Pedestrian Safety

Child Restraint Use: Workbook and Guide for Evaluating Community-based Programs

Ragland, David R.
Geyer, Judy A.
Cooper, Jill F.
2003

The leading cause of injury and death for children in California is motor vehicle crashes. To prevent these needless tragedies, the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), through the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, funds child passenger safety programs throughout the state. This workbook is designed to be used by these local programs to 1) evaluate the impact of their activities on child restraint use, 2) evaluate results to improve or modify the programs as needed, and 3) meet contractual evaluation requirements. Program evaluations can be difficult for local programs due...

Relative Burden of Distracted Driving Fatalities by Characteristic

Griswold, Julia B.
Grembek, Offer
2014

We were glad to see discussion of the dangers of distracted driving to vulnerable road users in the article by Stimpson et al. in the November/December 2013 issue of Public Health Reports. However, we question the conclusion that pedestrian and bicyclist victims of distracted driving crashes are disproportionately nonHispanic white. This inference appears to be drawn from the results in Table 1 of the article, where the rates are calculated per one million total population, which fails to account for the different sizes of the populations of each race/ethnicity. To correctly evaluate the...

Identifying Factors that Determine Bicycle and Pedestrian-Involved Collision Rates that Affect Bicycle and Pedestrian Demand at Multi-Lane Roundabouts

Arnold, Lindsay S.
Flannery, Aimee
Ledbetter, Lauren
Bills, Tierra
Jones, Michael G.
Ragland, David R.
Spautz, Laura
2010

This project examined the safety and demand issues for pedestrians and bicyclists at multi-lane roundabouts through a literature review, case studies, in-field counts and surveys, focus groups, and video analysis. This document presents research findings, synthesizes current information on best practices, and makes recommendations to assist local agencies planning and designing safer multi-lane roundabouts. These findings should help local agencies and Caltrans create roundabouts that better and more safely address the needs of bicyclists and pedestrians. The current literature is referred...

Impacts of Pedestrians on Capacity and Delay of Major Street Through Traffic at Two-Way Stop-Controlled Intersections

Yang, Zhao
Zhang, Yuanyuan
Zhu, Renwei
Ye, Xiaofei
Jiang, Xiaohong
2014

This paper aims to estimate the impacts of pedestrians on capacity and average control delay for the major street through traffic at two-way stop-controlled (TWSC) intersections. A procedure was proposed to estimate the expected delay for major street through vehicles based on the pedestrian arrival time and motorist yielding behavior. Field data were collected to calibrate the crucial parameters in the established models. The proposed models were then validated against field measured data. It was found that the calibrated models provided reasonable delay estimates. Based on the...

Trauma Center-Based Surveillance of Nontraffic Pedestrian Injury among California Children

Rice, Thomas M.
Trent, Roger B.
Bernacki, Kate
Rice, Jennifer K.
Lovette, Bonnie
Hoover, Eileen
Fennell, Janette
Aistrich, Anna Zacher
Wiltsek, Dana
Corman, Ellen
Anderson, Craig L.
Sherck, John
2011

Introduction: Every year in the United States, thousands of young children are injured by passenger vehicles in driveways or parking areas. Little is known about risk factors, and incidence rates are difficult to estimate because ascertainment using police collision reports or media sources is incomplete. This study used surveillance at trauma centers to identify incidents and parent interviews to obtain detailed information on incidents, vehicles, and children.

Methods: Eight California trauma centers conducted surveillance of nontraffic pedestrian collision injury to children aged...

A Methodology for Counting Pedestrians at Intersections: Using Automated Counters to Extrapolate Weekly Volumes from Short Manual Counts

Schneider, Robert J.
Arnold, Lindsay S.
Ragland, David R.
2009

Accurate methods of counting pedestrians are needed to quantify exposure for safety analysis, rank infrastructure improvements and safety programs by priority, evaluate the benefits of pedestrian projects, develop models of pedestrian volumes, and track changes in pedestrian activity over time. However, pedestrian counts are still much less common than motor vehicle counts in most communities. In addition, existing count methodologies are not standardized and rarely provide enough information to extrapolate to weekly, monthly, or annual volumes. This exploratory study presents a...

Pedestrian Crash Risk on Boundary Roadways University Campus Case Study

Schneider, Robert J.
Grembek, Offer
Braughton, Matthew
2013

Prominent pedestrian trip attractors, such as college campuses and major urban parks, are often surrounded by roadways with high volumes of motor vehicle traffic. Although many pedestrians cross busy boundary roadways, relatively little is known about the pedestrian crash risk along these types of facilities. This study quantifies pedestrian crash risk at roadway intersections on the boundary of the University of California, Berkeley, campus during typical spring and fall semester weekdays. Manual pedestrian counts were extrapolated with data from three automated counter locations to...

Visual Assessment of Pedestrian Crashes

Griswold, Julia B.
Fishbain, Barak
Washington, Simon
Ragland, David R.
2010

Of the numerous factors that play a role in fatal pedestrian collisions, the time of day, day of the week, and time of year can be significant determinants. More than 60% of all pedestrian collisions in 2007 occurred at night, despite the presumed decrease in both pedestrian and automobile exposure during the night. Although this trend is partially explained by factors such as fatigue and alcohol consumption, prior analysis of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System database suggests that pedestrian fatalities increase as light decreases after controlling for other factors.

This...

Evaluate the Causes of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Traffic Fatalities and Injuries, and Establish Appropriate Countermeasures for Use in California

Arnold, Lindsay S.
Ragland, David R.
Yip, Harry
Cooper, Doug
MacLeod, Kara E.
Hennessey, Daniel
Mitman, Meghan F.
DuBose, Brooke
2010

The three primary objectives of this project were to: (1) conduct research on existing bicycle and pedestrian safety programs and guidelines in the U.S. and internationally, (2) obtain and analyze existing data related to pedestrian and bicycle safety in California, and (3) assist in developing methodologies for producing safety action plans, identifying and selecting projects, conducting education campaigns, and targeting enforcement campaigns. To meet these objectives, SafeTREC developed a set of resources and tools for use in California. These resources make information and data on...

Qualitative Comparison of North-American Procedures for Areawide Pedestrian Travel Measurement

Greene-Roesel, Ryan
Diógenes, Mara C.
Ragland, David R.
Lindau, Luis A.
2007

There is no standard system for estimating area-wide pedestrian volumes in the United States. As a result, pedestrian volumes cannot be routinely used to guide transportation investments and monitoring measures performance. Vehicle volumes, by contrast, are measured systematically in each state and are reported to the Federal Highway Administration annually to be used in the allocation of federal funds. This paper investigates the advantages and disadvantages of three approaches to the creation of a standard system of pedestrian volume measurement: direct sampling, survey methods, and...