Objectives: To quantify the odds of fatal injuries associated with drivers involved in single-vehicle, run-off-road (SVROR), injury crashes. Methods: An in-service safety evaluation was carried out using multivariate logistic regression models. Results: The odds of motorist death was lower for w-beam guardrail crashes as compared to tree, pole, and concrete barrier crashes. On the other hand, there was no statistically significant difference between the odds of motorist death in concrete barrier crashes as compared to tree or pole crashes. The odds of motorist death were lower for curbs and collision-free crashes as compared to tree, pole, and barrier crashes. Thus, obstacles should be removed whenever possible and barriers installed only whenever absolutely necessary. The lack of vehicle containment (in barrier crashes) was found: (i) to tend to occur on higher-posted-speed-limit roads and result in a higher percentage of fatal crashes, (ii) to be more prevalent with the less rigid barrier type, and (iii) to result in a consistently higher percentage of fatal crashes under the concrete barrier category. Conclusions: Findings not only support state-of-the-art roadside design guidelines and crash-testing criteria, but they may also be useful in evaluating proposed roadside safety improvements.

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There has been a widespread call for improvement in undergraduate STEM education, leading to what are known as evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs). However, EBIP usage in STEM is a more recent phenomenon in the United Arab Emirates, which is historically known for its passive teaching practices but is now taking strides to transform its educational system. This study sought to assess (i) STEM faculty EBIP awareness, adoption, and ease-of-implementation perceptions from STEM faculty at a leading university in the United Arab Emirates and the demographic factors correlated with faculty responses, and (ii) the contextual factors that influence faculty EBIP adoption. Data was compared to that of STEM faculty at a top-tier research and teaching university in the United States of America. Finally, this study sought to provide a snapshot of current STEM faculty teaching practices when both a leader (United States of America) and a newcomer (United Arab Emirates) in STEM EBIPs were considered. A survey containing 16 teaching practices—3 traditional, 13 EBIPs—along with 20 contextual factors was developed and completed by faculty. EBIP awareness and usage were positively affected by time spent on teaching, teaching experience, and teaching workshop participation, and negatively affected by more class time spent lecturing. Significant contextual factors point to potential factors for consideration in efforts to improve EBIP adoption.

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The roadside safety research community has placed a significant amount of effort in developing design and safety guidelines, while focus on the assessment of the proper implementation of these guidelines is lacking. Meanwhile, nearly one-third of all fatal road crashes worldwide involve single-vehicle, run-off-road (SVROR) crashes. The objective of this study is to conduct a roadside design compliance evaluation in an urban, high-density area with regards to a pre-selected benchmark. Visits were made to over 100 SVROR injury-crash locations. Almost all locations were found to be non-compliant. A lack of the minimum recommended clear zone (CZ) provision was the main cause of non-compliance, while 80% of all locations suffered from barrier misplacement. In conclusion, roadside design guidelines have been poorly implemented in the area studied, and findings indicate that more focus on proper, on-site design implementation is warranted. We are not aware of previous studies that have investigated roadside design compliance in other parts of the world. Hence, we encourage researchers to replicate this study in their respective geographical areas of interest. The authors discuss how the findings of this study may be relevant to researchers, governmental transportation agencies, roadside safety equipment suppliers, practitioners, and decision-makers.