The bold and the fearless among us: Elevated psychopathic traits and levels of anxiety and fear are associated with specific aberrant driving behaviors

In spite of the well-documented connection between personality traits like impulsivity, sensation seeking and fearlessness with aberrant driving behaviors, scarce research exists to examine the association between risky and aggressive driving and psychopathic characteristics, which encompass the above traits. The present investigation examines in two studies the association between specific sub-types of driving misconduct, i.e., unintentional mistakes and deliberate rule violations with psychopathic characteristics, with a focus on the role of levels of fear and anxiety in aberrant driving. Findings support the hypotheses that fearlessness, i.e., the bold, unemotional aspect of psychopathic traits, characterizes drivers who engage in frequent deliberate driving code violations, whereas the more impulsive/antisocial aspect of psychopathy, associated with higher levels of fear and anxiety, is more characteristic of drivers who engage in unintentional mistakes. Fearless features are also associated with higher self-reported driving misconduct and accidents. Study 2 conceptually replicated this finding by showing that mistakes are positively related to high sensitivity to punishment, while violations are negatively related to it. Findings are discussed in light of psychopathy theory and in relation to prevention and intervention.     

Stop, look, listen, and think? What young children really do when crossing the road.

This study sought to provide basic information about children's behaviour in realistic traffic situations. Most literature in this area has focused on children's knowledge about road safety or has assessed their behaviour in simulated traffic environments. However, until more is known about what children actually do in traffic environments, our ability to identify the important elements for inclusion in educational programmes remains limited. Fifty-six children, aged 5-6 years, took part in a 'treasure trail' activity in which they were confronted with two road crossings, one at a T-junction with a moving car and the other between parked cars. Children's performance was videotaped and coded for relevant behaviours such as stopping at the kerb, looking for traffic, direction of gaze, and style of crossing (i.e. walking vs. running). Results revealed that performance was extremely poor. Sixty percent of the children failed to stop before proceeding from the kerb onto the road. Looking for oncoming traffic was exhibited by no more than 41% of the sample, dropping to as low as 7% in some instances. When looking did occur, it was initially as likely to be in the inappropriate direction (i.e. to the left) as in the appropriate direction (i.e. to the right). Consideration of individual performance revealed the existence of individual differences within the sample; such differences were relatively stable across the two road crossings. These findings, based on controlled naturalistic tasks and detailed observational methods, build on earlier studies that are generally able to provide only estimated rates of children's behaviour.     

Estimation of regression coefficients subject to exact linear restrictions when some observations are missing and quadratic error balanced loss function is used

This article considers a linear regression model when a set of exact linear restrictions binding the coefficients is available and some observations on the study variable are missing. Estimators for the vectors of regression coefficients are presented and their superiority properties with respect to the criteria of the variance covariance matrix and the risk under balanced loss functions are analyzed.     

A numerical investigation into the effect of CRS misuse on the injury potential of children in frontal and side impact crashes

This research focuses on an investigation into the head and neck injuries sustained by toddlers due to CRS misuse under frontal and side impact crashes. A fully deformable FE model incorporating a Hybrid III 3-year-old dummy was developed which has been previously validated for frontal impacts under CMVSS 208 and FMVSS 213 testing conditions. Furthermore, this model has also been validated under near-side impact conditions in accordance to crash tests carried out by NHTSA. In addition, numerical models incorporating a Q3/Q3s prototype child crash test dummies were developed. The objective of this research was to study the effect of seatbelt slack and the absence of the top tether strap on the head and neck injuries sustained by toddlers in a vehicle crash. Numerical simulations were conducted under full frontal and near side impact crash testing conditions in accordance with FMVSS 213 for the Hybrid III 3-year-old dummy and Q3/Q3s dummies in the absence and presence of slack in the seatbelt webbing, and in the absence and presence of the top tether strap. In addition, the effect of using a cross-shaped rigid ISOFIX system was also investigated. An analysis of the head and chest accelerations, neck loads and moments was completed to investigate the potential of injury due to CRS misuse. An increase in HIC₁₅ by approximately 30–40% for the frontal impact and 10–20% for the near-side impact respectively was observed for the Q3 child dummy due to both forms of CRS misuse. In the absence of the top tether strap the forward head excursions were observed to be increased by approximately 70% for the Hybrid III 3-year-old dummy and 40% for the Q3 dummy, respectively. Use of the cross-shaped rigid ISOFIX system illustrated a reduction in head and neck injury parameters, for both frontal and side impact conditions, in the absence and presence of CRS misuse. CRS misuse results in a significant increase in injury parameters and potential for contact related head injuries. Use of a rigid ISOFIX system to restrain a CRS provides better CRS and dummy confinement and reduced injury potential than a flexible ISOFIX system.