Grant helps program expand distracted driving education to online learning

Recent report shows 37 percent of sampled drivers reported talking on their handheld cell phone while driving

2023-11-09

(Press-News.org) The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates there were 42,795 deaths resulting from motor vehicle crashes in 2022 in the United States. This projection is close to the previous year fatality numbers, which were the highest in 16 years.

A Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego program aims to improve safety for all roadway users, including drivers, pedestrians and cyclists with support from a $360,000 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the NHTSA.

To inform and promote safe driving, the UC San Diego Training, Research and Education for Driving Safety (TREDS) provides courses, online training, and written materials designed to equip law enforcement, clinicians and other roadway safety professionals with the knowledge and tools necessary to educate the public. These free courses cover topics such as impaired driving due to alcohol, cannabis and prescription medications, pedestrian safety, refresher education for older drivers, and prevention of distracted driving.

Distracted driving is any activity that diverts attention away from primary task of safe driving, especially talking or texting using an electronic device. Emphasizing the dangers of distracted driving to the public is a priority for TREDS this upcoming year.

It’s estimated that every 30 seconds in the U.S., there is a crash involving drivers using cellphones. A recent report from NHTSA shows there were 362,415 injuries and 3,552 deaths in 2021 resulting from a driver who was distracted.

“Distracted driving is dangerous,” said Linda Hill, M.D., M.P.H., Distinguished Professor in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and TREDS program director. “Sending a text while behind the wheel takes your eyes off the road for almost five seconds. At 55 miles per hour, this is the equivalent of driving the length of an entire football field with your eyes closed.”

TREDS initiated the “Just Drive – Take Action Against Distraction” educational curriculum in 2013, which has been taught statewide by safety professionals in worksites and communities. To expand the reach of the program, TREDS will develop an online version of the educational curriculum this year that can be accessed by anyone at no charge. The program emphasizes the risks and consequences of distracted driving, as well as strategies to avoid this dangerous behavior.

“Injuries and deaths due to distracted driving occur much too often and the impact can be devastating,” said Hill. “With increased education and awareness, these crashes are 100 percent preventable. Crashes are not ‘accidents’ – 95 percent are due to poor choices made by drivers. With elimination of these risky antecedent behaviors, the roads will be safer for everyone.

TREDS offers additional traffic safety education and training programs, including an online class (“Steer Clear – Decide to Drive Sober”) that targets teens to prevent driving under the influence.

For more information about the program or to request a training, contact TREDS at 858-534-8386 or email treds@ucsd.edu.

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

HKUST researchers develop low-cost and multifunctional microprinter for ultrafast piezoelectric material printing

2023-11-09

A research team led by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed a microprinter that can print piezoelectric films 100 times faster for the production of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) for sensors, wearable or implantable medical devices, offering the possibility to lower the mass production costs. The microprinter, built at a comparatively lower cost as compared with other printers on the market, utilizes an electrostatic field to propel streams of ink onto a platform, allowing for efficient manipulation of thin film patterns and enhanced printing speed to address the challenge of mass production ...

Oregon State to receive $6.5M for federal effort to modernize geospatial coordinate system

2023-11-09

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University is one of four institutions selected to advance a federal effort to modernize the National Spatial Reference System, which underpins surveying, mapping, autonomous vehicle navigation, precision agriculture and the rest of the United States’ geospatial economy. OSU will receive $6.5 million over five years from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for research to be conducted by the new Geospatial Center for the Arctic and Pacific, or GCAP. The funding is through NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey and is part of nearly $20 million awarded overall. The other funding ...

The Lancet: Studying medicine, Nazism, and the Holocaust crucial to strengthening medical education and ethics today

2023-11-09

Peer-reviewed/ review, analysis and opinion The Lancet: Studying medicine, Nazism, and the Holocaust crucial to strengthening medical education and ethics today Most comprehensive report to date on medical atrocities under Nazism and during the Holocaust – and their implications for today – details the central role health professionals played in formulating and carrying out the antisemitic, racist, and inhumane policies and practices during the Nazi regime. The Commission challenges long-held misconceptions about medicine in the Nazi era, including the claim that medical crimes were carried out by only a ...

New study examines long term effectiveness of live shingles vaccine

2023-11-09

The effectiveness of live zoster (shingles) vaccine is highest in the first year after vaccination and then wanes substantially. But it continues to provide some protection against shingles and its complications ten years after vaccination, even in patients with a weakened immune system, finds a study published by The BMJ. Vaccine effectiveness is a measure of how well vaccines work to protect communities in the real world. Herpes zoster, commonly known as shingles, is a painful rash caused by reactivation of the chickenpox virus. It’s much more common among people aged 60 and older and those with a weakened ...

Latest results from PHOEBE trial show patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer live longer on pyrotinib

2023-11-09

Lisbon, Portugal: Patients with HER2-positive breast cancer that has started to spread to other parts of the body survive for longer if they are treated with a new drug called pyrotinib, according to results from the longest follow-up of the PHOEBE randomised clinical trial in China. Presenting the latest results at the Advanced Breast Cancer Seventh International Consensus Conference (ABC 7), Professor Xichun Hu, of Fudan University Cancer Hospital, Shanghai, China, said the researchers had been able to analyse data on overall survival from the trial up to March 15, ...

Barnacle bends shape to fend off warm-water sea snails on the move

2023-11-09

Some barnacles are ‘morphing’ to protect themselves from predatory warm-water sea snails, which are expanding into their territory due to climate change. Research led by the University of Southampton and published in the Journal of Biogeography shows how temperate prey species are adapting to changing water temperatures, which carry the threat of warm-water predators encroaching into their territory. As global sea-surface temperatures rise and the number of marine heatwaves increase under global heating, coastal marine communities are changing. Warm-water predators ...

AI can map giant icebergs from satellite images 10,000 times faster than humans

2023-11-09

AI can map giant icebergs from satellite images 10,000 times faster than humans   Scientists have trained an artificial intelligence (AI) system to accurately map - in one-hundredth of a second - the surface area and outline of giant icebergs captured on satellite images. It is a major advance on existing automated systems which struggle to distinguish icebergs from other features in the image. Manual - or human - interpretation of the image is more ...

People who contribute least in crowdsourcing can do the most to improve a public good

2023-11-08

Whether talking about the office kitchen, hiking trails or ratings on Yelp, there are always people who put in effort to leave those spaces better. There are also those who contribute nothing to that public good. New research using large-scale online experiments suggests that rewarding people to contribute to a virtual public good, such as a simulated online rating for a ferry system, increased the accuracy of the ratings and improved the overall quality of that resource. The multidisciplinary team, including researchers from the University of California, Davis; Hunter College, College of New York; the Max Planck Institute for ...

1 in 25 carries a genotype that is associated with a shortened lifespan

2023-11-08

1 in 25 carries a genotype that is associated with a shortened lifespan Scientists at deCODE genetics, a subsidiary of Amgen, have published a study on actionable genotypes detected in the Icelandic population and their association with lifespan. The results of this study are among the things that have motivated the government of Iceland to announce a nationwide effort in precision medicine. As the delivery of precision medicine to a population requires considerable amount of data on genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics of the population, Icelanders are currently exceptionally well suited for ...

Zen and the art of mitochondrial maintenance: The machinery of death makes a healthier life

2023-11-08

While we all aspire for a long lifespan, what is most coveted is a long period of vigor and health, or “healthspan,” that precedes the inevitable decline of advancing age. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have discovered that instruments of death that cells use to commit suicide when things go wrong contribute to making a longer and healthier life by revitalizing the specialized cellular compartments called mitochondria. Mitochondria generate the energy for all of our activities, from movement to thought. These power plants inside our cells descended ...

Grant helps program expand distracted driving education to online learning

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: