Modeling fault among accident—Involved pedestrians and motorists in Hawaii

Using a comprehensive database of police-reported accidents in Hawaii, we describe the nature of pedestrian accidents over the period 2002–2005. Approximately 36% of the accidents occur in residential areas, while another 34% occur in business areas. Only 41.7% of the pedestrian accidents occur at intersections. More pedestrian crashes occur at non-intersection locations—including midblock locations, driveways, parking lots, and other off roadway locations. Approximately 38.2% of the crashes occur at crosswalk locations, while proportionately more (61.8%) of the pedestrian accidents occur at non-crosswalk locations. Using this database the human, temporal, roadway, and environmental factors associated with being “at-fault” for both pedestrians and drivers are also examined. Using techniques of logistic regression, several different explanatory models are constructed, to identify the factors associated with crashes producing fatalities and serious injuries. Finally, two pedestrian models (drunk males and young boys) and one driver model (male commuters) are developed to provide further understanding of pedestrian accident causation. Drunk male pedestrians who were jaywalking were in excess of 10× more likely than other groups to be at-fault in pedestrian accidents. Young boys in residential areas were also more likely to be at-fault. Male commuters in business areas in the morning were also found to have higher odds of being classified at-fault when involved in pedestrian accidents. The results of this study indicate that there should be a combination of enforcement and educational programs implemented for both the pedestrian and drivers to show those at-fault the consequences of their actions, and to reduce the overall number of accidents.     

Functional declines as predictors of risky street-crossing decisions in older pedestrians

The experiment investigated the extent to which risky street-crossing decisions by older pedestrians can be explained by declines in functional abilities. Sixteen young (age 20–35), 17 younger-old (age 60–67), and 18 older-old (age 70–84) participants carried out a street-crossing task in a simulated two-way road environment and took a battery of tests assessing perceptual, cognitive, and motor abilities. Older-old pedestrians were more likely than young and younger-old participants to make decisions that would have led to collisions with approaching cars, especially when traffic coming from two directions was approaching at a high speed. Regression analyses identified several functional performance measures as predictors of these dangerous choices. Walking speed, which determined the time needed to cross, was shown to play the most important role. Time-to-arrival estimate, which informed the pedestrians about the time available for crossing, was found to be the second most predictive factor. Visual processing speed and visual attention abilities assessed via the UFOV^® Test also came into play, allowing participants to focus their attention on the relevant available information and to make timely, correct decisions. Attention shifting was the fourth significant predictor, allowing pedestrians to adapt their crossing strategy to the oncoming road-traffic information. The results suggest that the greater risk of being involved in a collision as age increases calls for a multi-dimensional explanation combining age-related physical, perceptual, and cognitive performance declines. These findings have implications for improving older pedestrians’ safety in terms of speed limits, road design, and training.     

Traffic education for young pedestrians: An introduction

This paper introduces a collection of six detailed studies dealing with various aspects of the traffic education of young children, between 4 and 8 years of age. Young children run disproportionate risks because their developmental possibilities and skills are limited. Yet they can perform reasonably well in certain types of traffic tasks. Also they can be taught in ways that will improve both their perception and choice of safe situations and their behavior in such situations.     

Mindful navigation for pedestrians: Improving engagement with augmented reality

Navigation systems are often followed mindlessly, as users may focus the attention on the device and not on the path. The risk of errors and bias related to the mindless adherence of the instruction is high.We suggested that a mindful walking navigation system could reduce the errors and improve the overall exploration experience. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis with an Augmented Reality system, with information directly projected on the path, in comparison with a standard device. Moreover, we tested the hypothesis that when users feel they are in control of their path, both performance and overall experience would improve. We found that both conditions increased the navigation performance and experience, decreased travel time, errors, and confusion and it increased the number of landmarks noticed.     

Fast and accurate direction estimation of moving pedestrians

This work proposes a simple yet efficient way to estimate pedestrians flow direction based on videos from still cameras. It does that by localizing the extremities of head and feet of silhouettes and fitting them to lines. As the previous in three-dimensional space of these lines are parallel, their intersection point is the vanishing point. Using the computed vanishing point and two internal camera parameters, the horizontal direction of moving pedestrian is determined. Our method competes for the state-of-the-art methods and achieves a high rate accuracy for direction classification.     

Safety and mobility of vulnerable road users: pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists

Traffic safety has improved greatly over the past few decades, but the progress in the safe mobility of vulnerable road users (VRUs) - especially motorcycle riders - has not been as consistent. The changing trends towards healthier and eco-friendlier lifestyle, coupled with the rising costs of fuel have increased the exposure and injury risk of pedestrians, motorcyclists, and bicyclists, especially in urban areas. To address the safe mobility issues of VRUs, Israel's National Road Safety Authority organized an international conference on the topic. This special issue contains the papers of the three plenary talks related to the safe mobility of each of the VRUs, and 18 more papers of the over 100 papers presented at the conference that were accepted for publication in AAP following the Journal's review process.     

Visibility aids for pedestrians and cyclists: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials

This study aims to quantify the effect of visibility aids on the occurrence of pedestrian and cyclist-motor vehicle collisions and injuries, and drivers' responses in detection and recognition. Trial reports were systematically reviewed according to predefined eligibility criteria, including randomised controlled trials or controlled before-and-after trials comparing visibility aids and no visibility aids, and of different visibility aids on pedestrian and cyclist safety, and drivers' responses in detection and recognition. This included trials in which the order of interventions was randomised, or balanced using a Latin square design. Two reviewers independently assessed validity of trials and abstracted data. The main outcome measures were pedestrian and cyclist-motor vehicle collisions and injuries, and drivers'/observers' responses in the detection and recognition time, distance and frequency. No trials which assessed the effect of visibility aids on pedestrian and cyclist-motor vehicle collisions and injuries were identified. Twelve trials examined the effectiveness of daytime visibility aids and 25 trials on night time visibility aids, including 882 participants. Drivers' and observers' detection and recognition improved with visibility aids. For daytime, fluorescent materials in yellow, red and orange colours enhanced detection and recognition. "Biomotion" markings enhanced recognition. Substantial heterogeneity between the trials limits the possibility for meta-analysis. Visibility aids have the potential to improve detection and recognition and would merit further development to gain public acceptance. However, the impact of visibility aids on pedestrian and cyclist safety is unknown and needs to be determined.     

Crosswalk time estimation and time perception: An experimental study among older female pedestrians

Since the sense of time is strongly influenced by advancing age, this laboratory study aimed to find out more about older pedestrians’ decisions to cross the road, focusing on their estimates of how long it would take them to cross. The walking times of older female adults with or without any walking impairment and of healthy young adults were recorded on a walkway representing a road section. Participants also performed actual and imagined crossings of this “road” as well as a duration production task. Results showed that misestimated crossing times were related to the individual time base, with stronger time distortions in some older participants. A comparison between the older participants with disabilities and their age-paired counterparts without disabilities revealed an overestimation of crossing time in the former, affording them a bigger safety margin.     

Seeing pedestrians at night: Visual clutter does not mask biological motion

Although placing reflective markers on pedestrians’ major joints can make pedestrians more conspicuous to drivers at night, it has been suggested that this “biological motion” effect may be reduced when visual clutter is present. We tested whether extraneous points of light affected the ability of 12 younger and 12 older drivers to see pedestrians as they drove on a closed road at night. Pedestrians wore black clothing alone or with retroreflective markings in four different configurations. One pedestrian walked in place and was surrounded by clutter on half of the trials. Another was always surrounded by visual clutter but either walked in place or stood still. Clothing configuration, pedestrian motion, and driver age influenced conspicuity but clutter did not. The results confirm that even in the presence of visual clutter pedestrians wearing biological motion configurations are recognized more often and at greater distances than when they wear a reflective vest.     

Reprint of “Safe places for pedestrians: Using cognitive work analysis to consider the relationships between the engineering and urban design of footpaths”

Footpaths provide an integral component of our urban environments and have the potential to act as safe places for people and the focus for community life. Despite this, the approach to designing footpaths that are safe while providing this sense of place often occurs in silos. There is often very little consideration given to how designing for sense of place impacts safety and vice versa. The aim of this study was to use a systems analysis and design framework to develop a design template for an ‘ideal’ footpath system that embodies both safety and sense of place. This was achieved through using the first phase of the Cognitive Work Analysis framework, Work Domain Analysis, to specify a model of footpaths as safe places for pedestrians. This model was subsequently used to assess two existing footpath environments to determine the extent to which they meet the design requirements specified. The findings show instances where the existing footpaths both meet and fail to meet the design requirements specified. Through utilising a systems approach for footpaths, this paper has provided a novel design template that can inform new footpath design efforts or be used to evaluate the extent to which existing footpaths achieve their safety and sense of place requirements.     

Differences in traffic judgements between young and old adult pedestrians

Older pedestrians have been shown to be over-involved in casualty crashes, compared to younger pedestrians, in recent reports. This study set out to investigate whether older pedestrians' road crossing behaviour might render them more vulnerable to crashes because of declines in their physical, sensory, perceptual or cognitive abilities. An initial ‘blackspot’ accident analysis highlighted the types of crashes in which older (and younger) adult pedestrians were involved and likely crossing actions. Road crossing behaviour was then systematically measured from unobtrusive video recordings of individual road crossings for a sample of younger and older pedestrians at several urban locations. On two-way undivided roads, older pedestrians crossed more frequently when there was closer moving traffic and generally adopted less safe road crossing strategies than their younger counterparts. On one-way divided roads, their crossing behaviour was considerably more safe and similar to that of younger pedestrians. The findings suggest that age-related perceptual and cognitive deficits may play a substantial role in many of the crashes involving older pedestrians.     

Motor-vehicle collisions involving child pedestrians at intersection and mid-block locations

We study motor-vehicle collisions involving child pedestrians walking to school in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada to understand and contrast collision risks at mid-block and intersection locations. We use a matched case–control study design and apply it to intersection and mid-block locations instead of people. Cases are intersections/mid-blocks where collisions occurred and controls are locations where collisions did not occur. We match cases to controls on geography, socio-economic status and year. We use conditional logistic regression to predict the log-odds of collision risk at intersections and mid-blocks as a function of various environmental measures while controlling for volume of child pedestrian activity. Our results suggest that child pedestrian injuries at intersections are associated with intersection control type, traffic volume, and land use characteristics. In contrast, mid-block child pedestrian collisions are not associated with small scale environmental features. The results of this study suggest that some factors associated with the risk of collision differ across location types. These findings may be useful in the planning of safer walking journeys to school.     

Age-related differences in street-crossing safety before and after training of older pedestrians

International accident statistics indicate that elderly pedestrians make up an extremely vulnerable road-user group. Past research has shown that older adults make many unsafe street-crossing decisions and adopt insufficient safety margins, especially when vehicles are approaching at high speed. Apart from studies on road design and speed-limit countermeasures, there is surprisingly no road-safety research on behavior-based measures to improve older pedestrians' safety. In this line, the present study was aimed at (i) assessing the effectiveness of a training program for older pedestrians that combined behavioral and educational interventions, and (ii) examining whether and to what extent age-related differences in street-crossing safety could be reduced after training older adults. Twenty seniors were enrolled in a training program. Before, immediately after, and six months after training, street-crossing behavior was assessed using a simulated street-crossing task. Twenty younger participants performed the same simulated task to obtain a baseline measure. The results showed that the training produced significant short- and long-term benefits, due to a shifting of the decision criteria among the older participants towards more conservative judgments. When compared with the younger group, the older participants improved their behavior considerably so that significant differences in the mean safety-related indicators were no longer observed. However, the older participants' ability to take the oncoming car's speed into account did not improve. Even after training, and contrary to younger adults, older participants were found to make more and more unsafe decisions as the car's speed increased, putting them at a higher risk at high speeds. This finding may reflect age-related perceptual and cognitive difficulties that cannot be remedied by a behavioral or educational training method. The present findings underline that high speed is an important risk factor for elderly pedestrians that should be handled by effective speed reduction measures (i.e. speed ramps, road narrowing).     

Social, behavioral and driving characteristics of injured pedestrians: a comparison with other unintentional trauma patients

Pedestrian injuries represent 11% of all motor vehicle related injuries in the USA. This study attempts to define the epidemiology of the pedestrian victim. Patients admitted to a regional adult trauma center were interviewed and evaluated for substance abuse. Pedestrians were compared with the remaining unintentional trauma patients with regard to demographics, socioeconomics, possession of a driver's license, injury prone behaviors, risk taking dispositions, and BAC levels using the Student's t-test and Pearson's chi2 statistic (alpha=0.05). Multivariate logistic regression models were built with pedestrian mechanism as the outcome. When compared to the remaining unintentional trauma population (N=661), pedestrians (N=113) were significantly more likely to be black, not married, unemployed, binge drinkers, alcohol dependent, drug dependent, BAC+, to have a low income, low educational achievement, younger age, and to not have a driver license. Black race, unemployment of 1 year or more, never licensed, lapsed license, revoked license and BAC>200 mg/dl showed statistical significance in the multiple logistic regression. Pedestrians represent a sub-population with a low socioeconomic status and high incidence of substance abuse. Unemployment, not having a driver's license, black race, and a BAC>200 mg/dl were strongly linked to being an injured pedestrian.     

Children as vulnerable populations in radiological/nuclear events: discussion scenarios

A workshop to discuss Canada's preparedness to properly manage and treat children during radiological/nuclear (R/N) events was held in Ottawa, Canada, on 1-2 June 2010. This workshop provided a platform for participants of varied backgrounds including medicine, radiological and nuclear physics as well as child care, to discuss the strength and shortcoming of the currently implemented practices and procedures in Canada for the treatment and management of contaminated and/or exposed children during R/N events. To aid this discussion, scenarios (vignettes) involving the malicious use of radiological material were presented and discussed from the perspective of the emergency response focusing specifically on children. From these discussions, it was concluded that the management of children during R/N events is vastly different from the management of adults, and requires a specific set of protocols and procedures, not yet outlined in Canadian documentation. This paper is not meant to discuss existing response protocols during R/N events, but rather to discuss the deficiencies in planning and suggested improvements/revisions raised through discussion at the workshop on how to better manage children during an R/N event.     

Crossing roads safely: an experimental study of age differences in gap selection by pedestrians

The over-representation of older pedestrians in serious injury and fatal crashes compared to younger adults may be due, in part, to age-related diminished ability to select gaps in oncoming traffic for safe road-crossing. Two experiments are described that examine age differences in gap selection decisions in a simulated road-crossing environment. Three groups of participants were tested, younger (30-45 years), young-old (60-69 years) and old-old (>75 years). The results showed that, for all age groups, gap selection was primarily based on vehicle distance and less so on time-of-arrival. Despite the apparent ability to process the distance and speed of oncoming traffic when given enough time to do so, many of the old-old adults appeared to select insufficiently large gaps. These results are discussed in terms of age-related physical, perceptual and cognitive limitations and the ability to compensate for these limitations. Practical implications for road safety countermeasures are also highlighted, particularly the provision of safe road environments and development of behavioural and training packages.     

Excellent Anti‐Icing Abilities of Optimal Micropillar Arrays with Nanohairs

Anti‐icing abilities are achieved on surfaces of micropillar arrays with nanohairs that are fabricated by methods of soft replication and crystal growth, i.e., different micropillar arrays with the similar nanohairs, different nanohairs with the same micropillar arrays. It is demonstrated that an optimal micropillar array with nanohairs contributes an excellent anti‐icing or antifogging property at low temperature below zero. As a result, the longest icing delay time is achieved effectively up to ≈9839 s at −10 °C on the optimal surface. As for the optimal surface in humidity, the condensed droplets merge into each other, and meanwhile jump off easily. Accordingly, a largest dry area is up to ≈90.5% at −5 °C in ≈1020 s after breeze action. It is attributed to the stability of less liquid–solid fraction on an optimal surface under low temperature, in addition to cooperation between micropillar arrays and nanohairs in sizes. This finding provides an insight into the design of structure size on micro–nanostructured surface for anti‐icing/antifogging ability effectively, which can be extended into the applications in some surfaces of systems, e.g., microdevices worked in cold or humid environment.     

The perception of pedestrians from the perspective of elderly experienced and experienced drivers

We examined hazard perception (HP) abilities among elderly experienced and experienced drivers, with regard to the presence of pedestrians in residential areas. Two evaluation methods were used: (a) observation of traffic scene videos and pressing a button when a hazardous situation was identified, and (b) driving in a driving simulator. The results of the video observation method showed that elderly drivers had a longer response time for hazard detection. In addition, four of the eight pedestrian-related events were difficult for elderly drivers to perceive when compared to experienced drivers. Elderly drivers, shown to have limited useful field of view, may also be limited in their ability to detect hazards, particularly when located away from the center of the screen. Results from the simulator drive showed that elderly drivers drove about 20% slower than experienced drivers, possibly being aware of their deficiencies in detecting hazards and slower responses. Authorities should be aware of these limitations and increase elderly drivers' awareness to pedestrians by posting traffic signs or dedicated lane marks that inform them of potential upcoming hazards.     

Compliance of Ultra-Orthodox and secular pedestrians with traffic lights in Ultra-Orthodox and secular locations

Following a previous study that revealed the disobedience of Ultra-Orthodox citizens, as compared to secular citizens, of traffic lights at crosswalks, the present study examined the road habits of 995 Ultra-Orthodox and secular pedestrians in neighboring Ultra-Orthodox and secular cities. Using an observation grid designed specially for this study, the pedestrians were observed at two crosswalks – one in an Ultra-Orthodox city and one in a secular city – as far as similar traffic parameters, using a logistic regression. The tendency to cross on a red light was assessed as a function of estimated age, gender, religiosity, location (religious/secular), the duration of the red light, the number of vehicles crossing and the number of pedestrians waiting at the curb. Ultra-Orthodox pedestrians committed more violations than secular pedestrians did, and there were more road violations in the Ultra-Orthodox location than there were in the secular location. Fewer traffic violations were committed by “local” pedestrians (Ultra-Orthodox pedestrians in the Ultra-Orthodox location and secular pedestrians in the secular location) than by “foreigners” (Ultra-Orthodox pedestrians in the secular location and secular pedestrians in the Ultra-Orthodox location). The odds of crossing on a red light decreased as a function of both the number of people waiting at the curb and the number of vehicles. Consistent with previous research, males crossed on red much more than females did, regardless of religiosity and location. Our discussion focuses on theoretical and practical explanations of the findings.