PEDESTRIAN GUARDRAILS AND ACCIDENTS

Conventional guardrails are shown to be beneficial for pedestrians, but only if they are adults. Lack of visibility through guardrails endangers children, and helps to explain why child pedestrians have a higher accident rate in Britain than in any comparable country. An accident study of a high-visibility guardrail, Visirail, reveals accident reduction for adults , children and vehicles which ar significantly greater and more cost-effective than those for ordinary guardrails. These improvements were achieved both by replacing masking guardrails, and at sites with no previous guardrail. Accident savings correspond to predictions from an accident model based on reduction in risk with increase in pedestrian flow. It is proposed that this effect could readily be utilized to reduce deaths and injuries greatly, both to pedestrians and to other road-users.