Side airbag systems were first introduced into vehicles around 1995 to help protect occupants from injury in side impact crashes. International studies have shown that side airbags are effective in reducing the risk of death and injury, however, serious injuries can still occur even when side airbags deploy. The objective of this study was to use detailed injury information from insurance injury compensation claims data linked to Police reported crash data to determine the effectiveness of side airbags in reducing the risk of death or injury for occupants involved in side impact crashes in Victoria, Australia based on the specific body regions that side airbag systems are designed to protect. It was found that head and torso-protecting dual airbag systems designed to protect the head, neck, face, chest and abdomen are highly effective in reducing driver death or injury due to near side crashes. They were associated with a statistically significant reduction of 41.1% (25.9%, 53.2%) in the odds of death or injury across all body regions; and a 48.0% (28.0%, 62.4%) reduction in the odds of death or injury to the head, neck, face, chest and abdomen. The study did not find any evidence that torso-protecting airbags alone are effective in reducing death or injury. Analysis results indicate that head and torso-protecting side airbag systems in vehicles are a highly effective technology for reducing the risk of death or injury to vehicle occupants in near side crashes. The magnitude of the injury reduction benefits estimated indicate that fitment of this technology to all vehicles should be a high priority and will yield significant savings in overall road trauma.

This project profiles 2006-2009 crash data and 2006-2012 registrations for West Australian passenger vehicles by fleet type: metropolitan corporate, rural corporate, government and private. It also projects crashes and occupant injuries by road user, for the 2012 registered new vehicles over 22 years as a baseline for evaluating different fleet purchasing scenarios. The WA corporate and government fleet was found to have an over representation of aggressive vehicle market groups and to be growing in proportion of all registrations. The safety implications for both for the fleet drivers and the general public on transfer to private ownership were addressed by evaluating alternative vehicle purchasing scenarios. The best outcome in terms of reductions in the societal cost of crashes and occupant injuries was found with the scenario which mandated 100% fitment of forward collision and autonomous emergency braking systems operating at all speeds to fleet vehicles. This scenario produced societal savings of $117 million and prevented serious and fatal injuries to over 200 road users. The best outcomes that came within fleet buyer break-even costs were vehicle substitution scenarios. Purchasing of large vehicles instead of medium and large SUVs in metropolitan areas and medium SUVs instead of large SUVs in rural areas, not only was estimated to save society $17 million in crash related costs but also was estimated to be purchased for less than corporate and government fleets under current purchasing practices.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether the correlation between vehicle secondary safety ratings developed from crash tests and those developed using real world crash data could be improved. Logistic regression was used to re-weight ANCAP test scores to improve their relationship with Used Car Safety Rating (UCSR) crashworthiness scores. Analysis showed that the correlation between ANCAP scores and the UCSR crashworthiness estimates could be improved greatly by weighting the component ANCAP measures differently to the current ANCAP summary measure. Two broadly different approaches were utilised to achieve this. The first re-weighted the current summary scores from the offset frontal and side impact test, the second re-weighted each of the individual body region scores from each test. The second method produced slightly higher correlations with the UCSR crashworthiness measures however the first method had better face validity when validated against real world crash and injury distributions. Consequently, a new ANCAP summary measure based on the first method would be preferred for adoption in practice. Including bonus points given for performance in the optional side impact pole test and the presence of seatbelt reminder systems improved the relationship with the UCSR crashworthiness measure in all instances. Including vehicle mass in the new ANCAP summary scores investigated resulted in the highest correlations with the UCSR crashworthiness measure. However including mass effects in an ANCAP summary measure is problematic from the perspectives of the objectives of ANCAP and would need to be considered carefully. At best, the new ANCAP summary measures proposed could explain between 55 and 65 per cent of the variation in UCSR crashworthiness scores highlighting that the current ANCAP protocols still do not reflect all important real world crash configurations and injury outcomes to key body regions.

Employment Relations TodayVolume 37, Issue 2 p. 23-30 Feature HR shared services is hot and getting hotter Jim Scully, Jim Scully Shared Services Institute, LLCSearch for more papers by this authorBarbara Levin, Barbara Levin blevin@enwisen.com EnwisenSearch for more papers by this author Jim Scully, Jim Scully Shared Services Institute, LLCSearch for more papers by this authorBarbara Levin, Barbara Levin blevin@enwisen.com EnwisenSearch for more papers by this author First published: 13 July 2010 https://doi.org/10.1002/ert.20294Citations: 3AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume37, Issue2Summer 2010Pages 23-30 RelatedInformation

This paper describes an investigation of safety, mobility and travel patterns in a sample of older women drivers and former drivers aged 60 years and over. Participants provided information on general health and functional abilities, travel and driving patterns, driving experiences and confidence, difficulty with and avoidance of driving situations, self-assessment of driving ability, crash and infringement history, the process and experiences leading up to stopping driving, and satisfaction with current mobility. The sample was a fairly active group, travelling frequently and substantial distances, and generally satisfied with their level of mobility. Current drivers were strongly interested in keeping driving for as long as possible, expressed strong concerns about the prospect of stopping driving and reported little evidence of self-regulation. In contrast, former drivers were less negative about driving cessation and mostly reported successful retirement from driving with few negative mobility consequences. Further, a number of relationships between crash involvement and driving experience, confidence of being a safe driver, and problems in driving situations were found. These findings have added to our understanding of the issues concerning the safety and mobility of older women. Implications for the promotion of safe driving practices are discussed.

Vehicle safety rating programs based on crash tests have been criticised for using crash test dummies that represented a limited range of body shapes. Therefore, such tests may not be addressing the safety needs of occupants whose body shapes do not correspond to that of the test dummies. Similarly, vehicle safety ratings programs based on real world crash data, such as the Used Car Safety Ratings (UCSR) system (Newstead et al, 2006), may not be applicable to occupants whose body shapes do not match the body shape of the profile of drivers to which the ratings are standardised. The data compiled for the Used Car Safety Ratings project (Newstead et al, 2006) was used in this project to identify and quantify the difference in relative vehicle market group safety depending on driver age and gender. This was done by introducing terms representing interaction between market group and age and sex of driver into the logistic regression models used to produce the Used Car Safety Ratings of Newstead et al (2006). Data limitations meant that the analysis was limited to studying how driver age and sex affect safety ratings for different market groups and not different models of vehicles. It was found that even though adding the interaction terms to the logistic models significantly affected the models, the addition of these terms did not drastically alter the relative crashworthiness rankings for market groups between different demographic groups. With few exceptions, types of vehicles that Newstead et al (2006) ranked as being safe for a standardised set of drivers were in general safe for drivers grouped by their age and sex. The same can be said for type of vehicles that Newstead et al (2006) rated as performing poorly for a standardised set of drivers. This suggests that the vehicle safety ratings published by Newstead et al (2006) are on the whole applicable for drivers of all demographics. Incidences where market rankings did vary depending on driver demographics are identified and directions for further research have been suggested.

Electronic stability control (ESC) is an in-vehicle technology aimed at improving primary safety by assisting the driver in avoiding loss of control of the vehicle. The aim of this study was to use available crash data from Australia and New Zealand to evaluate the effectiveness of ESC in reducing crash risk and to establish whether benefits estimated from overseas studies have translated to the Australian and New Zealand environments. The sample analysed included 7699 crashed vehicles fitted with ESC which comprised of 90 different models. Poisson regression was used to test whether the differences in the observed and expected crash counts for ESC fitted vehicles were significant, with exposure being induced from counts of rear end impacts. It was found that ESC reduced the risk of single vehicle crashes in which the driver was injured by 68% for 4WDs compared with 27% for passenger cars. The effect of ESC on multiple vehicle crashes in Australia and New Zealand was not clear. The long-term benefits of fitting ESC to all vehicles in Australia were also investigated based on the estimated single vehicle crash reductions.

This study examined self-regulatory practices adopted by older drivers in two Australian jurisdictions: the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and New South Wales (NSW). A survey was distributed to a random sample of 6,000 people (3,000 residents of ACT and 3,000 residents of NSW) aged 60 years and older. Survey responses from 1,697 current drivers (ACT: 1,015 NSW: 682) and 108 former drivers were available for analysis. Approximately two thirds of all current drivers reported that they drove daily or almost daily (ACT: 72%; NSW: 63%) and more than one third drive at least 100 kilometres per week (ACT: 36%; NSW: 44%). Males were more likely than females to drive daily and travel greater distances and younger participants (<75 years) were more were more likely to drive more frequently and further than older participants (75 years and older). One-third of drivers reported that they drove less now than five years ago. Changes in driving distance as well as driving quality and speed were related to overall health status. The majority of drivers reported they were satisfied with their current amount of driving (ACT: 83%; NSW 81%). Most of the drivers reported being very confident and had no difficulty in driving situations including intersections, busy traffic and other higher risk conditions. Overall, less than one quarter of participants reported that they routinely avoided these situations. The most commonly avoided driving situations were driving at night particularly when wet (15-25%) and driving in busy traffic (approximately 15%). Regression modelling was used to identify key characteristics if self-regulators amongst older drivers. Data for Victorian drivers from an earlier study as well as ACT and NSW drivers were included in these analyses. Those who self-regulated by avoiding any of the selected driving situations were more likely to be Victorian drivers (rather than ACT or NSW drivers), aged 75 years and older, female, have lower ratings of overall health and driving confidence, and live in rural areas. More than half of the drivers (ACT: 64%; NSW 57%) said that they had thought about giving up driving one day while only 17% said that they had actually made plans for this. The majority of former drivers who participated in the study were 75 years and older (64%), female (61%), and lived in an urban area (75%). One third indicated that they went out daily or almost daily, while 28% went out only once or twice a week. Two-thirds of all former drivers were satisfied with their ability to go places and most said they stopped driving at about the right time; however, about one-quarter said they were not satisfied with their current ability to get places. Almost all of the participants (99%) indicated that they frequently used a private car as a passenger and just under half indicated that they regularly walked or used public transport to get to places. The three most important reasons for stopping driving were having someone available to drive them, availability of other forms of transportation and concern that their driving responses would not be fast enough in an emergency. A number of recommendations arising from this research are made for strategies to enhance the awareness of self-regulatory practices and to encourage older people to drive for as long as it is safe for them to do so.

Using data from i) a self-administered survey of 673 older female drivers, and ii) a case-control study of 48 crash-involved and 44 non crash-involved older female drivers, some factors that may predict crash involvement were identified. Survey data gathered self-reported information on demographic characteristics, health status, travel patterns and driving practices. A battery of functional performance assessments were administered by trained experimenters in the case-control study, and participants completed a second detailed self-administered questionnaire. Factors found to predict crash involvement included driving characteristics such as being the main driver in the household, not highly confident of being a safe driver, experiencing difficulty driving in unfamiliar areas and having problems with the driving style of other drivers. In addition, low attentional, cognitive and motor skills and presence of multiple medical conditions were significant predictors of crash involvement.

The overall aim of this study was to examine the implications of young driver vehicle choice on secondary vehicle safety outcomes. This was achieved by identifying patterns in vehicle choice by driver age and sex (Stage 1), investigating the young driver crash profile (State 2), and developing and assessing scenarios for changing young driver vehicle choice to optimise road trauma outcomes (Stage 3). This report documents the outcomes of Stages 2 and 3. The results of Stage 2 indicate that young drivers are over-represented in crashes occurring at night, singe-vehicle crashes, crashes occurring in rural areas and crashes occurring on wet road surfaces. These crash types were more severe overall with the exception of crashes on wet roads. For Australian drivers aged 18-24 years old, crashes at night and single-vehicle crashes were more serious in comparison to drivers aged 25 or above. For New Zealand drivers, single-vehicle crashes involving young drivers were not more severe than single-vehicle crashes involving mature drivers. Vehicle profile analyses showed that the average crashworthiness of vehicles driven by young drivers remained the same across different crash types, including crashes occurring at different times of day. Stage 3 demonstrated that it is possible to reduce the number of serious injuries and fatalities if the vehicle choices of young drivers move towards vehicles with high crashworthiness ratings. Three scenarios were assessed. Scenario 1 estimated the road trauma outcomes if all young drivers were driving the vehicle with the best crashworthiness ratings (Scenario 1a) or a vehicle with a crashworthiness rating equal to the average crashworthiness rating of the ten most-crashworthy vehicles (Scenario 1b). Scenario 2 estimated the road trauma outcomes if all young drivers were driving the most crashworthy vehicle within the same year of manufacture as the vehicle they crashed (Scenario 2a) or if all young drivers were driving the most crashworthy vehicle within the same year of manufacture and vehicle market group as their crashed vehicle (Scenario 2b). Scenario 3 estimated road trauma outcomes if all young drivers' vehicles were fitted with ESC. Scenario 1a was the most effective in terms of reducing serious injuries and fatalities among young drivers. Several recommendations are made regarding real-world applications.