Journal of Safety Research

INTRODUCTION: The concept of normalization of deviance describes the gradual acceptance of deviant observations and practices. It is founded upon the gradual desensitization to risk experienced by individuals or groups who recurrently deviate from standard operating procedures without encountering negative consequences. Since its inception, normalization of deviance has seen extensive, but segmented, application across numerous high-risk industrial contexts. The current paper describes a systematic review of the existing literature on the topic of normalization of deviance within high-risk industrial settings...

INTRODUCTION: There are designated sections for lane-shifting in several highway reconstruction and expansion zones. Similar to the bottleneck sections of highways, these sections are characterized by poor pavement surface conditions, disorderly traffic flow, and high safety risk. This study examined the continuous track data of 1,297 vehicles collected using an area tracking radar. METHOD: The data from the lane shifting sections were analyzed in contrast with the regular section data...

INTRODUCTION: Distracted driving has been linked to multiple driving decrements and is responsible for thousands of motor-vehicle fatalities annually. Most U.S. states have enacted restrictions on cellphone use while driving, the strictest of which prohibit any manual operation of a cellphone while driving. Illinois enacted such a law in 2014. To better understand how this law affected cellphone behaviors while driving, associations between Illinois' handheld phone ban and self-reported talking on handheld, handsfree, and any cellphone (handheld or handsfree) while driving were estimated...

INTRODUCTION: The importance of safety in high-risk industries such as oil and gas facilities has been reported previously. Process safety performance indicators can provide insight into improving the safety of process industries. This paper aims to rank the process safety indicators (metrics) by Fuzzy Best-Worst Method (FBWM) using the data gathered through a survey. METHOD: The study uses a structured approach considering the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), and the IOGP (International Association of Oil and Gas Producers) recommendations and guidelines to generate an aggregate set of indicators...

INTRODUCTION: Automated vehicle (AV) technology is a promising technology for improving the efficiency of traffic operations and reducing emissions. This technology has the potential to eliminate human error and significantly improve highway safety. However, little is known about AV safety issues due to limited crash data and relatively fewer AVs on the roadways. This study provides a comparative analysis between AVs and conventional vehicles on the factors leading to different types of collisions...

INTRODUCTION: Automated Driving Systems (ADSs) present significant unresolved challenges for traditional safety assurance frameworks. These frameworks did not envisage, nor readily support, automated driving without the active involvement of a human driver, or support safety-critical systems using Machine Learning (ML) to modify their driving functionality during in-service operation. METHOD: An in-depth qualitative interview study was conducted as part of a broader research project on safety assurance of ADSs that can adapt using ML...

INTRODUCTION: While micromobility vehicles offer new transport opportunities and may decrease fuel emissions, the extent to which these benefits outweigh the safety costs is still uncertain. For instance, e-scooterists have been reported to experience a tenfold crash risk compared to ordinary cyclists. Today, we still do not know whether the real safety problem is the vehicle, the human, or the infrastructure. In other words, the new vehicles may not necessarily be unsafe; the behavior of their riders, in combination with an infrastructure that was not designed to accommodate micromobility, may be the real issue...

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies have indicated low driver yielding rates to pedestrians in various countries. This study analyzed four different strategies to improve driver yielding rates at marked crosswalks on channelized right turn lanes at signalized intersections. METHOD: A sample of 5,419 drivers was collected for four gestures using field experiments for males and females in the State of Qatar. The experiments were conducted in daytime and nighttime on weekends at three different locations; two sites are located in an urban area and the third is located in non-urban area...

INTRODUCTION: Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are considered a promising solution to improve seniors' safety and mobility. However, to transition to fully automated transportation, especially among seniors, it is vital to assess their perception and attitude toward AVs. This paper investigates seniors' perceptions and attitudes to a wide range of AV options from the perspective of pedestrians and users in general, as well as during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Underlying this objective is to examine older pedestrians' safety perceptions and behaviors at crosswalks in the presence of AVs...

INTRODUCTION: This paper presents a re-analysis of a previous study of the effects on accidents of technical inspections of heavy vehicles in Norway and a replication of the study using more recent data. METHOD: Increasing the number of technical inspections is associated with a reduction in the number of accidents. Reducing the number of inspections is associated with an increase in the number of accidents. The relationship between changes in the number of inspections and changes in the number of accidents is well described by means of logarithmic dose-response curves...

INTRODUCTION: To better understand what is known about issues affecting American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) workers, authors conducted a literature review of publications specific to AI/AN and occupational safety and health. METHODS: Search criteria included: (a) American Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages in the United States; (b) First Nations and aboriginals in Canada; and (c) occupational safety and health. RESULTS: Results of two identical searches in 2017 and 2019 identified 119 articles and 26 articles respectively, with references to AI/AN people and occupation...

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INTRODUCTION: Among risky driving behaviors, speeding is a main causal and aggravating factor of road crashes and is more frequent among males than females. Research suggests that this gender gap could be explained by gender social norms that lead males to assign more social value to speeding than females. However, few studies have proposed directly investigating gendered prescriptive norms associated with speeding. We propose to address this gap through two studies based on the socio-cognitive approach to social norms of judgment...

INTRODUCTION: Older vehicles, commonly referred to as "classic," "vintage," or "historic" vehicles (CVH), share the roadways with newer vehicles. Older vehicles lacking safety systems likely come with an increased risk of fatality, however there is no study examining the typical conditions for crashes involving CVH. METHOD: This study utilized information from crashes occurring in 2012 to 2019 to estimate fatal crash rates for vehicles grouped by model year deciles...

UNLABELLED: Drowsy driving-related crashes have been a key concern in transportation safety. In Louisiana, 14% (1,758 out of 12,512) of police-reported drowsy driving-related crashes during 2015-2019 resulted in injury (fatal, severe, or moderate). Amid the calls for action against drowsy driving by national agencies, it is of paramount importance to explore the key reportable attributes of drowsy driving behaviors and their potential association with crash severity. METHOD: This study used 5-years (2015-2019) of crash data and utilized the correspondence regression analysis method to identify the key collective associations of attributes in drowsy driving-related crashes and interpretable patterns based on injury levels...

INTRODUCTION: Many young drivers are involved in crashes due to speeding. Some studies have used the Prototype Willingness Model (PWM) to explain the risky driving behavior of young people. However, many have measured PWM constructs in a manner inconsistent with its formulation. The PWM asserts that the social reaction pathway is underpinned by a heuristic comparison of oneself with a cognitive prototype of someone who engages in a risky behavior. This proposition has not been comprehensively examined and few PWM studies specifically examine social comparison...

INTRODUCTION: The concept of addressing and minimizing construction site safety risks in the early phase of a project has generated research interest, especially since the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) launched its national Prevention through Design (PtD) initiative in July 2007. In the last decade, several studies on PtD with differeing goals and methods have been published in construction journals. To date, few systematic examinations of the development and trends associated with PtD research have been conducted in the discipline...

INTRODUCTION: Road crash fatalities have increased significantly in Low- and Middle- Income Countries (LMICs) between 2006 and 2016. This study presents how road safety characteristics have changed in LMICs by comparing data over time and relationships between the road crash fatality increase and a wide range of data from LMICs. Parametric and nonparametric methods are used to test significance. METHOD: There were 35 countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region, the Sub-Saharan Africa region, the East Asia and Pacific region, and the South Asia region, where the population rate of road crash fatalities consistently increased as per country reports, World Health Organization and Global Burden of Disease estimates...

INTRODUCTION: This paper investigates the relationships among safety leadership, safety motivation, safety knowledge, and safety behavior in the setting of a tertiary hospital in Klang Valley, Malaysia. METHOD: Underpinned by the self-efficacy theory, we argue that high-quality safety leadership enhances nurses' safety knowledge and motivation and subsequently, improves their safety behavior (safety compliance and safety participation). A total of 332 questionnaire responses were gathered and analyzed using SmartPLS Version 3...

INTRODUCTION: This study explored the magnitude of professional industrial investigators' bias to attribute cause to a person more readily than to situational factors (i.e., human error bias). Such biased opinions may relieve companies from responsibilities and liability, as well as compromise efficacy of suggested preventative measures. METHOD: Professional investigators and undergraduate participants were given a summary of a workplace event and asked to allocate cause to the factors they found causal for the event...