It has been exactly one year since WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in 2020 March. The pandemic has changed the lives of many as never before. We saw a range of public health measures introduced in different parts of the World to contain the SARS-CoV-2 virus and reduce its spread. In the midst of the slowing of economic activities and reduced travel, road traffic injuries are expected to be reduced. However, much like the COVID-19, its impact on road safety is also largely unknown. The research community must rise to this challenge, ask research questions, and develop new partnerships and collaborations in the coming months.
The first step to finding answers to complex issues is to ask the relevant questions. In emerging fields like road safety, often the questions are not obvious. Researchers are relying on systematic reviews and evidence gap maps (EGM) based on formal protocols (Mohan et al., Citation2020). In this issue we present an article by Linlin Jing et al., from China, highlighting the new areas for further research. This is an important study, which aims to examine the literature gleaned from the core of the Web of Science on road traffic injuries from 1928 to 2018. The authors have applied a bibliometric framework to road traffic injury research. The findings in this interesting study point to possibilities of future research on the subject, by applying co-word analysis of road traffic injury research over a period of ninety years. This study does admit to the limitation that it has not been able to pay attention to all road traffic injury research papers. The results from this study are a good start for identifying gaps in current research, leading to new research questions; however, combining this with a formal protocol for quality control, inclusion and exclusion criteria, would pave the way for new knowledge creation required to meet the new challenges.
Pedestrian and motorcycle crashes continue to draw researchers’ attention. Monica Perkins et al., from Australia, UK and Canada have jointly sent in a pilot study on pedestrian-collisions-based in-depth interviews. Pedestrian collisions, by their very nature, are multi-factorial and as such, most research on the subject focusses on certain aspects of the event. But a broader and more comprehensive approach required the marshalling and analysis of a larger amount of detailed data, which the authors have undertaken here. The detailed interviews were made in the early post-crash period, coupled with several other relevant factors which provide a better basis for increased road safety for pedestrians.
P Seyed Alireza Samerei et al., from various universities and institutes in Iran and Australia, have made a presentation on the subject of modelling bus-pedestrian crash severity in the state of Victoria, Australia. This study examines data relating to a period of sixteen years from 2006 to 2019. By using ‘association rule discovery,’ the authors exacted valid rules leading to an increase in the probability of pedestrian fatality.
Md. Hamidur Rahman et al., from Bangladesh, have studied the factors influencing the severity of motorcycle crashes in Dhaka. The authors used a binary logistic regression model to study the crash data over a period covering the years 2006 to 2015, and came to the conclusion that eleven factors could be said to increase the probability of fatal motorcycle crashes. Based on these findings, they make several specific recommendations that would increase the safety factor on their roads.
Sivasankaran et al., from India, have analyzed the factors contributing to injury severity in single vehicle motorcycle crashes in Tamil Nadu in India. The authors examined police reported crashes for the period between 2009 and 2017. In this scrutiny of the data, they classified injury severity into three categories: fatal, serious and minor. They report that the main factors that significantly increase the probability of fatal injuries in single-vehicle motorcycle crashes are collisions with fixed objects, run-off-road crashes, age of drivers, and bad weather.
Estimating the costs of road traffic crashes over the past three decades has been attempted in many high-income countries, to guide public investment in road safety measures. The methods used and costs allocated have generated a great deal of discussion and debate, in particular, because of the difficulty of putting monetary values on pain and suffering. Jeetendra Yadav et al., from India, have made a submission on the burden of injuries in India and the expenditure on their hospitalization. The authors gathered data on the disability adjusted life years (DALYs), the out-of-pocket expenditure (OOP) and the catastrophic expenditure (CHE) of those involved in the burden of injuries. The economic burden of these injuries is a matter of grave public health concern in India. The study suggests that there should be an improvement in the public health facilities and an increase in the financial protection of the economically weaker sections of the citizenry.
Mitchel Chatukuta et al., from the UK, have made a presentation on the functioning of the motor vehicle accident fund (MVAF), a road tax levied in Namibia to help and support road traffic injury victims. The wealthy have insurance, but most people rely on the MVAF which is an efficient system effectively helping the road traffic crash victims. Analysis shows that a small surcharge on the fuel generates a steady income stream which feeds the MVAF. It is an example that other low- and middle-income countries would do well to emulate. A welcomed suggestion.
Mitchel Chatukuta et al., from the UK have made a second submission on the risk factors (injuries and fatalities) involved in road traffic accidents in Namibia. They maintain that post-crash trauma and emergency care of crash victims is very poor. They maintain that private and police vehicles are not viable alternatives to trained medics in an ambulance who can attend to the victim on an emergency basis. The groups at greatest risk were motorcyclists, pedestrians and cyclists.
Salah Taamneh et al., from Jordan, have sent in an article on building a support system for emergency response to road traffic injuries in real-time, by assembling a classifier capable of predicting the injury severity of occupants involved in crashes. This study is based on a dataset of accidents that occurred over a period of six years in Abu Dhabi in the UAE. The authors set up a neural network with a novel heuristic cost matrix to build a predictor which could overcome the problem of imbalance-severity distributions inherent in traffic crash datasets.
Eric Nimako Aidoo et al., from Ghana, in collaboration with others in Australia, have sent in an essay on the relationship between the use of seatbelts by the driver of a vehicle and the front seat passenger. It was observed that the driver’s use of the seatbelt does influence the seatbelt use by the front seat passenger. The authors used a bivariate probit analysis to arrive at the prevalence of use of seatbelt of the driver and passenger, which were 81% to 33%, respectively, despite the fact that the law in Ghana requires all vehicle occupants to use their seatbelts.
Muna Kilani et al., from Jordan and The United Arab Emirates, have made a presentation on the adoption of evidence-based child restraint systems and other car safety measures by families who attended an educational class designed to avert adverse health outcomes. The outcome of this experiment in Jordan had a positive impact in contrast to the poor response to such campaigns and earlier educational attempts.
Daniel Fitzpatrick et al., from the UK, have made a submission on the injury severity of players involved in the Paralympic Blind Association football game. Head-mounted impact sensors were placed to measure the linear acceleration and rotational velocity. There were more impacts during matches than during training. Neck muscle strength may influence the magnitude of the head impact.
Leticia Oestreich et al., from Brazil, have sent in an essay on students’ perception of safety in the school environment. Multiple-comparison-adjusted statistical tests were conducted by the authors using a fuzzy model to help identify how young people identify risk and safety issues relating to road traffic around their school environment. The differences in perception and the attitudes to safety and road traffic between the boys and the girls, are a reflection of their social differences.
We present this issue of the journal at a time of a global health emergency. While the global research efforts are directed towards answering new questions about COVID-19, road safety researchers must continue to invest in targeted research for short as well as long-term objectives.
Geetam TiwariTransportation Research and Injury Prevention Program, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India [email protected]