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Heavy trucks largely contribute to road fatalities and injuries with most of the severely injured and killed being road users other than heavy truck occupants. Research has shown that the causes of truck crashes have economic roots, including high levels of competition creating economic pressure that could increase the likelihood of carriers reducing safety investments and adopting payment practices that encourage truck drivers to drive faster and longer than legally required. With a large body of research on safety policies and payment practices in the heavy trucking industry, there is a strong need to comprehensively understand the relationships between economic pressure in terms of truck company financial performance and driver compensation, and safety outcomes and the factors influencing the relationships. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature to address this important gap in the literature. The review identified 43 English-language articles published between 1988 and 2024. There is a general consensus in these articles that paying truck drivers based on the amount of work performed is associated with poorer safety outcomes than paying them based on the amount of time worked. In contrast, higher pay levels and payments for non-driving tasks positively influence safety outcomes. Regarding truck company financial performance, most of the studies reported a positive influence on safety outcomes. This review highlights the strengths and limitations of the methodologies of existing studies and proposes areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E-scooters are quite popular among young people in big cities. Their use seems to be a well-studied phenomenon. This study concentrates on the risky behaviour of e-scooter riders and on e-scooter riders' and non-riders' attitudes towards risky e-scooter riding. The goals were to describe these attitudes and to describe the most common types of risky e-scooter behaviours in five participating countries. An online questionnaire was developed and distributed in Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Norway from June to September 2020. Respondents were recruited through sponsored Facebook ads and participant sharing (snowball sampling). The riders in the countries considered in this study tend to perceive e-scooters as being quite safe. The majority of them even think e-scooters pose no danger to other road users. On the other hand, the non-riders believe riding an e-scooter is rather unsafe, with the exception of Belgium, where the respondents tend to think that it is very unsafe. When risky behaviour is considered, the non-riders tend to report more risky behaviour than e-scooter riders, even though fact-based observable behaviour, e.g. helmet use, should in principle be the same across both groups. In addition, as the existing literature shows, evidence suggests that young riders and male riders engage in more risky riding behaviours in comparison to older and female riders. This phenomenon should be addressed by effective preventive programmers and campaigns. The data shows that a greater frequency of riding predicted more risky riding behaviours. Although there are some differences between the samples under study, these findings can inspire police officers to promote e-scooter safety behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Head injuries resulting from e-scooter use have led to calls for helmet use to be promoted or mandatory. Helmet use is mandatory for e-scooters in Australia but observational studies have reported significant levels of nonuse, particularly by riders of shared e-scooters. The aim of this study is to understand whether nonuse in the mandatory context is a consistent behavior for an individual or is situationally-influenced, and what are the factors associated with nonuse. An online survey was completed between 2022 and 2023 by 360 adult e-scooter riders in Canberra, Australia. Riders were asked whether they had worn a helmet on their last ride and how often they had not worn a helmet when riding in the last 30 days. The survey also asked about rider characteristics (demographics, frequency of e-scooter and bicycle use, perceived risk of e-scooter use, e-scooter ownership, and risky behaviors while riding), trip duration and perceptions of the helmet requirement (knowledge of and support for the law). Respondents were mostly male, young, highly educated, and full-time workers. Of the 29.1% of riders who reported riding without a helmet in the last 30 days, 24.4% had worn a helmet at least once during that period and 4.8% had consistently not worn a helmet. Younger age, shared e-scooter use and more frequent riding frequency (shared e-scooters only) were associated with helmet nonuse in the bivariate analyses but not in the logistic regression. Logistic regression showed that the independent predictors of helmet nonuse were the number of risky riding behaviors, lack of knowledge, and lack of support for the law. Most nonuse of helmets in a mandatory context seems to be situational, rather than consistent. Many of the factors associated with nonuse of helmets for e-scooters are similar to those reported for bicycles. Nonuse of helmets appears to be one of a number of risky behaviors performed by riders, rather than being primarily an outcome that is specific to factors associated with helmets (e.g., concerns about hygiene, discomfort or availability). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]