Difference between Crash Scene and Crash Site

Today I found out the difference between the term "crash scene" and "crash site". For normal people, "heck, why should I know those things". I hope I'm just a normal person. However, during a road crash inquiry report write-up, I cannot easily neglected such important thing. Thanks to Mr. Zulhilmi from MIROS Publication Unit for highlighting this to me. I'm such a forgetful person, so hopefully by putting this new info at my blog, thus can remind me when I need it.

Working at the crash site, not the crash scene. True? But the "smell" was still there...

A crash SITE: a place where an accident had occurred. At a crash SITE, the wrecked vehicles, the dead and the injured have been removed.

A crash SCENE: a place where an accident had occurred whereby the dead, the injured and the wreck have not been removed yet.

A Million of Deaths Road

If you think these photos show just a regular road, think again. Your eyes could be wrong. I give you a hint already, "a million of deaths road". What creature or thing can be a million in number in a blink of an eye? Gah, just look closely at following photos and you will know what it is. Yes, this is one way to show that actually many people were dead on the road without we realize it.

Source: Funzug

New Road Safety Program - Love Life

PLUS Expressway Bhd and the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) launched the Love Life campaign to create awareness of road safety through music. PLUS and Miros distributed 5,000 music CDs entitled Love Life to motorists at the Subang Jaya NKVE toll plaza here recently. (but MIROS staff didn't get one. So sad...)

Prof Dr Ahmad Farhan on the scene during Love Life

A total of 5000 CDs were distributed to motorists at 10 major toll plazas in the country over three days before Hari Raya. Fourteen popular Malaysian artistes performed theme song entitled Love Life and nine other songs in the first local album dedicated o road safety.

Sponsored by PLUS and produced for Miros by award winning composer Johan Nawawi, the album's 10 songs were performed by Nora, Zainal Abidin, Datuk Khatijah Ibrahim, Jacklyn Victor, Dayang Nur Faizah, Noh Hujan, Nabil Mentor, Dina, Sheila OIAM, Tomok, Desiree, Hunny Madu, Remy Ishak and Cakra Sonic. It also features motorcycle racing champion Wazi Abdul Hamid.

The crowds during Road Safety Love Life event

Miros director-general Prof Dr Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah said: "Music is a very powerful means of persuasion and we hope it will give us the much-needed breakthrough in communicating the importance of good road safety practice to the masses and in the process become an effective platform in reducing road accidents and fatalities."

He said despite the campaigns which have been initiated throughout the year through activities, enforcement, new laws, and the use of print, broadcast and social media, the number of accidents and fatalities in the country remained alarmingly high.

Last year, there were 397,330 road accidents with 6,745 deaths. Sixty per cent of the fatalities were motorcyclists and pillion riders. Dr Ahmad said worldwide studies have long determined that music has a profound physical and psychological effect in communicating social ideas, values and influencing the lives of a much larger audience. He said Love Life is about road safety, and has proven to have a positive impact on the subconscious minds of the motorists, influencing their behaviour, action and attitude.

Professional motorcyclist (Eh belakang tu Atiqah dan Suffian)

Plus Expressway Bhd chief executive officer Nik Airina Jaffar said the campaign is in line with their road safety programme called Malaysians Unite for Road Safety or Mufors for short.

"Mufors started last September and 24,000 Malaysians took an oath to drive safely. This year, the motorists were urged to make road safety a priority in their lives. With the launch of the Love Life campaign and album, we hope to work together to reduce road accidents and fatalities," she said.

News source: NST Online

What are the Causes of Road Accidents?

1. Some people might wondering, "what are the causes of road accidents?". To answer this, we must distinguish the definition between high profile accidents (involving death (s)), and just regular road accident (slight injury or none at all). Based on statistics, almost 80% accidents reported are not involving any death. This number could be thousands cases in a year, depending size of countries and the population.

2. Why people reporting regular road accident even they do not get any injuries? Yes, the answer is insurance claiming. While I'm not trying to scare you, but there are "trolls" out there who really want to create accidents case (they don't care whether you will be alive or not) so that they can make income from other misfortune (towing truck, etc...). How they do it? See infographic below and then you will get some ideas. I personally know that this is happening at Jalan Kuching. So be careful.

Click to Enlarge :O

Source: Auto Insurance

How to Solve Road Safety Challenges?

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, Please Help." There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were.

The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"

The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way." I wrote: "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.."

Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind.

The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story:

1. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

2. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile.

3. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear.. Keep the faith and drop the fear.

4. The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling… And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

5. Let's strive together to solve road safety issues creatively by thinking out of the box.

Source: Funmunch Positive Thinking

Global Killer No.1 - Road Accident

The Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 was announced this week by the UN General Assembly and supported by WHO. The WHO global status report on road safety makes for shocking reading. Over 3000 people die on the world's roads every day. Tens of millions of people are injured or disabled every year. Nearly 1.3 million people are killed each year. If trends continue unabated deaths will rise to an estimated 2.4 million a year by 2030.

Click to enlarge

Around the world, approximately 1.3 million people die each year on the roads and between 20 and 30 million sustain non-fatal injuries according to the Global status report on road safety. The report is the first broad assessment of the road safety situation in 178 countries, using data drawn from a standardized survey. Over 90 percent of the deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries, which have only 48 percent of the world's registered vehicles.

It's predicted that by 2030, the amount of people who are killed in road traffic accidents will rise to fifth in the leading causes of death around the world. Currently it is in ninth place. Through the Decade, Member States with the support of the international community, commit to actions such as developing and enforcing legislation on key risk factors including limiting speed, reducing drink-driving and increasing the use of seatbelts, child restraints and motorcycle helmets.

Efforts will also be undertaken to improve emergency trauma care, upgrade road and vehicle safety standards, promote road safety education and enhance road safety management in general. The Global status report on road safety results clearly show that significantly more action is needed to make the world's roads safer and hopefully this decade of action will go a long way help change things.

Resource: WHO via NGHealthCare Europe

The Most Weird Road in the World [PIC]

1. The Atlantic Road was located in Norway and opened in 1989. The road is currently a toll-free. Chosen as “Norway’s construction of the century” in 2005, the 8.72-kilometre (5.4 miles) long road links together small coastal communities.

2. I'm still never been there. So I can't tell the feel of driving on such road. Must be pretty jumpy eh?

Credit: Twistedsifter

Cellphone Use and Driving Distraction by VTTI

1. Several large-scale, naturalistic driving studies (using sophisticated cameras and instrumentation in participants’ personal vehicles conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute VTTI), provide a clear picture of driver distraction and cell phone use under real-world driving conditions. Combined, these studies continuously observed drivers for more than 6 million miles of driving. A snapshot of risk estimates from these studies is shown in the table below.

2. “Given recent catastrophic crash events and disturbing trends, there is an alarming amount of misinformation and confusion regarding cell phone and texting use while behind the wheel of a vhicle. The findings from our research at VTTI can help begin to clear up these misconceptions as it is based on real-world driving data. We conduct transportation safety research in an effort to equip the public with information that can save lives,” says Dr. Tom Dingus, director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

3. In VTTI’s studies that included light vehicle drivers and truck drivers, manual manipulation of phones such as dialing and texting of the cell phone lead to a substantialincrease in the risk of being involved in a safety‐critical event (e.g., crash or near crash). However, talking or listening increased risk much less for light vehicles and not at all for trucks. Text messaging on a cell phone was associated with the highest risk of all cell phone related tasks.

Explanation of Findings

4. Eye glance analyses were conducted to assess where drivers were looking while involved in a safety‐critical event and performing cell phone tasks. The tasks that draw the driver’s eyes away from the forward roadway were those with the highest risk.

5. Several recent high visibility trucking and transit crashes have been directly linked to texting from a cell phone. VTTI’s research showed that text messaging, which had the highest risk of over 20 times worse than driving while not using a phone, also had the longest duration of eyes off road time (4.6 s over a 6‐s interval). This equates to a driver traveling the length of a football field at 55 mph without looking at the roadway. Talking/listening to a cell phone allowed drivers to maintain eyes on the road and were not associated with an increased safety risk tonearly the same degree.

6. Recent results from other researchers using driving simulators suggest that talking and listening is as dangerous as visually dstracting cell phone tasks. The results from VTTI’s naturalistic driving studies clearly indicate that this is not the case. For example, talking and listening to a cell phone is not nearly as risky as driving while drunk at the legal limit of alcohol. Recent comparisons made in the literature greatly exaggerate the cell phone risk relative to the very serious effects of alcool use, which increases the risk of a fatal crash approximately seven times that of sober driving. Using simple fatal crash and phone use statistics, if talking on cell phones was as risky as driving while drunk, the number of fatal crashes would have increased roughly 50% in the last decade instead of remaining largely unchanged.

7. These results show conclusively that a real key to significantly improving safety is keeping your eyes on the road. In contrast, “cognitively intense” tasks (e.g., emotional conversations, “books‐on‐tape”, etc.) can have a measurable effect in the laboratory, but the actual driving risks are much lower in comparison.

8. VTTI’s Recommendations (Based on Findings from Research Studies)

• Driving is a visual task and non‐driving activities that draw the driver’s eyes away from the roadway, such as texting and dialing, should always be avoided.

• Texting should be banned in moving vehicles for all drivers. As shown in the table, this cell phone task has the potential to create a true crash epidemic if texting‐type tasks continue to grow in popularity and the generation of frequent text messagesenders reach driving age in large number.

• “Headset” cell phone use is not substantially safer than “hand‐held” use because the primary risk is associated with both tasks is answering, dialing, and other tasks that require your eyes to be off the road. In contrast, “true hands-free” phone use, such as voice activated systems, are less risky if they are designed well enough so the driver does not have to take their eyes off the road often or for long eriods.

• All cell phone use should be banned for newly licensed teen drivers. Our research has shown that teens tend to engage in cell phone tasks much more frequently, and in much more risky situations, than adults. Thus, our studies indicate that teens are four times more likely to get into a related crash or near crash event than their adultconterparts.

The Disconnect Between Naturalistic and Simulator Research

9. It is important to keep in mind that a driving simulator is not actual driving. Driving simulators engage participants in tracking tasks in a laboratory. As such, researchers that conduct simulator studies must be cautious when suggesting that conclusions based on simulator studies are aplicable to actual driving. With the introduction of naturalistic driving studies that record drivers (through continuous video and kinematic sensors) in actual driving situations, we now have a scientific method to study driver behavior in real‐world driving conditions in the presence of real-world daily pressures. As such, if the point of transportation safety research is to understand driver behavior in the real‐world (e.g., increase crash risk due to cell phone use), and when conflicting findings occur between naturalistic studies and simulator studies, findings from the real‐world, and not the simulator‐world, must be considered the gold standard.

10. It is also critical to note that some results of recent naturalistic driving studies, including those highlighted here as well as others (e.g., Sayer, Devonshire and Flanagan, 2007) are at odds with results obtained from simulator studies. Future researchis necessary to explore the reasons why simulator studies sometimes do not reflect studies conducted in actua driving conditions (i.e., the full context of the driving environment). It may be, as Sayer, Devonshire and Flanagan (2007) note, that controlled investigations cannot account for driver choice behavior and risk perception as it actually occurs in real‐world driving. If this assessment is accurate, the generalizability of simulator findings, at least in some cases, may be greatly limited outside of the simulated environment.

Resource

Prevention is Better than Cure

1. Prevention is better than cure is like the infamous an oldage Malay saying which is preparing your umbrella before the rain falling. Why the term is so important especially on the road safety? Let me give you the details.

2. I don't know to put it into words but I try but giving you an example. Let say, Mr X wants to arrive as soon as possible to his office because he has a significant meeting to attend. Thus, he drive his car fast on the road. Unluckily, he got into an accident. Not only he can't attend the meeting but also he lost his both legs and consequently, he can't work anymore.

3. So in this example, where the term prevention come? Prevention is drive safety. Cure is to treat his injury and lost of job (got into an accident). So to put into long statment. Drive safety is better than losing job or got into an injury. You got it?

4. Another example of prevention is wearing seatbelt if you were in the car or helmet while you were riding a motorcycle. Both device could save your life or at least lessen the injury you would got during an accident. So please think about it and you will find out many reasons not to rush and do stupid things on the road.

Missing. Is Somebody Missing Me?

1. I dunno who wrote this glommy poem. Might as well I dunno that probably this is just a song..but whenever I look and read it, its just too sad.

2. For somebody who missed somebody. People who missed their loved ones. People that I kinda indirectly encounter frequently during my crash investigation work. People who lost their loved ones in an road accidents.

3. I understand the feeling very well. Indeed. As I'm one of them. Missing somebody. Missing my loved ones badly. Hope they are doing well in there. Al Fatihah.

Please, please forgive me, but I wont't be home again,
maybe someday you'll look up,
and barely concious you'll say to no one : Isn't something missing?''

You won't cry for my absence,
I know, you forgot me long ago,
am I that not important..?,
am I so insignificant...?
Isn't something missing?
Isn't someone missing me?

Though I'm the sacrifice,
you won't try for me, not now.
Though I'd die to know you love me,
I'm all alone,
Isn't someone missing me?

Please, please forgive me,
but I won't be home again,
I know what you do to yourself,
I breathe deep and cry out,
isn't something missing?
Isn't someone missing me?"

And If I bleed, I'll bleed,
knowing you don't care,
and if I sleep just to dream of you,
I'll wake without you there,
Isn't something missing? Isn't something.

4. Might be one day it will be me. Yes, sooner or later. Following them. However, the question is, Will somebody missing me?? I just feel very regret if when I were gone, I'm still single, not married yet huhuhu..

Don't you agree? Feel free to add and comments..

The Road is Not Taken

1. My first entry on this blog. I dunno what to start. The mood of writing and style shud be established. Well, to get the things started, lets hear a poem about road hehehe.

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

2. Before the journey, it is common that we has a decision to make, which way is safer, which way is faster. Mentally, we will come to a fork or state in the road and needs to decide which way to go to continue the journey, journey of our daily life. After much internal debate, we might pick the road "less traveled by" or in other word less traffic and less congested. Trying a new way of driving on the new route pounding the decision.

3. The poem describes the tough choices people stand for when traveling the road of life, can as well say traveling in real roads, yes real roads or highway. The words "sorry" and "sigh" make the tone of poem somewhat gloomy and difficult. we are somewhat regrets leaves the possibilities of the road not chosen behind.

4. We realize that we probably won't pass this way again. Oh well, you can always turning back before too late, its just a route. And yes, statistically speaking, most road accidents happened due to the drivers chose the route he was not accustomed to. There is a saying, "jika di kandang kambing mengembek, jika di kandang harimau mengaum". So, please be careful when driving at the road we are not accustomed to.

5. Speeding without knowing your route is very dangerous. Well, driving on the same road everyday is of course a boring and mundane but remember one thing, safety must always come first..

Don't you agree? Feel free to add and comments..