Pedestrian safety - Global Road Safety Partnership

Implementing pedestrian safety interventions
effective approach would be substantial infrastructure changes such as the provision
of sidewalks and speed management strategies. Engineering-related measures may be
more expensive and may raise more resistance than behaviour change strategies, but
these types of measures are essential to a balanced Safe System approach.
Changes in behaviour can also be achieved through land-use planning
and road design strategies, not only through the 'traditional' approaches
of enforcement and education.
Few jurisdictions in any country have adequate resources and/or political will
to implement all, or even most, of the pedestrian safety measures presented in
Table 4.1. A jurisdiction may choose to begin with a single strategy or measure while
mobilizing resources and political will to implement complementary measures. This
is not problematic as long as the responsible agency and/or the action plan take a
broader and long-term view that incorporates other measures.
Integrate pedestrian safety as an essential feature of roadway design and landuse
planning
A Safe Systems approach to pedestrian safety prevents the development of risky
roadway environments rather than relying exclusively on interventions to reduce risk
in the existing built environment (see Module 1). When decision-makers, engineers
and planners routinely consider pedestrian safety as part of roadway design and landuse
planning, pedestrian safety is built into the transport system.
Many strategies that benefit pedestrian safety have been found to benefit other road
users as well. Examples include (4,5):
• Raised medians on multi-lane roads reduce pedestrian crashes and also head-on
vehicle collisions.
• Changing four- and five-lane to three-lane roads reduces pedestrian crashes and
total roadway crashes.
• Paved shoulders can reduce ‘walking along the road’ pedestrian crashes, as well as
‘run-off-road’ and fixed object crashes involving motor vehicles.
• Providing separate phasing at signalized intersections for left-turning vehicles 2
reduces left-turn vehicle crashes involving pedestrians, and left-turn crashes
involving vehicles going straight.
2
Applies where vehicles drive on the right side of the road. Where vehicles drive on the left, this applies to rightturning
vehicles.
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