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Introduction: In mid-2007 the State of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia introduced modifications to the existing graduated driver licensing system, lengthening the mandatory number of supervised hours for learner drivers aged under 25 years from 50 to 120 and extending the minimum learner period from 6 to 12 months. Additional driving restrictions were also introduced for young drivers in the two provisional licensed periods, P1, P2. This paper aims to evaluate this change by comparing the crash and offense experiences of young learner drivers before and after it occurred., Method: From driver licensing files supplied by the NSW transport authority two cohorts of persons obtaining their initial learner's permits in the year prior to the changes and in the subsequent year were constructed with demographic data, dates of transition to the driving phases, dates of crashes, and dates and types of traffic offenses. Both cohorts comprised around 100,000 individuals. Crash rates per 100 years of person-time under observation post P1 with their standard errors were calculated. Using a survival-analytic approach the proportion of crashes of all types were graphed in three month periods post P1. Sexes were treated separately as were initial learner ages of 16, 17, 18-21, and 22-24 years. The distribution of traffic offense types during P1 and P2 phases were also compared. With such large numbers formal statistical testing was avoided., Results: No meaningful differences in the crash or offense experiences of the two cohorts in either sex or at any age were observed. Delaying progress to unsupervised driving has road safety benefits., Conclusions: At least in conditions similar to those in NSW, requiring more than 50 h of supervised driving seems to have few road safety benefits. Practical applications: Licensing authorities should be cautious in extending the mandated number of supervised driving hours beyond 50., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd and National Safety Council. All rights reserved.)

Motorists whose journey has been interrupted by signalized traffic intersections in school zones resume their journey at a faster vehicle speed than motorists who have not been required to stop. Introducing a flashing "check speed" sign 70m after the traffic intersections counteracts this interruptive effect. The present study examined which aspects of a reminder sign are responsible for reducing the speeding behavior of interrupted motorists. When a sign that combines both written text and flashing lights was introduced, interrupted motorists did not speed, traveling on average 0.82km/h below the 40km/h speed limit when measured 100m from traffic intersections. Alternatively, when only the flashing lights were visible the interrupted motorists sped 3.36km/h over the 40km/h speed limit. Similar vehicular speeds were observed when only the written text was visible and when no sign was present (7.67 and 7.49km/h over the 40km/h speed limit, respectively). This indicates that static reminder signs add little value over the absence of a school zone reminder sign; the presence of both cues is necessary to fully offset the interruptive effect. This study also highlights the benefit of using exogenous visual cues in traffic signs to capture drivers' attention. These findings have practical implications for the design and use of traffic signs to increase compliance with posted speed limits., (Crown Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Inappropriate speed is a causal factor in around one third of fatal accidents (OECD/ECMT, 2006). But are drivers always consciously responsible for their speeding behavior? Two studies are reported which show that an interruption to a journey, caused by stopping at a red traffic light, can result in failure to resume the speed of travel prior to the interruption (Study 1). In Study 2 we showed that the addition of a reminder cue could offset this interruption. These studies were conducted in a number of Australian school zone sites subject to a 40 km/h speed limit, requiring a reduction of between 20 km/h and 40 km/h. Motorists who had stopped at a red traffic signal sped on average, 8.27 km/h over the speed limit compared with only 1.76 km/h over the limit for those who had not been required to stop. In the second study a flashing "check speed" reminder cue, placed 70 m after the traffic lights, in the same school zones as those in Study 1 eliminated the interruptive effect of stopping with drivers resuming their journey at the legal speed. These findings have practical implications for the design of road environments, enforcement of speed limits, and the safety of pedestrians., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.)

Normal saline-injected rats were tested repeatedly on a standard catalepsy test. With repeated testing the animals showed a progressive increase in their catalepsy scores. It is suggested that this behaviour may be a form of tonic immobility and should be controlled for in catalepsy experiments.

Chickens that had received bilateral injections of cycloheximide or glutamate into the forebrain on day 2 of life and tested 4 weeks later showed no deficit in acquisition, performance or extinction of continuously reinforced appetitive key-pecking as compared to control birds injected with saline. However, chickens that had received injections of cycloheximide and were subsequently tested in an open-field apparatus took longer to leave the first square, defaecated more, and pecked, preened and moved about less than controls. They also showed longer durations of tonic immobility. Those injected with glutamate inhibited similar behaviour but were not significantly different from controls in the open field latency to leave the first square, defaecation, or tonic immobility tests. The above treatments have previously been described as producing permanent slowed learning in chickens on a pebble-floor task. Our results suggest that learning mechanisms may not be disrupted as shown by normal performance in a simple operant task but that enhanced emotionality or fear of novelty as revealed in the open field tests may interfere with the expression of learning behaviour in some situations.