Traffic safety culture and prosocial driver behavior for safer vehicle-bicyclist interactions.

INTRODUCTION: Bicyclist safety is a growing concern as more adults use this form of transportation for recreation, exercise, and mobility. Most bicyclist fatalities result from a crash with a vehicle. Often, the behaviors of the driver are responsible for the crash. METHOD: This survey study of Montana and North Dakota residents (n = 938) examined the influence of traffic safety culture on driver behaviors that affect safe interactions with bicyclists. RESULTS: Prosocial driver behavior was most common and appeared to be intentional. Intention was increased by positive attitudes, normative perceptions, and perceived control. However, normative perceptions appear to offer the most opportunity for change. Practical Application: Strategies that increase perceptions that prosocial driver behavior is normal may increase prosocial intentions, thereby increasing bicyclist safety.

Periodontal disease and leucopenia.

Periodontal disease is rare in nature but widespread in domestic dog and cat populations. Unnatural diets are known to facilitate the buildup of oral microbial communities which then interact with host-immune defences giving rise to periodontitis. Eight of 14 animals undergoing dental treatment and dietary change at a suburban veterinary practice were investigated and found to have low leucocyte counts. Follow-up testing revealed changes averaging a 77.7 per cent increase with concomitant 'subjective good health'. These findings serve to cast doubt on the commonly used haematological reference ranges where the subject animals may have suffered from periodontal disease. The demonstrated reversibility of white cell depression associated with periodontal disease should provide a focus for further research.

Cybernetic hypothesis of periodontal disease in mammalian carnivores.

Factors known to govern the pathogenesis of periodontal disease of carnivores are reinterpreted from an ecological perspective. A cybernetic hypothesis is generated which predicts and explains population control mechanisms. Sensitivity to prevailing conditions and the ability to exert a powerful influence upon those conditions is central to the hypothesis. Natural and domestic situations are contrasted with demonstration of a range of immune-mediated conditions arising from a permanent septic focus in the mouths of domestic cats and dogs. The hypothesis is expected to withstand critical scrutiny. In which case a new theory at the heart of a new paradigm will set the future course.