"Novice Mistakes" and Distracted Driving Among Teen Drivers

Garrick Infanger

Armstrong Forensic Engineers

MSC would like to thank our friends at Armstrong Forensic Engineers for this guest post.

Distracted driving is now a hot topic among both legislators and the press. Should car accidents resulting from texting be treated as a crime? Are anti-texting laws and service announcements effective?

Georgia's July 1, 2010 ban of texting while driving makes it one of 30 states with similar laws. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that there is some debate as to whether texting laws actually increase the rate of accidents as people attempt to text out of sight from police, actually furthering their attention from the roadway.

Utah recently passed a new law that penalizes drivers who text to the same degree as drivers who drink and drive. The New York Times reports, "In effect, a crash caused by such a multitasking motorist is no longer considered an 'accident' like one caused by a driver who, say, runs into another car because he nodded off at the wheel. Instead, such a crash would now be considered inherently reckless."

Even Oprah has gotten in on the debate with a campaign titled the "No Phone Zone." What else leads teen drivers into accidents? Should we be looking at other "novice driving" mistakes?

Tara Parker-Pope looks at teen drivers at her blog "Well":

Teenagers are notoriously bad drivers, accounting for 10 times as many crashes as middled-aged ones. But short of keeping them off the road entirely, is there a way to make their driving safer - for them and for the rest of us?

New research suggests that there is. A nationally representative sample of more than 800 crashes involving teenage drivers shows that almost two-thirds were due not to reckless behavior like speeding or joyriding but to three novice driving mistakes: failing to scan the road, misjudging driving conditions and becoming distracted.

Focusing on these three common mistakes could go a long way in improving teenage driving and reducing fatalities, said an author of the report, Dr. Dennis Durbin, co-director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

With the encouraging news that truck-related fatalities continue to decrease, we can hope the state of teen drivers also improves with time.

--

Garrick Infanger writes for the Forensic Engineering Hub, an engineering-focused blog sponsored by Armstrong Forensic Engineers.

--

Photo Credit: Stuart Bradford

Senators Pryor (D-AR) and Alexander (R-TN) Introduce New Electronic On-board Recorder (EOBR) Legislation

Benjamin Smith

Principal Technical Analyst

Messerschmidt Safety Consultants of Mississippi

US Senators Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) introduced new legislation on March 31, 2011 that would require the installation of Electronic On-board Recorders (EOBRs) in commercial vehicles to document drivers' compliance with Hours-of-Service (HOS) rules.

The March 31 press release indicates that the Commercial Driver Compliance Improvement Act will require the EOBRs to be tamper-resistant, identify the vehicle's operator and record driving time, communicate with the Engine Control Module (ECM), provide real-time location recording, and allow for the data to be accessed by law enforcement in roadside inspections.

Senators Pryor and Alexander's new legislation aims at enforcing HOS rules more effectively and accurately. In the press release, Pryor said, "The trucking industry faces the constant balancing act of keeping fatigued drivers off the road while ensuring stores are full of merchandise. After several meetings with the trucking industry and Senate hearings on highway safety, I believe the most effective solution is to require the use of electronic on-board recorders."

MSC Participates in the 2011 SAE World Congress

Benjamin Smith

Principal Technical Analyst

Messerschmidt Safety Consultants of Mississippi

For the third consecutive year, MSC was involved with the publication and presentation of new research for the SAE World Congress. This year MSC was represented by Benjamin Smith who coauthored a new research paper, "Data Extraction Methods and their Effects on the Retention of Event Data Contained in the Electronic Control Modules of Detroit Diesel and Mercedes-Benz Engines," (SAE 2011-01-0808), with David Plant and Timothy Austin.

This paper was presented along with research such as Ruth and Daily's paper on Event Data Recorder (EDR) accuracy, Bare, Everest, Floyd, and Nunan's research paper on sensing diagnostic module (SDM) pre-crash data transfer, and Austin and Farrell's paper on Caterpillar Electronic Control Module (ECM) snapshot data. In addition to the research papers presented, some of the technical sessions and discussions addressed accident reconstruction topics including drag sled accuracy and usage, forensic photogrammetry, and diesel engine retarder acceleration rates.

Truck-Related Fatalities Continue to Decrease

Bill Messerschmidt

Manager

Messerschmidt Safety Consultants

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there was a substantial decline during 2009 in the number of drivers and vehicle occupants who were killed or injured in crashes involving large trucks (i.e., trucks over 10,000 pounds).

Last month, NHTSA released an Early Edition of Traffic Safety Facts, an annual publication containing a compilation of highway crash statistics. According to the Early Edition of Traffic Safety Facts 2009, 3,380 drivers and occupants were killed in crashes with large trucks, and 74,000 drivers and occupants were injured.

Those numbers seem large until one considers that the Federal Highway Administration has estimated that large trucks traveled a staggering 288 BILLION miles on US roadways during 2009. That equals a fatality rate of 1.17 persons killed per 100 million miles of truck travel, and 25.7 persons injured per 100 million miles.

In 2009, both injuries and fatalities declined substantially from 2008, when NHTSA estimated that 4,245 people were killed and 90,000 were injured, and the fatality rate per hundred million miles was 1.37.

Check out NHTSA’s Early Edition of Traffic Safety Facts 2009.

View the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's large truck crash statistics.

National Work Zone Awareness Week: April 4-8, 2011

Bill Messerschmidt

Manager

Messerschmidt Safety Consultants

This week, April 4-8, is National Work Zone Awareness Week. This event is sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) each year for the purpose of increasing drivers' awareness of the dangers associated with highway work zones.

The theme of this year's event, "Whose Life is on the Line?" references the fact that almost 80% of the individuals killed in work zone crashes are motorists - not highway workers.

In 2009, there were 667 people killed in highway work zones and maintenance zones. This is a substantial decline since 2000, when 1,026 people were killed. To help keep these numbers on the decline, the National Work Zone Information Clearinghouse has created a comprehensive website with links to training, safety equipment, statistics, and regulations. The site is a valuable resource for contractors, workers, supervisors, and traffic planners.

The FHWA's website contains a great deal of useful information on work zone safety, including tools for work zone management, process review, and performance metrics.

Good News: Traffic Fatalities in 2010 Fell to Lowest Levels in Reported History

Kelly Messerschmidt

Technical Communications Manager

Messerschmidt Safety Consultants

US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Friday that despite the fact that American drivers drove significantly more miles during 2010, the number and rate of traffic fatalities in 2010 fell to their lowest levels in recorded history.

Factors that may have contributed to the reductions include:

• Department of Transportation (DOT) safety programs and public safety campaigns, including their website, distraction.gov, and national summits on distracted driving,
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) push for swift, voluntary reporting of safety defects by automakers,
• NHTSA's encouraging the development and use of crash prevention technologies, such as electronic stability control and lane-departure warning systems,
• The DOT's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) encouraging the use of Safety Edge technology and promoting the use of cable median barriers and rumble strips to reduce the number of crossover head-on collisions.