The real reason Jaywalking is a Crime (Adam ruins everything)

“Jaywalking”: how the auto industry banned crossing the street.

Burden of road traffic accidents in the Greater Maghreb (1990-2017).

OBJECTIVE: To study the burden of Road Traffic Accidents (RTA) in the Maghreb and its evolution during the period 1990 to 2017. METHODS: We described the RTA in the Maghreb region, while analyzing database provided by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) for the period1990-2017. RESULTS: The age-standardized incidence rate of RTA has decreased overall across the Maghreb; it went from 719.57/100000 inhabitants in 1990 to 609.49 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017. In 2017, the highest mortality rate in the region was noted in Tunisia and it was 30.15 / 100,000 inhabitants (CI95% = 24.05-37.08). The highest and lowest standardized rates for disability adjusted life years or DALYs were observed respectively in Tunisia: 1,311.56 per 100,000 inhabitants (CI95%=1,065.28-1588.68) and in Algeria: 962.68 per 100,000 inhabitants (CI95%=789.50- 1460.12). CONCLUSION: The burden of disease from road accidents is high in the Maghreb countries and the downward trend in the incidence of these accidents is relatively low. These results should encourage decision-makers to elaborate an integrated and multisectorial strategy to improve the situation.

What can we learn from the historic road safety performance of high-income countries?

Road traffic deaths in high-income countries (HICs) have been steadily declining for five decades, but are rising or stable in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We use time-series cross-sectional methods to assess how age- and sex- specific death rates evolved in 20 HICs during 1955-2015, controlling for income, population density and urbanization. Past work has attributed improvements in safety in HICs to income growth, suggesting that countries intervene when they become richer (Kuznets hypothesis). In contrast, we show that HICs had statistically significant declines in road traffic injuries starting in the late 1960s that persist after controlling for income effects, and inclusion of a lagged dependent variable. These findings are consistent for all age-sex groups but the effects are strongest for the elderly and young children. We argue that the reversal in the traffic injury trend did not occur because HICs reached an income threshold. Instead, the 1960s were a period of paradigmatic change in thinking about road safety. Subsequent, safety improvements occurred because countries at different income levels established regulatory institutions that had a legislative mandate and financial resources to conduct large-scale safety interventions.

Preventing motor vehicle crash injuries and deaths: science vs. folklore lessons from history.

Not long after the beginnings of motorization in the early 1900s, deaths and injuries from motor vehicle crashes became a problem in a number of high-income-countries (HIC)s, especially the United States. With the biggest problem the US led early efforts to address this issue, and for six decades these efforts were based on folklore (ie a body of widely held but false or unsubstantiated beliefs). They were not evaluated, but clearly were unsuccessful as crash deaths and injuries continued to rise. It was not until the 1970s that a broader range of countermeasures began to be adopted and was scientifically evaluated, and as a result, crash deaths and injuries declined. This history has important lessons today for many low-and-middle-income countries that have growing numbers of motor vehicle crash deaths and injuries, many of which are pedestrians and motorcyclists. This is because there continue to be advocates for many of the failed approaches (especially educational) that dominated the early efforts in HICs.

Vías cruzadas para la psicologización del trauma en los saberes médicos de fin del siglo XIX / Crossing paths for psychologizing of trauma in medical knowledge by the end of the nineteenth century

En el presente artículo, procuraremos indagar tres vías que contribuyeron, de distinta manera, al proceso de "psicologización" del trauma. En primer lugar, la obra del cirujano Erichsen (1866), quien pretendió explicar ciertos casos de accidentados ferroviarios (ubicados en una zona gris entre la lesión comprobable y la simulación) con el marco de la anatomía patológica. En segundo lugar, la refutación de Page (1883), quien desde una perspectiva fisiológica intentó interpretar ese territorio dudoso de la clínica como la consecuencia de un shock general nervioso, producido por la acción de una emoción capaz de alterar la función sin lesionar el tejido. Finalmente, las lecciones de Charcot de 1885, dedicadas a la histeria traumática, volvieron pensable el papel que las emociones y las ideas podían tener en las situaciones traumáticas que generaban los síntomas, tomando como modelo el mecanismo de acción de la hipnosis y de la sugestión en el sistema nervioso. En el recorrido, procuraremos fundamentar que las transformaciones de la noción de trauma e, incluso, lo que cada autor podía observar y pensar, dependieron principalmente de los marcos conceptuales a partir de los cuales se abordó la experiencia clínica

In this article, we will try to investigate three different ways which contributed to the process of "psychologizing" of trauma. First, Erichsen's work (1866), a surgeon who explained certain cases of railway accident victims (which were located in a great field between the provable injury and simulation) with the framework of the pathological anatomy. Second, the physiological perspective of Page (1883), who tried to interpret that dubious territory of the clinic as a result of a Nervous Shock produced by an emotion that can alter the function without damaging the tissue. Finally, the lessons of Charcot in 1885, dedicated to traumatic hysteria, became plausible the idea that emotions and ideas could be traumatic by themselves, idea that was modeled on the action of hypnosis and suggestion in the nervous system. Throughout the text, we will try to justify that the transformations of the notion of trauma (and what each author could observe and think) depend on conceptual frameworks from which clinical experience was discussed

Global road fatality trends' estimations based on country-wise micro level data.

The global road crash deaths during the past 35 years are estimated and analysed considering micro-level data for 215 countries. The data were gathered from Governmental records, international databases, and personal contacts. The data are adjusted for underreporting, death definition differences and missing data. The study models both reported and adjusted death to forecast future crash trends for each continent. The developed models employed curve fitting regression technique. It took over five years to build-up the database. The global sum of crash deaths showed firm increasing trends between 1980 and 2008. Subsequently, the global deaths tend to slow down. The adjusted death during 2014 ranged between 792,000 and 905,000. The high range showed 40% lesser death than World Health Organization (WHO) estimate. The developed models presented a plateauing transition stage of global road deaths before descending. This is contradicting WHO and The World Bank (TWB) forecasts. The global adjusted death for 2020 and 2030, differed substantially from WHO and TWB forecasts. The results showed inconsistencies in road deaths between various WHO sectors. The trend of crash fatalities in Asia followed closely with that for global trend, and that in Africa it showed fluctuated trend with steep increasing tendency after 1999. In South America, it showed continuous ascending trends, and that in Europe and Oceanic countries showed clear descending patterns. The trend in North and Central America did not change much during the period between 1980 and 2007. While the developed models indicated drops of 33% in North and Central America, 18% in Oceania and 13% in Asia by 2025 compared with 2014, they increase by over 44% in Africa and 32% in South America. The poor safety records in several continents, require careful reading, proper interpretation of the results and extensive research.

Frida Kahlo: Portrait of Chronic Pain.

The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. Although famous for her colorful self-portraits and associations with celebrities Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky, less known is the fact that she had lifelong chronic pain. Frida Kahlo developed poliomyelitis at age 6 years, was in a horrific trolley car accident in her teens, and would eventually endure numerous failed spinal surgeries and, ultimately, limb amputation. She endured several physical, emotional, and psychological traumas in her lifetime, yet through her art, she was able to transcend a life of pain and disability. Of her work, her self-portraits are conspicuous in their capacity to convey her life experience, much of which was imbued with chronic pain. Signs and symptoms of chronic neuropathic pain and central sensitization of nociceptive pathways are evident when analyzing her paintings and medical history. This article uses a narrative approach to describe how events in the life of this artist contributed to her chronic pain. The purpose of this article is to discuss Frida Kahlo's medical history and her art from a modern pain sciences perspective, and perhaps to increase our understanding of the pain experience from the patient's perspective.

Fifty Years of Modern EMS: Looking Back at the Paper That Started It All: Accidental Death and Disability still greatly influences EMS today.

For the most part EMS, despite all of its challenges, has kept up with the needs of its communities and adapted to its role as a de facto safety net. When the white paper was written, treatment for the injured varied radically from the state to state and city to city. While some may feel the white paper was not the impetus for all the changes outlines, it's difficult to argue these changes would have happened as quickly without such and influential document. We must keep its findings in mind to stay at the forefront of prehospital advancements, as opposed to reacting as a necessity of survival.

[A literature review on the Messerer's fracture]. / Über den Messerer-Bruch--eine Literaturstudie.

The characteristic wedge-shaped fracture was first described by Messerer (1880) and Bruns (1884) after performing experiments on long bones. Not much later, Messerer (1885) formulated the forensic significance of the direct bending fracture for the detection of the location and direction of blunt impact trauma. He developed the basic biomechanical theory of the origin of this fracture type, which is therefore called Messerer's fracture in the German-speaking world. In the following decades, the findings concerning the origin, specificity and forensic usability of Messerer's fractures were confirmed and supplemented by experiments and case studies. For forensic examinations, it is important to bear in mind that there are exceptions to the rule according to which the level of the wedge-shaped fracture corresponds exactly to the point of impact. The possibility of "false" or "reversed" wedges must also be considered. Already in the 19th century, authors had pointed out the mechanism of indirect formation of wedge-shaped bone fragments. That is why a forensic examination always has to consider the investigation results and medical findings in their entirety. Autopsy of traffic victims is of paramount importance. It must include a thorough examination of clothing, skin, soft tissues and skeletal system using special preparation techniques. The examination of bone injuries in living victims also requires special expertise. If properly applied, valuable results can be obtained by the forensic expert from the wedge-shaped fracture. Until recently, Messerer's fracture was a typical injury sustained by pedestrians hit by vehicles with protruding frontal elements. In modern car production, not only the dimensions of cars have been changed, but the front-end structures have also been modified, e. g. by integrated bumpers. These constructional changes are likely to reduce the frequency of narrow points of impact in collisions. However, further research on the frequency and significance of Messerer's fractures in road traffic accident victims is required.

Four paradigms: traffic safety in the twentieth-century United States.

Traffic safety, once neglected within the larger history of the automobile in the United States, has finally been getting the attention it always deserved. Nevertheless, historians still sometimes misappraise traffic safety in one era by the standards of another. Ahistorical assumptions have contributed to misinterpretations-for example, that Americans of the 1920s were extraordinarily tolerant of traffic casualties because they did not respond to them as more recent traffic-safety paradigms would prescribe. As a corrective, four paradigms, approximately sequential, are proposed: Safety First, Control, Crashworthiness, and Responsibility. Historians are invited to borrow, modify, or replace them, and to consider their applicability to other countries. Whether these particular paradigms survive review or not, historians who are alert to safety paradigms will produce more reliable scholarship on the history of traffic safety.

This hill is dangerous.

The introduction of cyclists' "danger boards" in the United Kingdom in the 1880s established a new form of road sign aimed at private, mechanized transport that redefined ideas of safety on the road. This article explores the implications of this for established road users. In particular it considers the transfer of responsibility for erecting signs from private clubs to the state in the context of cycling's eclipse by motoring in the early twentieth century. It uses the design development of road signs as a marker of changing power structures in road use.

"Taking the problem to the people": traffic safety from public relations to political theory, 1937-1954.

The slogan "taking the problem to the people" nicely summarizes U.S. traffic safety campaigns of the 1950s. It refers to the goal of awareness and self-discipline for drivers through education and law enforcement. A detailed analysis of the campaigns, however, shows a subtler objective of the motor interests that promoted it. They wanted to overcome political indifference through a civic mobilization of drivers as citizens, persuading drivers to lobby for traffic control. The analysis of their efforts leads us to question the role-or lack of role-of politicians in scientific and technological controversies.

Safety or efficiency?: strategies and conflicting interests in Belgian road-safety policy, 1920-1940.

After World War I, automobile ownership became a mass phenomenon in Belgium, as in most other industrialized countries. Unfortunately, road-casualty figures soon followed. By the mid-1930s, traffic accidents had become the main cause of accidental deaths. There was clearly a need for a renewed road-safety policy. Public authorities in Belgium, however, were suspiciously reluctant to take new measures. While there was a public outcry for more severe regulation of motorized traffic and several MPs backed bills to this effect, motoring associations lobbied against traffic legislation reforms. In order to understand the Belgian government's hesitation, this article looks at the key strategies of the actors involved in the decision-making process concerning traffic policy. Such strategies included, among others: the creation of detailed traffic-accident statistics, revision of traffic legislation, and support for mass traffic-education campaigns. Eventually, public officials stepped in and created a new technocratic traffic regime in the 1930s, yet their prime concern was not road-user safety, but the efficiency of traffic streams.

Delegating to the automobile: experimenting with automotive restraints in the 1970s.

This article explores the attempts in the United States in the 1970s to implement a new paradigm for automobile safety-crashworthiness, the idea that automobile passengers should be protected in the event of a crash. A large number of strategies were proposed, including air bags, seatbelt modifications, mandatory belt-use laws, and ignition interlocks. Many of these did not initially come to fruition, but they did give the automobile safety community a chance to experiment with different ways of distributing responsibilities between automobile occupants, automobile manufacturers, and, to a lesser extent, government agencies. These experiments helped pave the way for the successful implementation of a number of new strategies in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.

Arrive alive: road safety in Kenya and South Africa.

This article is among the first historical considerations of road safety in Africa. It argues that race and class, as colonial dualisms, analytically frame two defining moments in the development of African automobility and its infrastructure-"Africanization" in the first decade of Kenya's political independence from Britain, 1963-75, and democratization in postapartheid South Africa. We argue that recent road safety interventions in both countries exemplify an "epidemiological turn" influenced by public health constructions of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. African states' framing of road safety in behaviorist terms has obscured larger debates around redressing the historical legacies of racialized access to roads and the technopolitics of African automobility. Civic involvement in road safety initiatives has tended to be limited, although the specter of road carnage has entered into the public imagination, largely through the death of high profile Africans. However, some African road users continue to pursue alternative, and often culturally embedded, strategies to mitigate the dangers posed by life "on the road."