The controversy-riddled state government in Queensland, Australia, has decided to allow segways to travel on footpaths, infrastructure which until now has been out of bounds to all but pedestrians and children bicyclists. Consistent with bicycle legislation, segway riders will be required to wear helmets. In addition, they must not exceed the soon-to-be mandated speed limit of 12 km/hr (read more at http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/state-government-relaxes-bike-helmet-rules-for-people-who-must-wear-religious-headwear/story-e6freoof-1226626808441), however they can travel up to 20 km/hr and the penalty associated with violating this Police-enforceable limit is not known.

The reaction to the announcement has been mixed. Queensland Transport Minister Scott Emerson encouraged tourism venture operators in popular areas like the Gold Coast and Brisbane’s South Bank to capitalise on these changes. Queensland Police endorsed the Minister’s announcement, with plans to trial segway use by officers. Road safety and injury prevention researchers at the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland highlighted the mounting evidence that segways are dangerous to the rider (who have received fractures and serious head injuries, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20889236), particularly if they are inexperienced. Segways are also dangerous to slower-moving, unprotected pedestrians (including the elderly who are also more frail and vulnerable to injury). The Pedestrian Council of Australia emphasised the burgeoning epidemic of obesity, citing segways as a barrier to the healthier option of walking.

Segways are very quiet and weigh in excess of 35 kilograms, therefore collisions with pedestrians are likely to result in injury. In addition, segway riders have been found to require over 2 metres to safely negotiate the device around a pedestrian (see http://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=848782), suggesting that shared paths are not the optimal solution for all users. Moreover, tourists characteristically meander across paths, stopping at random intervals to photograph their surroundings – perhaps the target audience is going to be the most vulnerable one?

By now most readers will have learned about the horrific collapse of a factory in Bangladesh killing hundreds of low-paid workers and injury many others. The owner has been arrested and that seems logical. But equally logical it seems to me, is to hold the authorities responsible for workplace safety responsible. I see this as a general paradigm for injury prevention: Most countries have governmental bodies with responsibility for various aspects of public safety. If they fail to do their job in an acceptable manner and people are killed or injured, why should they not be held criminally or civally responsible?  Coming at this from another angle, if it could be established that on a systematic basis a government body fails to remedy dangerous intersections, for example, then a principle in much of western law called ‘mandamus’ may kick in. This, as Wikipedia explains, is “a judicial remedy — in the form of an order from a superior court, to any government subordinate court, corporation, or public authority — to do (or forbear from doing) some specific act which that body is obliged under law to do (or refrain from doing) — and which is in the nature of public duty, and in certain cases one of a statutory duty.”  In the American legal system it must be a judicially enforceable and legally protected right before one suffering a grievance can ask for a mandamus. A person can be said to be aggrieved only when he is denied a legal right by someone who has a legal duty to do something and abstains from doing it.”  My general point is that if we are trying to prevent injuries by setting examples of what could happen, I believe we must consider not only those directly responsible, in this case the factory owner who added to the structure without permission, but also the relevant government body that should have prevented this from happening.

As one report (in the Washington Post (WP) notes)  Bangladesh’s ‘deadliest industrial accident” was built without proper permission on unstable land. (But how, I ask, can a structure emerge without permission?)  Ironically, because this factory and others like it make cheap goods for Western retailers, there is some scrutiny of work conditions by some importers. The WP states that “At least two garment factories at Rana Plaza had passed international labor and safety standard audits under a European trade organization that addressed specific safety concerns at the factories but didn’t assess the stability of the building that housed them.”  A  senior official with the municipal agency that oversees building safety in the greater Dhaka area said the building ”did not receive planning permission.” “It could and should have been demolished.” In fact permission was obtained from the mayor who had no authority to give such consent. It appears that because of the boom in the garment industry,  ”Hundreds of factories in this area have been built with local council permission.”  Canadian retailer Loblaw Cos. said workers in the complex were making clothes for its Joe Fresh clothing line but that its factory-monitoring system doesn’t check for building construction or integrity. The company plans to expand the scope of its factory audits.

So, why no action against government departments? As the WSJ explains, “Labor-rights activists said laws remain weak and implementation uneven in a country where factory owners, many of whom are also local politicians or members of Parliament, maintain political clout. At least 33 members of the current Parliament own garment businesses.”  There are repeated instances of MPs linked to the garment industry blocking stricter legislation.” Bottom line: Bangladesh had adequate laws governing the safety of buildings, but those laws weren’t properly implemented, and, I add, they make no provision for holding government departments legally responsible for failing to do what it is mandated to do.

By now all readers of this blog know what happened at the Boston Marathon. What perhaps none of us know in any depth is why the perpetrators took these actions. Most US commentators seem content to simply describe it as ‘terrorism’, which it certainly is. But at least one high ranking Canadian went one step further. Justin Trudeau, the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, had just been elected as leader of the Liberal party of Canada, which now sits in third place after the most recent election.  In his comments, Justin Trudeau said that it was important to try to discover the ‘root causes’ of such acts. This is consistent with what I wrote in an editorial in Injury Prevention after 9/11 and the later London bombings. I do believe we must work much harder to understand the motivations of the bombers, not to excuse them but to help build a better, more peaceful world. Most Muslims are not radical; what drives some to become so? How great a role, if any, did the Iraq war play in driving such actions?  What Trudeau actually said  in an interview when he was asked how he would have responded to the attacks that killed three people and left about 170 injured was that he would offer the American’s material support “and at the same time, over the coming days, we have to look at the root causes.” “Now, we don’t know now if it was terrorism or a single crazy or a domestic issue or a foreign issue,” he said. “But there is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded. Completely at war with innocents. At war with a society. And our approach has to be, where do those tensions come from? “Yes, there’s a need for security and response,” Trudeau added. “But we also need to make sure that as we go forward, that we don’t emphasize a culture of fear and mistrust. Because that ends up marginalizing even further those who already are feeling like they are enemies of society.”  To me this was a sensible, intelligent and appropriate response. But not so for Canada’s right-wing Prime Minister who indicated Trudeau’s answer was unacceptable.

“When you see this kind of action, when you see this kind of violent act, you do not sit around trying to rationalize it or make excuses for it or figure out its root causes,” Harper said. “You condemn it categorically and to the extent that you can deal with the perpetrators you deal with them as harshly as possible and that is what this government would do if it ever was faced with such actions.”  I leave it to readers to decide which view, in the long run, will be most helpful.

Rafael Consunji sent me this delightful item:

It describes the Calcutta Traffic Police’s idea of  using the Beatles to teach “unruly Kolkata pedestrians to use zebra crossings” inspired by the iconic cover of their album, Abbey Road. Posters of the Beattles crossingAbbey Road in single-file appear at busy intersections  with the caption “If they can, why can’t you?”  As the first post.com report states, ”

It would have been a total win-win for Mr Cameron. He could have highlighted Britain’s greatest export since the sun went down on the British Empire. At the same time he could have slyly demonstrated that Britannia is still bringing the fruits of civilisation to its old subjects.” More seriously, the report states:

Traffic safety is of course serious business.  Studies by WHO have shown that in countries like India, pedestrians account for almost half of the recorded fatalities every year.

 

The Beatles are not just part of the establishment now. They are now being used by the establishment, not as warnings but as role models, to admonish the young into following rules and regulations.  We have to admit that whether the posters work or not in saving pedestrians from hurtling minibuses, it is a magic feeling indeed watching John, Paul, George and Ringo stride across the zebra crossing while the traffic signal blares out Rabindrasangeet.  Editors comment: I dont want to be a spoil sport and agree this is a novel form of admonishment but, based on the evidence, I am not expecting that this will make much of a difference.  Both pedestrians AND drivers need to be penalized harshly for violations that place lives at risk. And it must be done routinely, not just when the time has come for another ‘safety campaign.” 

 

Over the weekend I came across an interesting article in the Australian Veterinary Journal whilst I was having a look at some recent injury prevention publications in Australia. Last month’s issue of the journal contained an article summarising cattle-specific injuries reported in the Health Risks of Australian Veterinarians Survey (HRAV). Of the 2188 serious injuries reported by the 1397 participants, 30% involved cattle. Most of the injuries were incurred in the stock yards/handling yards (82%) and involved procedural activities such as pregnanacy testing. Understandably pregnancy testing-associated injuries were caused by kicks (41%) or being crushed or pushed against (35%), and injuries to upper limbs, the trunk, and lower limbs ranged from bruising and open wounds to dislocations and fractures.

The Authors state that ”62% (of the injured veterinarians) also reported the use of some safety precautions at the time of injury: 38% of overall injuries and 43% of injuries that were incurred while undertaking obstetric activities occurred during the use of restricting enclosures such as cattle crushes. A number of veterinarians commented on the inadequacy or poor condition of the crush being used at the time of injury.”

This suggests that not only should veterinarians be aware of the risk-minimising techniques for handling large animals such as cows, farmers and other cattle producers need to be made aware of the risks associated with inadequate and/or poorly maintained equipment such as cattle crushes.

Read more at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-0813.2012.01014.x/pdf

Some of us take helmet wearing seriously. This is one of our granddaughters, Emma, age 5.  We have had one day of spring so the pink and white bike was brought out. Please note Emma’s helmet, and, just as importantly, that which she made on her poupee (doll). Let this be a lesson to all. Thanks for setting such a good example, Emma.

Both grandaughter and her doll are helmeted.

A provocative paper in The Scientist urges that more journals  publish negative results. (Editor: I have always argued that these are as scientifically important as positive results, even if they are less appealing to the press.) As the paper states, “Hypothesis-driven research is at the heart of scientific endeavour, and it is often the positive, confirmatory data that get the most attention and guide further research.” However, they assert that “negative data … are an integral part of scientific progress that deserve more attention.” Apart from supporting Popper’s view of science, publishing these papers would help diminish “publication bias”. This was part of the rationale for the creation of the Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine (JNRBM) in 2002.  As well, publishing negative results would reduce  duplication of effort and, it is argued,  would contribute to a more realistic appreciation of the “messy” nature of science.

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33968/title/Opinion–Publish-Negative-Results/

I am not suggesting you accept this suggestion, but it is amusing, intriguing, and somewhat sensible. Given that it comes from Richard Smith, former editor of the BMJ, it deserves consideration. In his words, “instead of submitting your paper to one journal you should auction it to the highest bidder. Today I did it.” Smith explains, “Authors… estimate the highest impact journal in which they might reasonably get published, and, … then might wait months only for their paper to be rejected.” But Smith notes, as I used to remind my students, journals need authors almost as  much as authors need journals. Thus the idea of auctioning your paper. Smith came across an old paper, brushed it up, and, initially, offered the paper through Twitter and received four offers. It seems he accepted one 0 He concludes, “This looks like the future to me. Let’s us authors turn the tables.”

Editor: Its not clear where the ‘auctioning’ comes in but, as is often the case with Smith at his provocative best, he is trying to make a point so let’s not worry about the details. Clearly this gives us food for thought. That said, I would not advise authors who are lesser lights to run this route before trying the customary pathways to publication.

http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2012/12/03/richard-smith-why-not-auction-your-paper/

Plaque on towpath in Regents Park London advising bicylists and pedestrians how to live in harmony.