Restraint use in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

OBJECTIVES: This study set out to examine seat belt and child restraint use in the Dammam Municipality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, based on the premise that an increase in seat belt use would significantly reduce personal injury in traffic crashes. It was expected that local data would help identify intervention strategies necessary to improve seat belt use in the region. METHODS: The research involved 2 methodologies. First, 1,389 face-to-face interviews were conducted with male and female adults in regional shopping plazas regarding their own and their children's restraint use in their vehicles and reasons for these attitudes and beliefs. Second, 2 on-road observation studies of adult and child restraint use were conducted by trained observers. Occupants of approximately 5,000 passenger vehicles were observed while stopped at representative signalized traffic intersections. RESULTS: The findings showed front seat belt use rates of between 43 and 47% for drivers and 26 to 30% for front seat passengers; rear seat belt use rates were lower. While there seemed to be some knowledge about the purpose and reasons for restraining both adults and children in suitable restraints, this failed to be confirmed in the on-road observations. CONCLUSIONS: Reasons for these rates and findings are discussed fully, and recommendations for improving seat belt use in the Dammam Municipality are included.

Energy and material flows of megacities.

Understanding the drivers of energy and material flows of cities is important for addressing global environmental challenges. Accessing, sharing, and managing energy and material resources is particularly critical for megacities, which face enormous social stresses because of their sheer size and complexity. Here we quantify the energy and material flows through the world's 27 megacities with populations greater than 10 million people as of 2010. Collectively the resource flows through megacities are largely consistent with scaling laws established in the emerging science of cities. Correlations are established for electricity consumption, heating and industrial fuel use, ground transportation energy use, water consumption, waste generation, and steel production in terms of heating-degree-days, urban form, economic activity, and population growth. The results help identify megacities exhibiting high and low levels of consumption and those making efficient use of resources. The correlation between per capita electricity use and urbanized area per capita is shown to be a consequence of gross building floor area per capita, which is found to increase for lower-density cities. Many of the megacities are growing rapidly in population but are growing even faster in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and energy use. In the decade from 2001-2011, electricity use and ground transportation fuel use in megacities grew at approximately half the rate of GDP growth.