Biomedical subjects

P F Lourens

Publications and source records attributed to P F Lourens.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1999

Annual mileage, driving violations, and accident involvement in relation to drivers' sex, age, and level of education.

The paper presents results of some analyses on a Dutch database that contains disaggregated data on both the traffic system input variables of the driver population (characteristics of drivers, including their annual mileage) and the output variables of the driver population in terms of habitual driving behaviour (operationalised in number of fines) and accident involvement. Accidents increased as annual mileage increased. A relationship between violations and accidents turned out to exist in different classes of annual mileage. Moreover, multivariate analyses showed that--corrected for annual mileage--male and female drivers do not differ in accident involvement; younger drivers have the highest rate of accidents and level of education is not related to accident involvement.

Accidents, Traffic↗

PubMed1989

Error analysis and applications in transportation systems.

This paper presents an overview of the field of error analysis. Section 1 shows why discussions about human error are relevant for societal safety. With regard to safety research, it is important to predict abnormal events. At the machine side, reliability studies proved their value, but to predict failures in the human factor has been shown to be very difficult. Therefore, problems in how to define the notion of human error (Section 2) and how to classify different types of error (Section 3) are discussed. Some researchers started to use systematical classifications of human error types based on a recent, hierarchical model of human task performance. The outline of the model is presented. Examples of error analysis studies from the field of transportation research (Section 4) provide some basic suggestions on how to reduce error rates. Some conclusions on error control are given in Section 5. The responsibility of managers and system designers in this respect is strongly emphasized.

Accident Prevention↗

PubMed1986

Driving strategies among younger and older drivers when encountering children.

Results are presented of a study into how drivers say they behave and how they actually behave in traffic situations in which children are involved. An analysis was made of the most important types of encounters in which drivers become involved in accidents with children. On the basis of accident surveys and psychological theories on information processing, it was assessed by means of a questionnaire what knowledge drivers have concerning their own behavior in these situations, as well as their expectations about typical child behavior. Actual behavior of drivers in these situations was investigated by assessing video recordings of their behavior in driving a one hour standard track through residential areas. From the questionnaire it appeared that younger drivers reported more frequently dangerous behavior than older drivers. The recordings showed that younger drivers also behaved more dangerously during child encounters. This result could not be explained by differences in speed, but could by the fact that younger drivers detected the children less frequently than older drivers. Implications for the contents of mass media campaigns and their evaluation are discussed.

Accident Prevention↗