83 Unfall und Mensch
In line with the new definition introduced by the European Commission (EC), the number of seriously injured road casualties in Germany for 2014 is assessed in this study. The number of MAIS3+ casualties is estimated by two different methodological approaches. The first approach is based on data from the German Inâ€Depth Accident Study (GIDAS), which is closely related to the German Road Traffic Accident Statistics. The second approach is based on data from the German TraumaRegister DGU-® (TRâ€DGU), which includes many more hospitals but not all MAIS3+ injuries.
In 2011 399 cyclists died in road accidents in Germany and another 76.351 cyclists have been injured. Since 2000 the number of injured or fatally injured cyclists remained on the same high level. Cyclists form 19% of all casualties in German road traffic, although the modal split rate of this transport mode in 2008 was only 10% of trips and resp. 3% of kilometres per day. The high proportion of fatally and seriously injured shows the high vulnerability of cyclists. The demographic shift towards an older population in Germany and the governmental recommendation of increased bicycle use as an ecological, economical and healthy alternative to other modes of transport lead to the assumption that bicycle use especially of elderly people will increase. Based on these facts about the German cyclists' situation a representative survey of 2.000 cyclists was conducted. Results display use patterns and accident involvement on a descriptive level. Overall 7.7% of cyclists report to have been involved in at least one road traffic accident within the last three years. The performed path model analysis reveals an acceptable model fit. Though the explained variance of accident involvement of the applied psychological factors was low, significant relations between several of these factors and especially risky behaviour could be found.
Nach einer Reisebusunfallserie im Jahre 1992 wurde die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen beauftragt ein Expertengespräch durchzuführen und eine Projektgruppe einzurichten, um Schwachstellen im Sicherheitssystem des Reisebusverkehrs aufzudecken, Verbesserungsvorschläge zu erarbeiten und den Forschungsbedarf zu identifizieren. Der Beitrag befasst sich schwerpunktmäßig mit den ökonomischen Rahmenbedingungen und der Sicherheit, den Ausbildungs- und Eignungsfragen der Busfahrer, deren Belastung und Beanspruchung, der Einhaltung und Kontrolle von Vorschriften, der Erhöhung der kraftfahrzeugtechnischen Sicherheit sowie dem Notfall- und Unfallmanagement. Zur Weiterentwicklung des Sicherheitssystems wird eine auf breite Mitwirkung auch von Beteiligten angelegte Sicherheitsforschung für den Wirtschaftsverkehr empfohlen. Aus den untersuchten Feldern werden Empfehlungen abgeleitet und der notwendige Forschungsbedarf aufgeführt.
Die in der Bundesrepublik empfohlene Helmbenutzung von Radfahrern findet derzeit noch wenig Beachtung (Tragequote durchschnittlich nur 5 Prozent) mit Ausnahme bei Kindern unter 10 Jahren (Quote 1994: 32 Prozent). Ein besonderer Stellenwert kommt in den Bemühungen um mehr Akzeptanz des Schutzhelms dem Staat Victoria (Australien) zu. Bereits seit Anfang der 80er Jahre wurden hier im einzelnen folgende Aktionen und Kampagnen durchgeführt: Werbeanzeigen für den Helm in der Presse (1980), Plakatwerbung in allen Schulen (1983), Rabattangebot beim Helmkauf sowie Rundfunk- und Fernsehwerbesendungen (1984), weitere Rabattgewährung (1985 bis 1987), Massenmedienkampagnen mit der Zielgruppe der Eltern von radfahrenden Schulkindern (1986), Medienkampagne mit der Zielgruppe der Heranwachsenden (1987) und der Sekundärschüler (1988), Ankündigung eines Gesetzes mit verbindlicher Vorschrift für Helmbenutzung (1989). Die sich aufgrund dieser Aktionen feststellbare Erhöhung der Tragequoten hatte einen bemerkenswerten Rückgang der Kopfverletzungen zur Folge. Nach der Einführung der Tragepflicht stiegen die Tragequoten nochmals schlagartig an (in Grundschulen zum Beispiel auf über 90 Prozent), insgesamt wurde 1991 eine Quote von 75 Prozent festgestellt. Jugendliche und Heranwachsende reagierten negativ auf die Tragepflicht durch geringere Verkehrsteilnahme als Radfahrer, ansonsten hielt der Trend zu höherer Benutzungsquote an.
The number of road accidents in Portugal has decreased significantly in the last decades, however, this tendency is not similar in all types of transportation. In the most recent years and by European standards, Portugal is still one of the leading countries concerning the number of fatalities in Powered Two Wheelers (PTW) accidents. To this effect, the in-depth investigation of PTW accidents is crucial and so, a thorough statistical analysis concerning the main factors influencing PTW riders injury severity accidents was undertaken regarding the 2007-2010 period in the National Road Safety Authority (ANSR) injured riders database using the software SPSS. In addition, to determine the importance of absent factors in the database analysis, such as velocity, a set of 53 real accidents involving PTW were also investigated and computationally reconstructed using the software PC-Crash. Lateral collisions between a motorcycle, its rider and the side of three different passenger cars were also simulated, varying the motorcycle impact angle and velocity in order to estimate the PTW deformation energy and the rider- injuries, as this accident configuration stands out in terms of frequency and even severity. The results of this detailed study are presented.
Aim of the study was to evaluate the protective effect of bicycle helmets particularly considering injuries to the head and to the face. Accidents with the participation of bicyclists which occurred from 2000 to 2007 were chosen from GIDAS. We observed that injuries to the head and face were more severe in the group of non-helmeted riders. There seems to be no significant difference in injuries with AIS 3-6. Altogether 26 cyclists were killed. 2 of them wore a helmet (1% of helmeted cyclists), 24 did not (1% of non-helmeted cyclists). Only one killed rider (without helmet) did not suffer from polytrauma (only head injuries recorded). The findings seem to support the thesis of a preventive effect of the bicycle helmet, however the two groups are different in their characteristics related to riding speed. Necessarily we need a multivariate model to evaluate the effect of helmets.
The bicyclist accidents were analyzed to get better understanding of the occurrences and frequency of the accidents, injury distributions, as well as correlation of injury severity/outcomes with engineering and human factors in two different countries of China and Germany. The accident cases that occurred from 2001 to 2006 were collected from IVAC database in Changsha and GIDAS database in Hannover. Based on specified sampling criteria, 1,570 bicyclist cases were selected from IVAC database in Changsha, and 1806 cases were collected from Hannover, documented in GIDAS database. Statistical analyses were carried out by using these selected data. The results from the statistical analysis are presented and discussed in this study.