Still careless: Findings from a cross-sectional study of young pedestrians’ risky road crossing behaviors

Abstract

Background Pedestrian-vehicle collision is one of the most common traffic injuries worldwide. This study aimed to investigate the determinants of pedestrians' road crossing beliefs and behaviors in potentially risky situations using the Theory of Planned Behavior among Iranian young adults. Methods This was a population-based study on a sample of 562 young adults aged 18 to 25 years living in Tehran, Iran. The data were collected using a self-administered validated questionnaire comprising of two potentially risky road crossing behaviors scenarios followed by additional items assessing perceived risk and severity. Results From all the respondents, 17.8% reported that they had previous experience of vehicle-collision while the remaining 82.2% did not. The results indicated that those with previous experience reported fewer safety behaviors than those who did not experience an accident. There were significant differences between participants with and without a history of vehicle-collision for perceived risk (mean difference, adjusted multivariate P-value: -5.77, 0.027) and perceived severity (-6.08, 0.003), attitude toward traffic regulations (-6.34, 0.006), attitude toward behavior (-7.56, 0.005), perceived behavioral control (-5.20, 0.018), behavioral intention (-5.35, 0.046) and road crossing behavior in potentially risky situations (-5.37, 0.004). Conclusions Previous unpleasant experience of vehicle-collision is not the only determinant of self-protective behaviors in the road- crossing and it is important to focus on the effect of attitudinal and motivational factors such as attitudes towards risk, feelings of invulnerability and perception of vehicle- collision severity as well. Future safety education interventions should keep these aspects in their design.