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Introduction Nearly half of 8–12 year-old tweens killed in car crashes every year in the US are completely unrestrained, and the majority sit in the front seat. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a school-based program targeting increased safety restraint and back-seat use among tweens. Design and setting The multi-component school-wide program was evaluated via a pre-post control-group design in four public elementary schools in an economically disadvantaged, multi-ethnic urban community in southeastern Virginia. Study schools had 1184 students enrolled in third through sixth grades. Intervention The Make it Click Initiative was developed with input from student focus groups, surveys, and school personnel. Grounded in social cognitive theory and principles of behavioral psychology, the participative education program included: (a) competition to achieve a high rate of students buckled in the back; (b) a creativity contest with entries illustrating a car safety theme; (c) a series of parent education flyers; (d) car safety assignments that support state learning objectives; (e) a safety-themed play; (f) teacher newsletters; and (g) educational presentations. Main outcome measures Behavioral observations ( N = 762) of children’s restraint and back seat use. Results Make it Click intervention schools’ observed safety belt use increased from 31.9% to 67.9%, and students in intervention schools were 3.3 times more likely to wear their belts at follow-up than students in control schools, X 2 (1) = 19.72, p < 0.001. Further, increases in belt use were maintained in study observations longer than those resulting from the highly publicized national Click it or Ticket enforcement program. Significant differences were not observed in back seat use. Conclusions The program resulted in significant improvements in observed safety belt use that outlasted results observed locally from the national high visibility enforcement program alone. Theory-driven participative education programs can improve the safety practices of school-age children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated the impact that the 2013 United States federal government shutdown had on the transportation system in Northern Virginia. Transit ridership data before and during the shutdown were provided by three transit agencies operating in Washington, DC, and its Northern Virginia suburbs. A month of pre-shutdown road volumes and travel times were collected for comparison with the 2-week shutdown period and 2 weeks after the shutdown. As expected, roadway volumes, high occupancy vehicle (HOV) volumes, and transit ridership all saw reductions during the shutdown, with impacts being larger in the second week of the shutdown than the first week. The modes that saw the largest impacts were HOV and the local bus service in the counties surrounding Washington, DC. This is likely unsurprising since these modes are often used by work travelers for their daily commute. Changes were more modest for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) system, arterials, and freeway general purpose lanes. During the first week, volume changes were often not statistically significant on these facilities. The second week saw similar trends of around a 3 to 5% reduction in daily travel on both the roadway and WMATA systems. Reductions in average travel times as well as improvements in travel time reliability were also observed during the shutdown. However, these benefits were more significant for morning commute trips than evening commute trips as well as for general purpose lanes than HOV facilities. After federal workers went back to work, volumes largely returned to normal. However, some of the additional volume seen at midday during the shutdown was still present soon after the return to work, suggesting that the midday behavior changes took longer to dissipate. The post-PM peak period and weekends after the return to work showed some higher volumes than the pre-shutdown periods, suggesting that some recreation or leisure trips may have been postponed during the shutdown and took place after the return to work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]