Exposure to flood, one of the most widespread disasters caused by natural hazards, increases the risk of drowning. Driving through flooded waterways is a cause of death due to flood-related drowning, especially in flood-prone areas. This study aimed at identifying the risk factors for motor vehicle–related drowning in floods and its prevention strategies.

International and national databases (WOS, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Magiran, and SID) were searched in the time span from 2000 to 2022. The studies investigating the risk factors relevant to land motor vehicle–related drowning in floods and its prevention strategies were included and analyzed using thematic content analysis.

In 14 eligible studies, risk factors for land motor vehicle–related drowning in floods were identified and categorized in 3 subthemes: driver (3 categories: socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge and attitude, and beliefs); technology (1 category: land motor vehicles); and environment (2 categories: physical and socio-economic environment). Physical and structural measures (1 category: road safety improvement) and nonstructural measures (4 categories: research and education and raising awareness, risk management, promoting social-cognitive beliefs, and reconstruction and improvement of legal infrastructure) were proposed as drowning prevention strategies.

The knowledge, attitude, and belief of the driver; the vehicle; and the environment were the most important risk factors of driving through flooded waterways. These factors should be considered when designing programs and physical and structural strategies for future interventions to curb this dangerous and potentially fatal driving behavior.

Intentional mass-casualty incidents (IMCIs) involving motor vehicles (MVs) as weapons represent a growing trend in Western countries. This method has resulted in the highest casualty rates per incident within the field of IMCIs. Consequently, there is an urgent requirement for a timely and accurate casualty estimation in MV-induced IMCIs to scale and adjust the necessary health care resources.

The objective of this study is to identify the factors associated with the number of casualties during the initial phase of MV-IMCIs.

This is a retrospective, observational, analytical study on MV-IMCIs world-wide, from 2000-2021. Data were obtained from three different sources: Targeted Automobile Ramming Mass-Casualty Attacks (TARMAC) Attack Database, Global Terrorism Database (GTD), and the vehicle-ramming attack page from the Wikipedia website. Jacobs’ formula was used to estimate the population density in the vehicle’s route. The primary outcome variables were the total number of casualties (injured and fatalities). Associations between variables were analyzed using Spearman’s correlation coefficient and simple linear regression.

Forty-six MV-IMCIs resulted in 1,636 casualties (1,430 injured and 206 fatalities), most of them caused by cars. The most frequent driving pattern was accelerating whilst approaching the target, with an average speed range between four to 130km/h and a distance traveled between ten to 2,260 meters. The people estimated in the MV-IMCI scenes ranged from 36-245,717. A significant positive association was found of the number affected with the estimated crowd in the scene (R2: 0.64; 95% CI, 0.61-0.67; P <.001) and the average vehicle speed (R2: 0.42; 95% CI, 0.40-0.44; P = .004).

The estimated number of people in the affected area and vehicle’s average speed are the most significant variables associated with the number of casualties in MV-IMCIs, helping to enable a timely estimation of the casualties.

We analysed the impact of the national general truck drivers’ strike on the availability, variety and price of foods sold by a food supply centre.

Descriptive study using secondary data to examine the percentage change in the mean price of fruits, vegetables and eggs before, during and after the strike. The strike in Brazil lasted 10 d from 21 to 30 May 2018. The drivers were on strike in order to make diesel oil tax-free and to obtain better working conditions.

The food supply centre, named CEASA-Minas Grande BH, was located in the metropolitan area of a Brazilian city.

We examined twenty types of foods.

After 10 d, there was a ~30 % reduction in the availability of all types of foods and prices increased. Foods with the highest price increases included cabbage (233·3 %), potatoes (220·0 %), papaya (160·0 %) and oranges (78·6 %). At the end of the strike, we observed reductions in the price of eggs, fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers; however, some foods remained more expensive than before the strike, including chayote (203·2 % higher), cucumber (66·7 % higher) and potatoes (60·0 % higher).

The general truck drivers’ strike was correlated with a reduction in the availability of food and, consequently, increases in price and possibly restrictions on access. The strike demonstrated the dependence of metropolises on road transportation and the conventional market. We speculate that initiatives aiming to shorten the food supply chain and promote food sovereignty and resilience of the supply circuits could be important.

Advanced Automatic Collision Notification (AACN) services in passenger vehicles capture crash data during collisions that could be transferred to Emergency Medical Services (EMS) providers. This study explored how EMS response times and other crash factors impacted the odds of fatality. The goal was to determine if information transmitted by AACN could help decrease mortality by allowing EMS providers to be better prepared upon arrival at the scene of a collision.

The Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) database of the US Department of Transportation/National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (USDOT/NHTSA; Washington DC, USA) was searched for all fatal crashes between 1996 and 2012. The CIREN database also was searched for illustrative cases. The NHTSA’s Fatal Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System (NASS CDS) databases were queried for all fatal crashes between 2000 and 2011 that involved a passenger vehicle. Detailed EMS time data were divided into prehospital time segments and analyzed descriptively as well as via multiple logistic regression models.

The CIREN data showed that longer times from the collision to notification of EMS providers were associated with more frequent invasive interventions within the first three hours of hospital admission and more transfers from a regional hospital to a trauma center. The NASS CDS and FARS data showed that rural collisions with crash-notification times >30 minutes were more likely to be fatal than collisions with similar crash-notification times occurring in urban environments. The majority of a patient’s prehospital time occurred between the arrival of EMS providers on-scene and arrival at a hospital. The need for extrication increased the on-scene time segment as well as total prehospital time.

An AACN may help decrease mortality following a motor vehicle collision (MVC) by alerting EMS providers earlier and helping them discern when specialized equipment will be necessary in order to quickly extricate patients from the collision site and facilitate expeditious transfer to an appropriate hospital or trauma center.

PlevinRE, KaufmanR, Fraade-BlanarL, BulgerEM. Evaluating the Potential Benefits of Advanced Automatic Crash Notification. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2017;32(2):156–164.

To determine if changes to the Ontario Highway Traffic Act (OHTA) in 2009 and 2010 had an effect on the proportion of alcohol-related motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) presenting to a trauma centre over a 10-year period.

A retrospective review of the trauma registry at a Level I trauma centre in southwestern Ontario was undertaken. The trauma registry is a database of all trauma patients with an injury severity score (ISS) ≥12 and/or who had trauma team activation. Descriptive statistics were calculated. Interrupted time series analyses with ARIMA modeling were performed on quarterly data from 2004-2013.

A total of 377 drivers with a detectable serum ethanol concentration (SEC) were treated at our trauma centre over the 10-year period, representing 21% of all MVCs. The majority (330; 88%) were male. The median age was 31 years, median SEC was 35.3 mmol/L, and median ISS was 21. A total of 29 (7.7%) drinking drivers died from their injuries after arriving to hospital. There was no change in the proportion of drinking drivers after the 2009 amendment, but there was a significant decline in the average SEC of drinking drivers after changes to the law. There was no difference in the proportion of drinking drivers ≤21 years after introduction of the 2010 amendment for young and novice drivers.

There was a significance decline in the average SEC of all drinking drivers after the 2009 OHTA amendment, suggesting that legislative amendments may have an impact on drinking before driving behaviour.