixed-shifting is the least safe. Four-legged junctions tend to higher accident numbers relative to the three-legged junctions. PTR junctions are characterized by higher accident numbers, related to comparison-sites, when controlling for other design characteristics. The study findings may assist in selecting preferable design solutions while planning PTR.

This study explored the relationship between travel speeds and accidents on single-carriageway roads, accounting for traffic exposure and road infrastructure characteristics. The speed data are free-flow travel speeds collected by GPS devices inside the vehicles. The study’s database included 179 sections, in Israel. Negative binomial statistical models were fitted to injury accident counts, in day- and night-hours, using speed indicators, section length, traffic volume and homogeneous road groups, where road groups reflect various road design conditions. The models demonstrated a positive relation between mean speeds and accidents, while controlling for traffic exposure and road infrastructure characteristics.