Pedestrian safety - Global Road Safety Partnership

Pedestrian safety: a road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners
• failure of drivers to respect right-of-way for pedestrians, including failure to yield
at pedestrian crossings;
• vehicle condition and defects (e.g. brakes, lighting, windscreen); and
• quiet (electric) vehicles, whose presence cannot be detected by normal auditory
means.
BOX 1.3: Talking and walking: an emerging problem
The use of mobile phones and other smartphones is
growing exponentially worldwide. An estimated 77%
of the world’s population owns a mobile phone (66).
While the risk of talking and texting while driving a
vehicle is now well documented (67) much less is
known about walking and distraction.
Since 2005, a number of studies, conducted primarily
in the United States and among young adults,
have been published that suggest pedestrians who
are distracted by phone conversations, or other
distracting activities such as listening to music
or texting, take greater risks when crossing roads
(66,68–72). These results can probably be generalized
to pedestrians in other high-income countries.
The contribution of distracted walking will most likely
be higher in countries where there is a greater mix
of traffic, less controlled crossings or where awareness
of the risks is low because these pedestrians
are at greater risk in the first place. A concerted,
combined approach needs to be used in all countries.
Hard-hitting social marketing campaigns are
needed to educate pedestrians, while policy-makers
and engineers need to consider alternative ways to
protect those ‘talking and walking’, including modifying
the environment.
© Margie Peden
1: Why is addressing pedestrian safety necessary?
1.5 Summary
The information presented in this module can be summarized as follows:
• Pedestrian fatalities comprise about one fifth of the annual global road traffic
injury deaths.
• Male pedestrians tend to be over-represented in pedestrian collisions.
• The characteristics of pedestrians killed in collisions – and the proportion of pedestrian
traffic fatalities out of all road traffic fatalities – vary widely between and
within countries. Effective interventions require collection and analysis of local data.
21