Buckle up or slow down? New estimates of offsetting behavior and their implications for automobile safety regulation

This study provides a detailed examination of the determinants of motor vehicle fatalities and offers a new assessment of the effects of automobile safety regulation. An empirical analysis is difficult because drivers are unlikely to remain passive in the face of changes in their safety environment. This offsetting behavior hypothesis is cast in a broad framework that brings together elements from the economics and cognition literatures. This approach allows us to highlight key maintained assumptions in previous analyses and to consider how econometric evidence can inform discussions about highway safety policy. The econometric estimates reveal that, while imprecisely estimated, offsetting behavior is quantitatively important and attenuates the effects of safety regulation on total motor vehicle fatalities. Cognitive elements, the relative costs of repairs, and the functional form of the estimating equation are shown to play prominent roles in the analysis of safety regulation. Our estimates imply that current highway policy initiatives—mandating restraint systems and relaxing restrictions on the maximum speed limit—are likely to have only a modest net effect on reducing motor vehicle fatalities.     

Development of a DNA-based macroarray for the detection and identification of Amanita species

A DNA-based macroarray was designed to quickly and accurately identify certain Amanita mushroom specimens at the species level. The macroarray included probes for Amanita phalloides and Amanita ocreata, toxic species responsible for most mushroom poisonings, and Amanita lanei and Amanita velosa, edible species sometimes confused with toxic species, based on sequences of the highly variable internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of rDNA. A cryptic species related to A. ocreata and one related to A. lanei, identifiable by ITS sequences, were also included. Specific multiple oligonucleotide probes were spotted onto nylon membranes and the optimal hybridization temperatures were determined. The Amanita DNA array was highly specific, sensitive (0.5 ng DNA/μL and higher were detected), and reproducible. In two case studies, the method proved useful when only small amounts of mushroom tissue remained after a suspected poisoning. An identification could be completed in 12 h.     

The legal role of medical professionals in decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment: part 1 (New South Wales)

This is the first article in a series of three that examines the legal role of medical professionals in decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment from adults who lack capacity. This article considers the position in New South Wales. A review of the law in this State reveals that medical professionals play significant legal roles in these decisions. However, the law is problematic in a number of respects and this is likely to impede medical professionals' legal knowledge in this area. The article examines the level of training medical professionals receive on issues such as advance directives and substitute decision-making, and the available empirical evidence as to the state of medical professionals' knowledge of the law at the end of life. It concludes that there are gaps in legal knowledge and that law reform is needed in New South Wales.     

THE DEMOGRAPHIC AND SPATIAL PATTERNS OF RECORDED RAPE IN A LARGE UK METROPOLITAN AREA

The present study details a social contextual analysis of 172 rapes and attempted rapes that occurred in a large metropolitan area in the UK. The main focus of the present study concerns the demographic characteristics of rape victims and offenders, including their age and ethnicity, vis-à-vis their relationship. The study also considers the geographic distribution of offences and their relationship to ethnicity and socio-economic status. Our data clearly indicate that the age of offenders is significantly associated with the nature of the victim–offender relationship, and that rape tends to be intra-racial. The data also provide unique comparisons to be made with contextual data on rapes in rural settings. The implications of these findings for the prevention and deterrence of rape, the recording of rape by the police, and the impact of such findings on public education are considered.     

Confidentiality and public protection: Ethical dilemmas in qualitative research with adult male sex offenders

This paper considers the ethical tensions present when engaging in in-depth interviews with convicted sex offenders. Many of the issues described below are similar to those found in other sensitive areas of research. However, confidentiality and public protection are matters that require detailed consideration when the desire to know more about men who have committed serious and harmful offences is set against the possibility of a researcher not disclosing previously unknown sensitive information that relates to the risk of someone being harmed.     

Statutory Nuisance: The Sanitary Paradigm and Judicial Conservatism

Despite its long history, statutory nuisance law is still consideredimportant in dealing with localised environmental problems.But it is an area of law that is now beginning to creak—theresult of both its historical origins and the attitude of contemporaryjudges to its modern application. Key recent decisions of theBritish courts are examined, and the judiciary is shown to haveadopted an unduly narrow approach and one that is based on amisinterpretation of legislative intention. A detailed examinationof Parliamentary debates in the middle of the nineteenth centuryduring the development of statutory nuisance laws shows thatthe concept was promoted as being broad, flexible and expansive.Modern courts have singularly failed to adapt statutory nuisanceto contemporary needs, a lost opportunity since the statutorynuisance regime can provide an effective means for local governmentto deal rapidly with environmental problems as well as an accessibleremedy for the private individual.