Child Pedestrian Safety: Study of Street-Crossing Behaviour of Primary School Children with Adult Supervision

Abstract

Road traffic accidents are the primary cause of injuries and fatalities among children. The current study focuses on children’s (un)safe crossing behaviour in a real traffic situation accompanied by an adult at a crosswalk in front of their school. The study aims to investigate if there are differences in crossing behaviour related to road infrastructure (i.e., one-way and two-way street, elevated and non-elevated street crossing), the gender of the child, and the effect of the accompanying adult’s behaviour on the child’s crossing behaviour. Primary school children from two urban schools in Flanders (Belgium) were observed for three days while crossing the street in front of their school in the morning and afternoon. A total of 241 child–adult pairs were observed. Descriptive analysis, Pearson chi-square tests, and binary logistic regression models were used to find differences between groups. More than half of the crossings exhibited two or more unsafe behaviours. Not stopping at the curb before crossing was the most unsafe behaviour, exhibited by 47.7% of children; not looking for oncoming traffic before and during the crossing was the second most unsafe behaviour, exhibited by 39.4% of the children. The only difference between boys’ and girls’ crossing behaviour was in stopping at the curb with girls 1.901 times more likely to stop before crossing as compared to boys. Adults holding hands of the child resulted in safer behaviours by children. The children not holding hands displayed significantly riskier behaviour in running or hopping while crossing the street and being distracted. The study reinforces the need to improve the transportation system through infrastructural interventions (elevated crosswalks), as well as educating and training children and the parents on safe crossing behaviour in traffic.

Pedestrian Safety: Drivers’ Stopping Behavior at Crosswalks

“…Ref. [11] has also suggested that education and training on safe crossing behavior in traffic can be a pedestrian protection measure. One of the most used pedestrian crossing types, a zebra crossing, was first designed and efficiently implemented in Slough, the United Kingdom, in 1951 [12].…”

Pedestrian crossing: Analysis of habits and compliance through unsignalized crosswalk in the city of Kigali

“…The statistical results indicated that 27.21% comply with the crossing policy, rules, and guidelines in the City of Kigali, whereas the remaining 72.79% do not. There is a need to improve the transportation system through infrastructural interventions and user training (Riaz et al, 2022). The summary model is written down as shown in Table 1.…”

Fundamental Analysis of the Ages of Children and Road Structures Involved in Traffic Accidents

“…The model employed the number of traffic accidents at community road intersections as the objective variable, and various factors as the explanatory variables, and the results clarified that the risk of accidents increased at four-way intersections with both poor and good visibility and at four-way intersections with narrow roads. Riaz et al investigated if there are differences in crossing behavior related to road infrastructure, the gender of the child, and the effect of the accompanying adult on primary school children crossing behavior [33]. They showed that girls were about 1.9 times more likely to stop before crossing as compared to boys, and adults holding hands with the child resulted in safer behaviors by children.…”