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To date most traffic crash analyses have been conducted using aggregated crash data. The main focus was given to determining the relationship between crashes and corresponding variables such as traffic volume, speed, speed variance, and geometry conditions. Few studies have focused on the cause of crashes at the individual vehicular level. Recently, the Minnesota Traffic Observatory at the University of Minnesota developed a set of vehicle trajectory data containing five actual rear-end crashes. This article analyzes these data and attempts to establish a trigger factor for preventing crashes. An inverse of time-to-collision value of 0.4 detected all five actual crashes before the collision, but with a large number of false alarms. An additional trigger factor, the deceleration rate difference between leading and following vehicles greater than 15 ft/sec2, completely eliminated those false alarms. In addition, it was found that an advanced warning intended to alert the driver offers little help in preventing the crashes. This is because a driver reaction time of about 0.57 sec is required before initiating deceleration. Thus, the deceleration rate required to avoid a crash became impractical, resulting in actual avoidance of only 20% crashes. This indicated that an automated braking system should be applied to prevent crashes or effectively mitigate the crash impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Team building has been given increasing attention and applied in diverse disciplines in recent years. The purpose of this study was to determine the multiple dimensions to the application for the effectiveness of team building in the military units such as ROTC since not many existing literature has investigated this in such an expectedly high command culture. The data suggested that participants generally rated themselves to possess the knowledge, experience, and expertise for team building. Secondly, they predominantly considered ROTC as a self-managing formal team, and that leaders basically led their team assuming the role of an educator. Thirdly, the top three selected significance of competences in team building were establishing open communication channels, setting clear, measureable goals, and making assignments clear and ensuring competence. Finally, based on the inconsistency from data, it was suggested that establishing an open communication channel can be expected to integrate and improve remarkably the effectiveness and efficiencies of team building in ROTC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although alcohol consumption is a problem on the college campus, beliefs and behaviors predictive of alcohol use are in development in children as young as third grade. Because they develop partially in response to interpretations of media messages, for which parents can have an influence, this study examined how college students' (N=300) recollections of parental reinforcement of media messages associated with alcohol-related beliefs and behaviors. Structural equation modeling showed that recalled positive mediation negatively predicted skepticism, and positively predicted desirability and expectancies. Desirability of media messages predicted more positive norms perceptions, and a lack of skepticism predicted more positive expectancies. With age of first experimentation controlled, expectancies predicted heavier current drinking behavior. Norms did not predict behavior, and positive mediation did not predict norms. The study concludes that to the extent parental communication leads adolescents to interpret media messages less skeptically, they encourage adolescents to find alcohol portrayals appealing. This in turn appears to lead toward more risky behaviors. The results suggest that college-based anti-alcohol campaigns can benefit by acknowledging the appeal of competing messages and by including parents as a campaign target.