Road crossing behaviour of older pedestrians

Older pedestrians are over-represented in serious-injury and fatal road crashes. In these studies the possibility that this over-representation is at least in part due to differences in road-crossing behaviour was investigated. Three groups of pedestrians were unobtrusively and anonymously observed when they were crossing busy one-way and two-way roads mid-way between traffic lights. The “young“ group ranged in estimated age from 30-45 years, the “young-olds“ from 60-69 years and the “old-olds“ were estimated to be 75 and older. The results showed that old-old pedestrians in particular seem to be at increased risk of colliding with a vehicle on a two-way road because in comparison with young pedestrians they are on the road for longer (slower walking), they cross roads more often when there is on-coming traffic in the far lane, and while they seem to compensate for slow walking by leaving larger distance gaps, they do not leave larger time gaps between themselves and the oncoming vehicle. This risk is reduced on one-way roads and for young-old pedestrians. It seems that on a more complex road, old-old pedestrians have difficulties processing concurrently multiple sources of information: traffic in both directions and speed and distance of oncoming vehicles