Pedestrian safety - Global Road Safety Partnership

Pedestrian safety: a road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners
Alcohol-impaired drivers and pedestrians create injury risk for themselves and other
road users. Strict legislation and complementary activities that can help reduce
pedestrian road traffic injuries related to alcohol include the following (4,18):
• Conducting mass media campaigns on drinking and driving, including informing
the public about drinking and driving regulations and penalties.
• Setting and enforcing BAC limits for the general driving population (0.05g/dl)
and lower limits for young and inexperienced drivers.
• Setting and enforcing minimum drinking-age laws.
• Regulating and enforcing laws on availability of alcohol.
• Enforcing BAC limits through random breath testing and sobriety checks, and
implementing penalties for offenders.
• Enforcing laws on being drunk in public places, which will cover drivers,
pedestrians and other members of the public.
• Conducting briefing interventions for injured people who come into emergency
rooms with alcohol-related problems, including pedestrians, drivers and other
patients.
• Rehabilitating high-risk offenders, that is, those with BAC levels in excess of 0.15g/dl.
4: Implementing pedestrian safety interventions
4.2.5 Improving vehicle design for pedestrian protection
Motor vehicles have become increasingly safer for occupants, due to improvements
in vehicle design. Until recently, vehicle design incorporated few features to protect
pedestrians, but there is an increasing effort to include design elements that reduce
the likelihood of pedestrian collision and/or reduce the severity of pedestrian injury
in the event that a vehicle–pedestrian crash does occur.
Collision prevention by vehicle design
The vehicle feature ‘Brake Assist’ improves emergency braking ability and reduces
the chance of collision. Brake Assist activates when a sensor detects an emergency
situation, indicated by unusually fast brake pedal actuation and/or unusually
hard pressure on the brake pedal. Brake Assist, which is now fitted as standard to
most new cars, can prevent some collisions with a pedestrian or at least reduce the
impact speed of a collision. An evaluation conducted in France concluded that cars
equipped with Brake Assist had a 10% lower involvement in pedestrian fatalities than
cars without Brake Assist (37).
Brake Assist only activates, however, if the driver attempts to brake, which may not
happen if the driver does not perceive a risk. In 45% of fatal pedestrian collisions in
Adelaide, Australia, for example, drivers reported that they took no evasive action,
typically because they did not see the pedestrian before impact, or realize that a
collision was likely (38).
Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) is a more recent development in pedestrianprotective
vehicle design. Cars with AEB have sensors, usually mounted behind the
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