Overcoming barriers to pedestrian safety

Large proportions of the Australian and New Zealand road tolls are pedestrians (around 13 per cent in Australia and 10 per cent in New Zealand) and pedestrians make up a much larger proportion of the global road toll, with many countries recording over half their toll as pedestrians (e.g., Peru 78 per cent, Mozambique 68 per cent, Congo 59 per cent, Bangladesh 54 per cent). Furthermore, pedestrians are not as readily addressed within the safe systems approach as are vehicle occupants, because of the lack of physical protection and consequently much lower impact speeds at which death or serious injury are likely. This paper considers the barriers to more effective management of pedestrian safety and amenity. These include: (1) the ‘roads are built for cars’ mentality; (2) perceived costs of pedestrian safety treatments versus economic gains of vehicular traffic movement; (3) the absence of consideration of pedestrian waiting time in benefit cost analyses of road management policy; (4) ongoing expansion of vehicle capacity on roads; (5) victim blaming; and (6) data collection problems created in the likely scenario of interviewing an uninjured driver able to put his/her point of view versus a deceased or severely injured pedestrian unable to speak. Solutions are offered in terms of focused research, policy changes, reconsideration of benefits cost ratio factors, better speed management and engineering of roads and roadsides to accommodate pedestrians.

• Record URL:
  http://acrs.org.au/events/acrs-past-conferences/2012-acrs-conference/program/papers/
• Authors:
  • Job, R F
• Conference:
  • Australasian College of Road Safety Conference 2012, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
• Publication Date: 2012-8

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 8p
• Monograph Title: A safe system: expanding the reach: Australasian College of Road Safety national conference, 9-10 August 2012, Sydney

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Highway design; Injuries; Pedestrians; Policy; Research; Safety; Traffic safety
• Uncontrolled Terms: Safe systems (road users)
• Geographic Terms: Australia; New Zealand
• ATRI Terms: Crash countermeasure; Injury prevention; Pedestrian; Policy; Research needs; Road design
• ITRD Terms: 1661: Accident prevention
• Subject Areas: Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Policy; Research; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01472890
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 19 2013 10:16AM