Accidents: Risk Factors, Health Outcomes and Safety Measures

266 Pages·2013·9.769 MB·English

by  Carlo Giacomo Prato

SAFETY AND RISK IN SOCIETY

A
CCIDENTS

R F , H
ISK ACTORS EALTH
O S M
UTCOMES AND AFETY EASURES

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S R S
AFETY AND ISK IN OCIETY

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SAFETY AND RISK IN SOCIETY

A
CCIDENTS

R F , H
ISK ACTORS EALTH
O S M
UTCOMES AND AFETY EASURES

CARLO GIACOMO PRATO
EDITOR

New York
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Accidents : risk factors, health outcomes, and safety measures / editor, Carlo Giacomo Prato.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN: (cid:28)(cid:26)(cid:27)(cid:16)(cid:20)(cid:16)(cid:25)(cid:21)(cid:21)(cid:24)(cid:26)(cid:16)(cid:19)(cid:26)(cid:19)(cid:16)(cid:25) (eBook)
1. Traffic accidents. 2. Pedestrian accidents. 3. Pedestrians--Safety measures. 4. Medical
emergencies. I. Giacomo Prato, Carlo .
HE5614.A23 2011
363.1--dc23
2012018497

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York
CONTENTS

Preface vii
Chapter 1 Promoting Safe Transit: Analyzing Bus Accident Patterns 1
Carlo Giacomo Prato and Sigal Kaplan
Chapter 2 Elderly Pedestrians in Dense Urban Areas:
Case Study of Paris 19
Marion Maestracci
Chapter 3 Quantifying the Influence of Social Characteristics
on Accident and Injuries Risk: A Comparative Study
between Motorcyclists and Car Drivers 33
Allan Lyckegaard, Morten N. Olesen and Tove Hels
Chapter 4 Very Seriously Injured: In-Depth Investigation of Road Accident
Characteristics and Medical Consequences in Germany 47
Eike A. Schmidt and Kerstin Auerbach
Chapter 5 Assessing the Safety Climate in Operating Rooms:
The Case of Healthcare Organizations in Mexico 61
Daniel Velazquez-Martinez and Jaime Santos-Reyes
Chapter 6 Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Medical Students
toward Accidental Blood Exposure 79
Latifa Adarmouch, Safwane Mouwafaq, Majda Sebbani
and Mohamed Amine
Chapter 7 Occupational Accident Patterns 87
Juan Carlos Conte, Ana Isabel García, Emilio Rubio
and Antonio Pérez
Chapter 8 Occupational Accidents: Prevalence, Risk Factors
and Health Outcomes 123
Simo Salminen
Chapter 9 A Macro-Analysis of Impacts of Safety Interventions
on Road Safety Developments in a Country 139
Victoria Gitelman, Etti Doveh, Limor Hendel and Shlomo Bekhor
vi Contents
Chapter 10 Are Safety Based Incentives in Public Private
Partnerships (PPPs) Effective at Improving Safety Ratios?
The Case of Spain 171
Thais Rangel, José Manuel Vassallo and Blanca Arenas
Chapter 11 The Role of Roadside Safety Criteria in Accident Reduction
and Injury Severity Mitigation 183
Carlos Roque and João Lourenço Cardoso
Chapter 12 Study of Visibility and the Position of Barrier Lines
on Two-Way Highways 201
Erica Santos Matos and Ana Paula C. Larocca
Chapter 13 Pedestrian Accidents on Rural Roads: Exploring the Phenomenon
and Examination of Reduction Potential of Road Safety Measures 215
Victoria Gitelman, Roby Carmel, Limor Hendel, Fany Pesahov
and Doron Balasha
Index 247
PREFACE

This edited volume emerges from the interest in enriching the body of knowledge about
characteristics, examining health outcomes and proposing measures to overcome societal and
economic consequences of accidents. Contributions from different disciplines (e.g.,
economics, engineering, medicine, and statistics) have allowed composing a collection that
provides answers to prominent questions from various perspectives.
The first perspective concerns accidents occurring on the road and involving vulnerable
users (i.e., pedestrians, elderly, public transport passengers, and motorcyclists). Road
accidents are among the 10 leading causes of death worldwide, resulting in 1.21 million
annual deaths. The second perspective regards accidents occurring at workplaces with a
particular interest in healthcare institutions. The number of occupational accidents is a cause
of major concern, as roughly 2.64 million annual occupational accidents occur globally, of
which roughly 350,000 are fatal. The third perspective involves proposing measures for the
improvement of safety and the reduction of consequences. The chapters of this book are
organized according to these three perspectives.
The first part of the book focuses on the risk-factors of accidents involving different types
of vulnerable road users from various countries. Chapter 1 presents a holistic perspective of
the risk factors underlying bus crashes in the United States by identifying prevailing
typologies, evaluating their severity, and suggesting possible cluster-driven directions
towards enhancing bus safety. Chapter 2 discusses whether elderly pedestrians are more risk
takers than younger ones by examining prototypical pedestrian accident scenarios involving
elderly in Paris. Chapter 3 examines factors associated with the recent increase in the number
of fatalities among motorcyclists in Europe by proposing an analysis of the relationship
between socio-economic characteristics of Danish motorcyclists and their risk of being
involved in an accident. Chapter 4 summarizes three studies concentrating on the medical
consequences for seriously injured road casualties and provides the international community
with interesting insights about the relationship between road user involvement and body
injury types.
The second part of the book regards occupational accidents, thus extending the concept of
health outcomes from the road to the workplace. Chapter 5 focuses on the treatment of
patients in health care institutions from a system perspective by proposing an attitudinal
survey about patient safety research and practice and illustrating that, in Mexico, smaller
health care organizations appear to have a better attitude to patient safety than big hospitals.
viii Carlo Giacomo Prato
Chapter 6 focuses on the topic of accidental blood exposure in health care facilities by
professionals such as surgeons and paramedics by analyzing a descriptive survey revealing
that medical students in Marrakesh, Morocco, believe that they are at risk of contamination
during their training. Chapter 7 proposes an analytical approach to evaluate occupational
accident rates automatically rather than subjectively through expert judgment. Chapter 8
concludes the part focusing on workplace accidents by presenting a thorough review of
studies about occupational injury examining the epidemiology in different countries, the risk
factors at both the individual and organizational the level, and the health outcomes for various
severity levels.
The third part of the book involves proposing measures for the improvement of safety,
thus complementing the first two parts of the book concerning road and occupational
accidents. Chapter 9 illustrates the over-time developments of road safety in Israel by
identifying the time points at which positive changes occurred and associating them with the
safety interventions which were implemented in proximity to these time points. Chapter 10
focuses on the implementation of safety based incentives in Public Private Partnerships
(PPPs) by analyzing whether the incentives to improve road safety in PPPs are effective in
improving safety ratios in Spain an uncovering that the implementation of safety incentives in
PPPs has a positive influence in the reduction of fatalities, injuries and accidents. Chapter 11
presents a methodology for assessing the influence of roadside characteristics in road safety,
based on ran-off-road accidents analysis, with the intention to support decisions concerning
roadside design under a four corrective steps approach based on removing obstacles and
reducing their potential danger. Chapter 12 adds to the infrastructural perspective by
analyzing the position of barriers in a hypothetical scenario using graphic three-dimensional
simulations and comparing simulation results with existing Brazilian national standards for
lateral offset of the barriers. Chapter 13 proposes an in-depth analysis of pedestrian accidents
in Israel and presents a comprehensive list of interventions for improving pedestrian safety on
rural roads where, for each measure, an assessment of safety benefits versus the implemen
tation costs is carried out.
The three parts of the book offer a comprehensive overview of the new state-of-the-
practice knowledge about accident characteristics, risk factors, consequences and safety
interventions. Combining knowledge from both road and occupational safety, and extending
through various disciplines such as engineering, economics, medicine, and statistics, this
collection stimulates readers in looking for enhanced solutions to safety problems that are a
major threat to human life and cost millions to our society.
Carlo Giacomo Prato
Editor