The association of distraction and caution displayed by pedestrians at a lighted crosswalk

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-2005

Publication Title

Journal of Community Health

Volume

30

Issue

4

First page number:

269

Last page number:

279

Abstract

The rates of deaths and injuries among pedestrians have fallen in recent years, but still remain public health problems as about 5000 pedestrians die each year. Because pedestrians have been shown to be responsible or partially responsible for many of the crashes in which they are involved, we sought to assess the relationship of distracted walking and performing routine cautionary behaviors of pedestrians crossing a busy street in a southwestern city at an intersection, adjacent a university. The behavior of 866 individuals was recorded by trained observers as pedestrians walked across a 105-foot wide street served by a stop light and zebra painted crosswalk. We defined distracted pedestrians as those wearing headphones, talking on a cell phone, eating, drinking, smoking or talking as they crossed the street. Caution was measured by looking left and right, and entering the crosswalk only when the white proceed light was illuminated. We found that only 13.5% of walkers looked left and right and entered the crosswalk while the white light was flashing. Approximately 20% of walkers were distracted as they crossed the street. Regression analysis indicated that distraction was negatively, but weakly associated with displaying cautious pedestrian behaviors. Because traffic lights were routinely ignored and lack of caution was predicted by distraction, we suggest that inexpensive education efforts target pedestrians near college campuses.

Keywords

Accidents; Traffic/psychology; Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Attention; Demography; Distracted driving; Distracted walking; Distraction; Female; Humans; Male; Men; Middle Aged; Older people; Pedestrian accidents; Pedestrians; Pedestrians--Safety measures; Public health; Risk-Taking; Risk-taking (Psychology); Safety; Walking/psychology; Traffic accidents; Walking; Women

Disciplines

Community-Based Research | Community Health | Infrastructure | Place and Environment | Psychology

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the item. Publisher policy does not allow archiving the final published version. If a post-print (author's peer-reviewed manuscript) is allowed and available, or publisher policy changes, the item will be deposited.

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