Search results

Both the sources of funding for crash research and the characteristics of the investigators attracted to it tend to produce parochialism, segmentation, and specialization in the field as a whole. These potentially divisive forces are counteracted only by a shared and largely uncritical loyalty to the status quo-that is, a belief that the privately owned and operated conventional vehicle should continue as the major means of transportation. As a consequence, despite the increasingly favorable climate for crash research, recent findings have contributed little to the reduction of mortality and morbidity. The limitations of what is variously called human engineering, engineering psychology, or human factors are delineated, and a broader analytic framework is suggested.

This seminar was arranged by the Peace Research Institute in Oslo for the purpose of bringing together scattered research workers for the exchange of ideas and methods. They were able to draw on experience from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.P. Heintz, director of the Latin American School of Sociology, Santiago, opened the seminar with a talk on the relationship between anomie and development. He mentioned institutional anomie, the compartmentalisation of sectors of society, which occurs, for example, when education fails to make any contribution to the economy. Although he paid more attention to individual anomie, and how it can be absorbed into and dissolved by anomie structures, the institutional concept would appear to be extremely relevant to development problems. Labour markets and the transformation from ascribed to achieved status were mentioned as mechanisms to reduce institutional anomie.