Pedestrians and drivers: their encounters at zebra crossings

The aim of this work is to describe pedestrians' road-crossing strategies, drivers' strategies applied to situations involving pedestrians crossing the road, and to describe their encounters at zebra crossings. Pedestrians' and drivers' risky strategies and risky combinations of different strategies are identified. Risk and protective factors on the part of both pedestrians and drivers are discussed. Conflict situations (conflicts, "near misses", and accidents) are analyzed and the causal nexus of events leading to such traffic conflicts are described. The conclusions are interpreted in the context of the traffic environment. They suggest that the main issue concerning safety of pedestrians is the speed of the approaching car and the predictability of the pedestrians' behaviours. Both of these behaviours are highly correlated and influence each other. Exploration of pedestrians' and drivers' attitudes, behaviour and communication is summarized based on focus groups analysis, on site observations, video camera recordings analysis and rapid interviews. (A)