Testing a new intervention to enhance road safety

By 2020, it is estimated that road accidents will have moved from ninth to third in the worldwide ranking of burden of disease, as assessed in the disability adjusted life years (DALY)^1,2^. Therefore, it is vital to find effective methods to enhance road safety. Speed limits and traffic calming have the potential to reduce injuries due to road accidents^3,4^. Many drivers, however, do not adhere to speed limits^1-7^. Several studies have shown that adherence to speed limits can be explained by the theory of planned behaviour ^5-7^ and that it is possible to focus on drivers' intentions via self-report questionnaires. It is often difficult, however, to reach the majority of drivers on accident-prone locations with self-report questionnaires. This paper demonstrates an intervention that can be interpreted in the light of two of the theory's key variables^8^. It also has the potential to reach a large number of drivers on such locations. It is a speed-displaying device mounted next to the road (especially in villages). It tells drivers their actual speed (which is publicly visible). The measurement takes place continuously, giving the driver the chance to adjust speed and see the new speed shortly thereafter. The results show that the feedback about the current speed is associated with a significant speed reduction relative to a Control condition

Stellar Oscillons

We study the weakly nonlinear evolution of acoustic instability of a plane- parallel polytrope with thermal dissipation in the form of Newton's law of cooling. The most unstable horizontal wavenumbers form a band around zero and this permits the development of a nonlinear pattern theory leading to a complex Ginzburg-Landau equation (CGLE). Numerical solutions for a subcritical, quintic CGLE produce vertically oscillating, localized structures that resemble the oscillons observed in recent experiments of vibrated granular material.Comment: 12 Latex pages using aasms4.sty, 2 postscript figures, submitted to the proceedings of the Florida Workshop in Nonlinear Astrophysics and Physic