Spouse abuse is examined from the perspective of attribution theory. Aggressors are seen as attributing their violent behavior to external causes, whether by projecting their negative traits onto their spouses or by finding excuses which blame temporary environmental factors. In contrast, victims often attribute the abuse to defects within themselves or situational factors affecting their spouses. The attribution process seems affected by the frequency, intensity and duration of the abuse, with temporal factors playing an important role in the womau's internalizing style. Furthermore, inadequate early coping efforts play a powerful role in establishing cognitive-perceptual patterns that serve to perpetuate the abuse.
The presence of cyclists on Spanish rural roads is ever increasing and currently frequent, and thus becoming a serious safety concern. In rural environments, the risk of a crash is higher than in rural areas. The main cause is the higher speed of motor vehicles during overtaking manoeuvres. This manoeuvre is especially challenging when cyclists ride in groups as they may change size, length, shape, and speed along their route. These variables and those related to road cross-section can influence driver behaviour when overtaking a group of cyclists. To study this, instrumented bicycles were used to ride along five road segments with different geometric and traffic characteristics. Cyclists rode individually and in groups. Overtaking was evaluated by analysing the lateral distance, the speed, and other characteristics of the manoeuvre. Wider roads presented higher lateral clearances and overtaking speeds. Narrower roads had a high opposing lane invasion but a high level of compliance with the minimum lateral clearance. A higher clearance and lower speed of overtaking vehicles was registered when cyclists rode in line. Compliance with the 1.5 m clearance depended on the group configuration, being higher when cyclists rode in line. However, overtaking cyclists riding two abreast presented more accelerative manoeuvres, especially on narrow roads.
In Spain, the presence of cyclists’ groups riding on two-lane rural roads in a single file or in parallel line is growing. The number of overtaking maneuvers to them is also increasing. This is one of the most dangerous interactions between motor vehicles and bicycles. However, the risk of these maneuvers has not been analyzed in depth. This research analyzes the objective and subjective risk of overtaking maneuvers to cyclists’ groups. During this maneuver, the motorized vehicle overtakes the bicycles with a certain speed and lateral distance. These are the surrogate measures used to analyze the objective risk, whereas the subjective risk was analyzed based on the subjective risk perception that 10 cyclists riding instrumented bicycles (in different group configurations) indicated when every motor vehicle overtook them. Results show that the cyclists most exposed to the overtaking maneuver are those at the front and at the rear of the group. In relation to the configuration, the risk is higher in parallel lines, as the lateral clearance is lower compared with a single line. It is even higher when the overtaking maneuver is flying, which is usually performed at higher speeds and lower lateral clearance. The subjective risk perception increases with higher speed and lower lateral clearance, and is higher at the rear positions. Overtaking in which lateral distance is less than 1.5 m is perceived as the riskiest. These results provide scientific recommendations to enhance safety for cyclists’ groups, and to integrate cycling with vehicular traffic on two-lane rural roads.
It is frequent to see cyclists on Spanish two-lane rural roads, both riding individually and in groups. However, these roads were designed only for motorized vehicles, most of them having a narrow section with a null or impassable shoulder. Currently, drivers and cyclists have to share roads and interact, affecting both safety and traffic operation. The possibility of overtaking offers an improvement in traffic operation, however on narrow roads it can be difficult, meaning a greater invasion of the opposite lane thus creating more dangerous situations and implying a higher overtaking duration. To analyze the phenomenon, field data from instrumented bicycles and naturalistic videos were collected, then some performance measures to characterize safety and traffic operation were obtained. To increase the number of overtaking manoeuvres and performance measures obtained from observations, microsimulation has been used by adapting a model to include cyclists and their interaction with motorized vehicles. The traffic microsimulator was calibrated and validated with field data. The results show that cycle traffic presence decreases motorized vehicle average travel speed and increases percent followers and delays. Microsimulation can be used to study other traffic scenarios and can help road administrations to safely and efficiently integrate cyclists to vehicular traffic on rural roads.
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