Key factors associated with Australian parents’ willingness to use an automated vehicle to transport their unaccompanied children

This study aimed to identify the key factors associated with Australian parents' willingness to use an automated vehicle to transport their unaccompanied child(ren). Seven hundred and seventy-five participants completed the online survey (M = 40.7 years, SD = 8.9 years, Range = 18.0–65.0 years; Female: 56.4%). Most participants reported that they would 'never' use an automated vehicle to transport their unaccompanied child(ren) (43.5%). The results of a logistic regression model showed that participants' age, gender, level of education, propensity for technology adoption, aberrant driving behaviours, awareness of advanced driver assistance safety (ADAS) technologies, perceived knowledge regarding automated vehicles, as well their requirements for assurance-related vehicle features were significantly associated with their willingness to use an automated vehicle to transport their unaccompanied child(ren), χ2(12) = 137.41, p < 0.001). Overall, the findings suggest that Australian parents are mostly unwilling to use an automated vehicle to transport their unaccompanied child(ren) unless various reassurance features and technologies (i.e., microphones, camera, ability to summon assistance if the vehicle breaks down) are embedded in the vehicle. Therefore, automated vehicle manufacturers are encouraged to consider these requirements when prototyping their designs so that all user groups, including child occupants, can benefit from the impending arrival of automated technologies.     

The tendency of drivers to pass other vehicles

The purpose of this study was to assess the speed differential threshold—if there is one—at which drivers decide to pass a lead vehicle. Drivers in a simulator encountered vehicles in front that were programmed to travel at speeds that were similar, slightly below, or even slightly above the drivers’ own speed. The study involved a total of 152 such passing opportunities. In almost all of the encounters with slower vehicles (traveling at speeds slower than 3 km/h of the driver) they passed them, and in two thirds of the encounters when the lead vehicles were moving at their speed they passed them too. Most surprising was that in 50% of the encounters drivers passed the lead vehicle when it was traveling faster than their average speed. In these situations drivers actually increased their own speed substantially to accomplish the passing maneuver, despite the fact that not passing the lead vehicle would not have caused any delays. The tendency to pass appears to be related to the drivers’ own speed variability: the more variable the driver’s speed the more likely he or she was to pass the vehicle ahead even when its speed was greater than their average speed. The results are interpreted in terms of (a) driver aggression, and (b) association of car following with added effort, attention overload, or risk. The latter explanation implies that the tendency to pass vehicles may be reduced with the introduction of in-vehicle technologies such as adaptive cruise control.     

How fast would you (or should you) drive here? Investigation of relationships between official speed limit,perceived speed limit,and preferred speed

Speed is a critical risk factor, which makes its management the central point of the Vision Zero approach. Driving speed is influenced by speed choice, and in turn by the perception of the road parameters, as well as by the characteristics of drivers. Credible speed limits and self-explaining roads have been suggested as promising countermeasures; however, these rather theoretical concepts have only rarely been operationalized and quantified.The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between speed indicators (official speed limit, perceived speed limit, preferred speed), as well as their differences, and to determine which road and personality characteristics influence them. Compared to previous studies, we introduced several innovative features, including a richer personality dataset based on three different questionnaires, a focus on all three types of roads (urban, rural, transition), and representative data on observed speeds.Using statistical models of the speed indicators, we found that both speed limit belief and speed choice, as well as their differences, are often influenced by the same characteristics. These are mainly more generous road design (higher road class, higher speed limit, and wider road) and the presence of additional elements (vegetation, pavements, and pedestrian crossings). These characteristics may help improve the credibility of speed limits and self-explaining performance.     

国外本土心理学研究进展

首先指出本土心理学产生的思想基础是后现代主义思潮和多元文化的理念,其直接的推动力是来自于心理学内部对严格的行为主义的局限的批判和对具有文化契合性的心理学的倡导以及心理学应用方面的需要;其次,阐明了本土心理学与心理学本土化涵义上的区别和本土心理学4种主要研究模式;最后,对本土心理学的积极作用和存在的问题进行了评述。.     

Using naturalistic data to assess e-cyclist behavior

In Europe, the use of electric bicycles is rapidly increasing. This trend raises important safety concerns: Is their use compatible with existing infrastructure and regulations? Do they present novel safety issues? How do they impact other traffic? This study sought to address these concerns, using instrumented electric bicycles to monitor e-cyclists’ behavior in a naturalistic fashion. Data was collected from 12 bicyclists, each of whom rode an instrumented bicycle for two weeks. In total, 1500 km worth of data were collected, including 88 critical events (crashes and near-crashes). Analysis of these critical events identified pedestrians, light vehicles and other bicycles as main threats to a safe ride. Other factors also contributed to crash causation, such as being in proximity to a crossing or encountering a vehicle parked in the bicycle lane. A comparison between electric and traditional bicycles was enabled by the availability of data from a previous study a year earlier, which collected naturalistic cycling data from traditional bicycles using the same instrumentation as in this study. Electric bicycles were found to be ridden faster, on average, than traditional bicycles, in addition to interacting differently with other road users. The results presented in this study also suggest that countermeasures to bicycle crashes should be different for electric and traditional bicycles. Finally, increasing electric bicycle conspicuity appears to be the easiest, most obvious way to increase their safety.     

Some Selected Internet Resources for Novice Researchers of Christian History

SUMMARY

This article attempts to assist novice researchers of Christian history explore the Internet. It contains a helpful starting point and key Web resources for the study of Christian history, with a primary focus on English language and Protestant information.     

Factors affecting motorcyclists’ behavior in car-following condition

Car-following (CF) maneuver plays an important role in both traffic flow analysis and road safety assessment. However, many studies on this issue have focused on the drivers’ behaviour, neglecting the different driving behaviour of the motorcycle riders and the vulnerability of this type of user. The aim of the present paper is to analyse the factors affecting the riders’ behaviour in CF condition, by using two surrogate safety indicators, Time Headway (TH) and Time To Collision (TTC). A field experiment was conducted to collect data. Twenty young motorcyclists participated in the study driving their own motorcycles, which were instrumented with a camera and a global positioning system device (GPS). A digital image processing algorithm was used to obtain CF related indicators. The results of the study showed that Time Headway (TH) and Time To Collision (TTC) are independent of each other, extending the result obtained in the literature for the four wheeled vehicles to the motorcycles. TTC and TH were therefore analyzed separately. As for TTC, it was observed that only in few cases (0.8%) the riders were found in risky condition (TTC < 5 s), confirming the role of this parameter for the detection of an impending risk. On the other hand, TH gives information about a potentially risky situation, and 99% of the riders were found in such condition (TH < 2 s). Due to the few cases in TTC risky conditions, only TH was further modelled by using the hazard-based duration analysis. Accelerated Failure Time (AFT) model specification was used, and the Weibull distribution provided the best fit of the data. The model identified four covariates affecting TH and all of them had the effect of reducing TH, increasing the collision risk. The time spent on CF condition, the speed of the motorcycle, the willingness of overtaking and the engine size of the motorcycle were the factors that reduced TH.The findings of this study could be considered in the development of microsimulation models; the factors that were found affecting the motorcyclists’ behavior in car-following condition could be considered for a more realistic simulation of the riders’ choice of Time Headway.     

Is there space for time in social psychology publications? A content analysis across five journals

To what extent can social psychology study individuals within social contexts without strengthening theories and methods appropriate for the analysis of individual development within changing societies? Theoretical and epistemological arguments stressing the centrality of a temporal dimension are reviewed. In order to generate an objective picture of the current research practices, a standardized content analysis was carried out on 699 empirical studies published around 2000 in the European Journal of Social Psychology (EJSP), the British Journal of Social Psychology (BJSP), the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP), the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology (JCASP) and Social Psychology Quarterly (SPQ). This corpus was completed by a four‐point longitudinal analysis—1972/1986/1993/2000—of BJSP, EJSP and JPSP publications. Findings reveal that most empirical studies are carried out on student samples and do not include time‐ or age‐related explanatory variables, particularly in European mainstream publications. Structural analyses taking into account research methods, research topics, journals, and countries of the first authors suggest two oppositions that organize the field of research: a laboratory versus contextualized approach and a developmental versus monographic approach of social psychology. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Eyes on the road,hands upon the wheel? Reciprocal dynamics between smartphone use while driving and job crafting

Smartphones are essential tools for communications and information management in organizational settings. However, smartphone use is a risky behavior when used while driving to and from work. As work experiences have been found to influence risky commuting behaviors, we hypothesized that job crafting, i.e., a set of proactive work behaviors through which employees change their job demands and resources, influences and is influenced by risky commuting behaviors. We argued that employees' smartphone use during driving commutes is related to how employees proactively choose to transform their demands and resources at work. A quantitative diary study was designed to investigate the process linking smartphone use during driving commutes to and from work and job crafting. A sample of 128 office employees completed two short daily questionnaires for five consecutive workdays (N = 627 observations). Results from multilevel analyses showed that daily talking on the phone while driving to work was positively associated with the proactive optimization of job demands, while daily proactive pursuing of challenging stimuli at work (i.e., seeking challenges) was positively related to looking at the phone when employees drove back from work. Furthermore, on days when employees reduced their hindering job demands, they reported less frequent talking on the phone while driving back from work. Results provide practical implications for the prevention of distracted driving and other risky driving behaviors.     

“Pédaler en toute sécurité”: The Cycling Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ) in Belgium – A validation study

Introduction: During the last few years, the use of behavioral questionnaires for assessing risky behaviors of road users different from motor-vehicle drivers has grown considerably in applied research for road safety. In this regard, recent tools such as the Cycling Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ) are gaining ground, being adapted and tested in further languages, thus getting useful to address the case of countries whose language is different to the English and Spanish. Therefore, and in order to extend the use of the CBQ, this study aimed (i) to develop the validation of the CBQ to the French and Dutch languages, in order to cover the population of Belgian cyclists and (potentially) other countries speaking these languages, as well as (ii) to explore demographic and cycling-related differences in cycling behaviors. Methods: For this cross-sectional study, data was collected from a full sample of 1,897 adult cyclists (50.9% males; 48.7% females; 0.4% others) from various regions of Belgium, with a mean age of 41.71 years. Results: The results suggest the CBQ, in its French and Dutch versions, has a strong factor composition, fair psychometrical properties and good convergent validity. Further, gender and cycling pattern-related differences were found in regard to the three dimensions measured by the scale. Conclusion: The results of this study support the value of the Cycling Behavior Questionnaire to be used for researchers studying road cyclists’ behavior from the human factors perspective in French and Dutch-speaking countries.     

Unsafety on two wheels,or social prejudice? Proxying behavioral reports on bicycle and e-scooter riding safety – A mixed-methods study

The use of non-motorized transportation and micro-mobility is increasing in many cities. Bicycle riding and e-scooter use are now more common and affordable than ever. However, users of these devices face certain key issues. These include their own risky behaviors as well as involvement in conflicts with other road users. Self-report data may not adequately capture these behaviors and interactions. Despite this, more objective data (i.e., how third parties perceive these users’ road behaviors) is scarce. Aims: This study aimed to understand whether e-scooter riders have comparable or different riding behaviors than cyclists. This was investigated using a mixed-method study. Methods: This paper is divided into two sub-studies. In Study 1, 950 Spanish non-cyclists and non-e-scooter riders (mean age 31.98 ± 13.27 years; 55.3% female) provided external ratings (proxies) regarding the perceived behaviors of bicycle and e-scooter riders. In Study 2, collective Rapid Assessment Processes (RAPs; n = 23) were used to develop qualitative configurations of some of the key risky behaviors highlighted in Study 1. Results: There were significant differences in the perceived errors and violations rated by proxies for both types of riders (with e-scooter riders perceived as having higher rates of risky behaviors). However, there were also structural differences in the effects of external raters’ risk perceptions, traffic rule knowledge, and traffic incidents with two-wheeled riders on how they rated the behaviors. Conclusion: The results of both studies suggest that external raters’ perceptions provide further understanding of the causes, dynamics, and conflicts related to road behaviors performed by certain groups of road users. This is particularly apparent when there is no clear legislation and information on safe riding in urban areas. In this sense, improving infrastructure could promote safer interactions. Finally, road safety education could focus on promoting safer practices and interactions in order to improve how others perceive riders’ behavior.