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This report presents a time-series analysis of changes in road safety in the U.S. from, the public-health point of view. A 50-year period is examined, from 1958 to 2008. The, emphasis is on the changes by decades in fatalities per population across different age groups., The main findings are as follows. First, from 1958 to 2008, the overall fatality rate per, population decreased by 40%. Second, the decrease in the rate was age dependent (with the, largest decreases for the youngest and the oldest, and smallest decreases for the middle-aged)., Third, the overall fatality rate increased from 1958 to 1968, but it decreased for each of the four, following decades. Fourth, the changes in the rate for each decade were age dependent. Fifth, the patterns of these age-dependent changes varied across the decades., Examples of interventions that are likely to have age-dependent effects consistent with, the obtained differential age changes in the fatality rate are discussed. However, other, interventions are also likely to have relevant age-dependent effects on the fatality rate.

This survey of the feasibility of introducing carbon capture and storage (CCS) into light vehicles, started by reviewing the level of international support for CCS in general. While there have been, encouraging signs that CCS is gaining acceptance as a means to reduce carbon emissions, the overall, outlook looks somewhat mixed. Recent developments in the US, the UK, Germany, India, and China, are discussed to obtain an indication of how likely it is that CCS technologies will gain acceptance, in each respective country., Fossil fuels continue to be a versatile means of energy storage, especially compared with, many low-emissions alternatives. This is noted because, apart from reduced fuel consumption, CCS technology is key to reducing CO2 emissions produced by the use of fossil fuels in, transportation., Primary focus in this review was placed on post-combustion-capture technologies because, these mechanisms are most easily adapted for use with the existing fleet of internal combustion, engines. Three post-combustion-capture mechanisms were described: absorption, membrane, separation, and adsorption., Considerations about the consumer’s operational costs were discussed, including storage, management of captured CO2, additional energy costs to support separation and storage, discharge procedures, and vehicle maintenance costs. Models of consumer inclination to adopt, new technologies were also reviewed. An important component of a consumer’s motivation to, adopt eco-friendly transport is perceived financial benefit. This suggests that incentives beyond, reduced emissions may be required to motivate consumer adoption of vehicle-based CCS because, the link between emissions and fuel consumption may change.

383818, "This study examined the changes from 1983 to 2008 in the percentage of persons with, a driver’s license as a function of age. The results indicate that, over the past 25 years, there, was a substantial decrease in the percentage of young people with a driver’s license, and a, substantial increase in the percentage of older people with a driver’s license. Furthermore, for, cohorts who were between 20 and 44 in 1983 (and thus between 45 and 69 in 2008), the, percentage of licensed drivers has not changed appreciably between 1983 and 2008. This, finding suggests that, for all practical purposes, all those who wanted to get a driver’s license, did so by age 20. Finally, for cohorts who were between 45 and 59 in 1983 (and thus between, 70 and 84 in 2008), this percentage dropped substantially. This finding reflects the giving up, of driver’s licenses with advanced age. The potential implications of future licensing trends on, vehicle demand, safety, and environment were briefly discussed."

The objectives of this study were (1) to estimate the effectiveness of seatbelts and driver, airbags for mitigating medium- and heavy-truck driver injuries, and (2) to discuss the, implication of these estimates with respect to truck-driving conditions in the U.S. and China., U.S. data showed that fatal or serious injuries of truck drivers are caused mainly by, rollover, collision with a light vehicle or another truck, or collision with fixed objects., Rollover crashes account for most serious injuries, and pose the highest injury risk per crash., By controlling for the difference in crash-type distributions between trucks and light vehicles, seatbelts were estimated to be about 58% effective in reducing truck-driver injuries—, comparable to the value for light vehicles. Airbags’ effectiveness was calculated to be about, 6% for unbelted truck drivers and 4% for belted truck drivers—lower than that for light, vehicles, primarily because of the higher proportion of rollover injuries sustained by truck, drivers., The main relevant difference between truck-driving conditions in the U.S. and China is, the seatbelt-use rate of truck drivers: greater than 70% in the U.S., but likely less than 10% in, China. This difference would likely reduce the true effectiveness of seatbelts. Therefore, it is, important to encourage Chinese truck drivers to wear seatbelts, because the effectiveness of, seatbelts at high use rates is much greater than that for airbags. In addition, the lower truck, traveling speeds in China would likely result in a lower percentage of truck rollover crashes, than in the U.S. Consequently, the effectiveness of both seatbelts and airbags in reducing truck, driver injuries may be slightly higher in China than in the U.S.

Performing Organization Code 383818, "This report presents information about the effects of decisions that a driver can make to, influence on-road fuel economy of light-duty vehicles. These include strategic decisions, (vehicle selection and maintenance), tactical decisions (route selection and vehicle load), and, operational decisions (driver behavior)., The results indicate that vehicle selection has by far the most dominant effect: The best, vehicle currently available for sale in the U.S. is nine times more fuel efficient than the worst, vehicle. Nevertheless, the remaining factors that a driver has control over can contribute, in, total, to about a 45% reduction in the on-road fuel economy per driver—a magnitude well, worth emphasizing. Furthermore, increased efforts should also be directed at increasing, vehicle occupancy, which has dropped by 30% from 1960. That drop, by itself, increased the, energy intensity of driving per occupant by about 30%."

This study examined the relationship between GDP and vehicle sales in 48 developed and, developing countries during the years 2005 through 2011. The countries examined were, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech, Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, the United, Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The annual vehicle sales in the, individual countries ranged from about 16 thousand to about 18.5 million. The annual GDP, values for the individual countries ranged from about 23 billion to about 11.7 trillion constant, 2000 US$., The main result is that the logarithm of GDP is a strong linear predictor of the logarithm of, vehicle sales. This relationship held both for the seven years combined and for each individual, year during these seven years—a period that included both general economic prosperity and, economic downturn., Using the obtained regression equations, average vehicle sales per GDP value were, calculated for the 48 countries for each of the eight time periods of interest. For the combined, years 2005 through 2011, this turned out to be 1,869 vehicles per 1 billion constant 2000 US$.

The changes taking place in the global automotive industry related to alternative, powertrains and fuels are affecting each country or region differently. Each country or, region has its own policies in place to monitor and manage vehicle fuel consumption and, emissions. Countries or regions also have different numbers of new vehicles sold annually, and the total numbers of vehicles in their fleets. This analysis looks at the current and, future direction of alternative powertrains/fuels across four developed economies (United, States, Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea) and four developing economies (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) in order to measure the impact of increasing the number of, alternative powertrains/fuels in their fleets. In particular, the analysis looks at the how, much of each country’s fleet will turn over to vehicles based only on alternative, powertrains/fuels by 2050 by introducing three different alternative powertrain/fuel models, (less aggressive, moderately aggressive, and very aggressive). A less aggressive approach, will yield fleet turnover rates of 60 percent or more for most countries, a moderately, aggressive approach will yield fleet turnover rates of over 80 percent for most countries, and a very aggressive approach will yield fleet turnover rates of nearly 90 percent or more, for most countries.

This study examined gender effects in six geometric scenarios of two-vehicle crashes in, which an involved driver could potentially ascertain the gender of the other driver prior to the, crash. The actual frequencies of different combinations of the involved male and female, drivers in these crash scenarios were compared to the expected frequencies if there were no, gender interactions. The expected frequencies were based on annual distance driven for, personal travel by male and female drivers., The results indicate that in certain crash scenarios, male-to-male crashes tend to be underrepresented, and female-to-female crashes tend to be over-represented. This pattern of results, could be due to either differential gender exposure to the different scenarios, differential gender, capabilities to handle specific scenarios, or differential expectations of actions by other drivers, based on their gender. The current lack of information on gender exposure in different, scenarios, scenario-specific driver skills, and driver expectations based on other drivers’ gender, prevents ruling out any of these possible explanations.

This study examined interactions of environmental and safety measures for road, transportation. The results showed that a vast majority of the examined measures support, both policy objectives and thereby contribute effectively to sustainable transportation., However, there were also measures with conflicting effects, although the number of those, measures was limited. In addition, there were a number of measures with no interaction., Furthermore, many potential effects were not documented and therefore in many instances, only likely effects were noted., There are two practical implications of this study. First, those measures that result in, double benefits should be encouraged to be implemented. Second, in case of conflicting, measures, the specific implementations should attempt to minimize the negative effects.

From 2005 to 2009, U.S. road fatalities dropped by 22% (from 43,510 to 33,963)., A reduction of such magnitude over such a short time has not occurred since road-safety, statistics were first kept (starting in 1913), except for the reductions during World War II., The present study was performed to contribute to our understanding about the, mechanisms that could be responsible for this unprecedented drop in road fatalities by, analyzing the detailed information from FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting System)—a, census of all U.S. crashes that involve a fatality. Specifically, this study compared the data, for 2005 (the recent peak year in terms of road fatalities) with the data for 2008 (the latest, year for which detailed data are available). The focus was on identifying those conditions, that showed the largest reductions and those that showed the smallest reductions (or, increases of any magnitude). The analysis involved an examination of all 269 variables in, the FARS database, which is divided into accident, vehicle, driver, occupant, and, nonmotorist subsets. The report highlights the most interesting patterns of changes for 19, variables.

Performing Organization Code 383818, "The age distribution of drivers has major implications for vehicle demand, transportation, safety, and environmental consequences of personal transportation. This study examined the, recent changes in the percentage of persons with a driver’s license in 15 countries as a function, of age. The countries included were Canada, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Japan, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the, U.S.A. The results indicate two patterns of change over time. In one pattern (observed for, eight countries), there was a decrease in the percentage of young people with a driver’s license, and an increase in the percentage of older people with a driver’s license. In the other pattern, (observed for the other seven countries), there was an increase in the percentage of people with, a driver’s license in all age categories., A regression analysis was performed on the data for young drivers in the 15 countries to, explore the relationship between licensing and a variety of societal parameters. Of particular, note was the finding that a higher proportion of internet users was associated with a lower, licensure rate. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that access to virtual contact, reduces the need for actual contact among young people."

This report reviews the status of truck safety in four countries, Australia, Brazil, China, and the United States. The report describes the role of road freight transportation in each, country; characterizes the current level of safety; and identifies the primary safety problems, related to trucks within each country., Vehicle populations in Australia and the US are currently relatively similar, but both, China and Brazil have a much higher reliance on motorcycles and nonmotorized transportation., Truck crash rates also vary among the countries, higher in Brazil and China, lower in the US, and Australia. Primary safety issues in China and Brazil are interactions with two-wheeled, vehicles and nonmotorists. Interactions with passenger cars and other light-duty vehicles are a, greater issue in Australia and the US. Common issues include driver fatigue and hours of, service, vehicle condition, and issues related to truck size and weight. Crash and vehicle, population data available for this study varied widely in accessibility, comprehensiveness, and, detail. Improved crash data are particularly important issues in China and Brazil.