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A Research Report to: The Department of the Environment,Transport and the Regions

Philip BlyMartin DixCarry Stephenson

First Published 1999by MVA Ltd.

MVA House, Victoria Way, Woking, Surrey, GU21 1DD.Tel: 01483 728051Fax:01483 755207e-mail: [email protected]

© Crown Copyright 1999Copyright in the typographical arrangement and designvests in the crown.

Published for the Department of the Environment,Transport and the Regions under licence from theController of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

Applications for reproduction should be made in writingto The Copyright Unit, Office of Public Services, HerMajesty’s Stationery Office, St Clements House, 1-6Colegate, Norwich NR3 1BQ.

ISBN 0 9537358 0 X

Comparative Study of European Child Pedestrian Exposure and Accidents

Contents

Chapter Page

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Objectives 1

1.3 Report Structure 1

2 General Approach 3

2.1 Accidents, Exposure and Risk 3

2.2 Study Approach 4

3 Methodology 5

3.1 Introduction 5

3.2 Account of Survey Development 5

3.3 Exposure Survey Sampling Methodology 6

3.4 Exposure Survey Questionnaire Structure and Interview Procedure 6

3.5 Obtaining and Sampling National Accident Site Data 7

3.6 Accident Site Survey Procedure 8

4 Report on Fieldwork 9

4.1 Account of Exposure Survey 9

4.2 Profile of Exposure Survey Interviews 9

4.3 Reliability of Exposure Survey 10

4.4 Account of Accident Site Survey 10

5 Analysis Procedure 11

5.1 Introduction 11

5.2 Tabulating the Data 11

5.3 Estimating Accident Risk 12

5.4 Effect of Distribution of Exposure Across Different Road Environments 12

5.5 Regression Models 13


6 Findings: Overall Child Pedestrian Exposure 15

6.1 Overall Exposure to the Road Environment 15

6.2 Dependence of Exposure on Age and Sex 16

7 Findings: Exposure on Different Types of Road 21

7.1 Introduction and Explanation of Figures 21

7.2 The Road Hierarchy 22

7.3 Traffic Volume 28

7.4 Traffic Speed 30

7.5 Road Width and Presence of Special Lanes 32

7.6 Special Measures to Reduce Speed 34

8 Findings: Crossing the Road 37

8.1 Crossing Place and Position 37

8.2 Type of Junction and Crossing 40

8.3 Visibility at Crossings 42

9 Findings: The Roadside 43

9.1 Details of the Footpath 43

9.2 Parked Vehicles 45

9.3 Surrounding Buildings 46

10 Findings: Aspects of Behaviour 49

10.1 Introduction 49

10.2 Accompaniment 49

10.3 Speed of Walking 50

10.4 Location of Activity 50

10.5 Exposure by Day of Week 51

11 Findings: Multivariate Regression Analysis 53

11.1 Introduction 53

11.2 Regression Analysis Across Categories of Road Environment 53

11.3 Adding Other Variables 54

11.4 Summary of Multivariate Regression Analysis Results 56

12 Conclusions 57

12.1 Total Pedestrian Exposure 57

12.2 Distribution of Exposure: Infrastructure and Traffic Characteristics 57

12.3 Distribution of Exposure: Behaviour 59

12.4 Design of the Road Environment 60

12.5 Summary of Conclusions 62

Contents


Tables Page

Table 4.1 Number of Accident Sites Surveyed 10

Table 6.1 Estimated Accident Risk per Unit of Exposure for Males and Females by Age Group 18

Table 6.2 Percentage of Time Exposure Spent in Full Daylight, by Age Group 20

Table 7.1 Expected Accident Rate Due to Different Distributions of Exposure by Road Type at Overall AverageRisk for Each Type 23

Table 7.2 Exposure in Dfferent Types of Road Disaggregated by Socio-Economic Group 27

Table 7.3 Time Exposure (minutes per day) in Different Types of Area by Age Group 27

Table 8.1 Estimated Accident Risk per Road Crossing Activity per 100,000 Children per Year 38

Table 10.1 Exposure Categorised by Accompaniment 49

Table 10.2 Accompaniment Categorised by Age and Sex 50

Table 10.3 Time Exposure Categorised by Type of Activity 50

Table 10.4 Time Exposure Categorised by Location of Activity 51

Table 10.5 Exposure Categorised by Day of Week 51

Table 11.1 Results of the Multi-Variate Regression Analyses 54

Table 11.2 Multi-Variate Regression Analyses of Accident Rate in Geographic Areas Against Time ExposureCategorised by Relevant Variables 55

Figures Page

Figure 1.1 Great Britain’s Road Safety Record Compared with Other European Countries 2

Figure 2.1 Summary of Research Design 4

Figure 6.1 Mean Exposure per Day per Person by Mode, and Number of Roads Crossed on Foot/Roller Blade 15

Figure 6.2 Time Exposure by Age 17

Figure 6.3 Number of Roads Crossed by Age 17

Figure 6.4 Time Exposure for Males and Females 18

Figure 6.5 Time Spent Playing on Foot or Roller Blade Near Roads, by Age and Sex (minutes per day) 19

Figure 7.1 Time Exposure: Percentage Exposure and Relative Risk Categorised by Road Type 22

Figure 7.2 Crossing Activity Exposure: Percent of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk Categorised by Road Type 22

Figure 7.3 Time Exposure: Risk and Percentage Exposure on Different Types of Road Categorised by Age and Sex 25

Figure 7.4 Time Exposure: Percentage Exposure and Relative Risk Categorised by Traffic Volume 28

Figure 7.5 Crossing Activity Exposure: Percent of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk Categorised by Traffic Volume 29

Figure 7.6 Time Exposure: Percentage Exposure and Relative Risk Categorised by Traffic Speed 30

Figure 7.7 Crossing Activity Exposure: Percent of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk Categorised by Traffic Speed 31

Figure 7.8 Crossing Activity Exposure: Percent of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk Categorised by Width of Roadand Presence of Special Lanes 33

Figure 8.1 Percentage of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk Categorised by Use of Marked or Unmarked Crossingsand by Nearness to a Junction 37

Figure 8.2 Percentage of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk Categorised by Type of Junction and Location(for crossings near a junction) 40

Figure 8.3 Percentage of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk Categorised by Type of Crossing 41

Figure 9.1 Time Exposure: Percentage Exposure and Relative Risk Categorised by Details of the Footpath 43

Figure 9.2 Time Exposure: Percentage Exposure and Relative Risk Categorised by Details of the Barrier 44

Figure 9.3 Time Exposure: Percentage Exposure and Relative Risk Categorised by Number of Parked Vehiclesand Road Type 46

Figure 9.4 Time Exposure: Percentage Exposure and Relative Risk Categorised by Nearby Buildings 47

Contents


Acknowledgements

The authors would like to record particular thanks and appreciation to their colleagues Miles Tight and

Frances Hodgson from the Institute for Transport Studies at Leeds University who, as part of the joint

research team, contributed to developing the survey methodology, reviewed this report and provided

expert comments, constructive criticism and advice at key stages throughout the project. We are also very

grateful to other members of the research team at MVA Ltd, especially Kate Jones, Gillian Akerman and

Annabel Le Masurier, for their contributions to survey development, survey control and data analysis.

Within DETR, Deirdre O’Reilly together with her colleagues at the Road Safety Division not only administered

the project but provided advice, information, and support throughout. Barbara Sabey, as Consultant to

DETR, also provided guidance and comment during the initial development stages.

The team would also like to record their appreciation to all those involved in managing, co-ordinating

and undertaking the interview and observation surveys in all three countries. Facts International were

responsible for all UK fieldwork and international survey control, in collaboration with MV2 in France and

Mobiel in the Netherlands.

The project would not have been possible without the active co-operation of key Government departments

and many individual officers in all three countries. Particular thanks are due to the Road Accidents

Statistics Branch at DETR in the UK, the Centre d’Etudes Techniques de l’Equipement in France and the

Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat in the Netherlands, who provided us with accident site data from

their national databases. In addition we would like to thank staff within all the local government authorities

who kindly provided additional information on accident site locations.


Summary

The number of child pedestrian accidents, relative to the number of children in the population, is

considerably larger in Britain than the average for the EU countries. MVA Limited, with the Institute for

Transport Studies at the University of Leeds, were commissioned by the Road Safety Division of the

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions to make a comparative study of child pedestrian

accidents in Great Britain, France and the Netherlands. This is the Final Report of the Study. It describes

the full-scale surveys of both child exposure and accident sites in the three countries, and the analysis of

the data. Its findings provide convincing and substantial explanations for much of the differences between

the countries.

The general approach is based on the recognition that the frequency with which accidents happen is

equal to the risk of an accident happening in any particular circumstances multiplied by the amount of

exposure of people to those circumstances. In this case, exposure is measured by the time children spend

walking in different road environments, and the number of times they cross a road in each environment.

The risk associated with any defined road environment can then be estimated by dividing the number of

accidents which occur in each category of road environment by the total amount of exposure to that

environment or, at a more detailed level, by appropriate statistical regression analysis.

In order to measure exposure, a home interview procedure was designed which identified all out-of-

home activity of the child on the previous day, the amount and mode of travel, and then focused on a

randomly-selected walk stage. This walk stage was followed in great detail on a large-scale street plan,

and information was collected on many aspects of the road environment, the times taken and the roads

crossed. The interviewer subsequently re-walked the route, collecting still more detail about the environment,

in a way which permitted the information to be categorised in a consistent way. Since the re-walked

routes were selected randomly from all walk stages, and the interviews were spread across the full year,

this built up a very detailed dataset which is representative of the children’s walking activity. Approximately

1000 children were interviewed in each of the three countries between May 1998 and April 1999.

In parallel with the exposure survey, the same interviewers examined a representative sample of accident

sites where a child was killed or seriously injured. The survey has been limited to the most severe accidents

because the available data concerning location of these sites is more complete than for less serious

accidents and more consistent between countries. The environment of the accident sites was categorised

in exactly the same way as that of the re-walked stages of the exposure study, so that both exposure and

accidents could be compared in a consistent way, and related to a wide range of relevant aspects of the

roads and traffic. Approximately 500 accident sites were surveyed in each country.

i


The strength of this study is that it has quantified the distributions of time spent by children in proximity to

roads, the number of times they cross the roads, and the numbers of child pedestrian accidents. It has

categorised them according to the many different road environments involved, in considerable detail,

and on a comparable basis between the three different countries; Britain, France and the Netherlands.

Most importantly, it has provided quantitative estimates of the accident risks associated with the different

environments.

It has shown that there is very little difference between the total amount of time children spend near roads

in the three countries, and that children in Britain cross roads less frequently than in the other countries.

Thus differences in total exposure cannot account for the higher child pedestrian accident rate found in

Britain compared with the other countries. In all three countries, the accident risk was substantially

greater for boys than girls, with the gap being largest for the youngest children.

Different distributions of this exposure across the different road environments do account for perhaps half

of the overall difference between the countries, however. In particular, children in Britain spend more

time near, and undertake more road crossing activity in, more major roads; wider roads; roads with

higher flows of traffic; and roads of higher speeds, than children in France and the Netherlands. This is

largely the result of different land-use and activity patterns in Britain, and their relation to the road

hierarchy. Land-use and highway design and policy can be used to affect these distributions, but it is

important to continue applying the techniques of the Urban Safety Projects to major roads, and to ensure

that safety education and training adequately prepare children for their dangers. The distribution of

exposure across different types of road, from main roads to local roads, is very similar for different age

groups and different socio-economic groups.

There are also apparent behavioural differences between British children and those in the other countries,

in that British children are much more likely to use unmarked crossings than those in France, and are

more likely to cross mid-block than those in either of the other countries. Moreover, children in France

are more likely to be accompanied by an adult, and those in Britain are more likely to be accompanied

by other children. All these factors could increase the accident risk in Britain relative to the other countries,

though estimates of the risk do not always make a clear distinction.

Traffic calming and the use of special measures to slow traffic are very prevalent in the Netherlands, but

much less common in Britain or France. Estimation of their effectiveness in reducing accidents is obscured

by the fact that in Britain many of the special measures observed at accident sites had been installed

following the accident, but overall they are associated with substantially higher risks than in the Netherlands

and this requires further investigation.

The study also suggests that in Britain road safety policy could focus on local distributor and residential

roads, and road crossing activity at junctions. The higher risks identified in these areas might be the result

of the design of the road environment, the behaviour of children, or the behaviour of drivers and any

combination of these. Further analysis of the database might provide a better understanding of the

causes, but additional research focusing on selected sites, so that specific comparisons can be made in

greater detail, might also be productive.

ii

Summary

Comparative Study of European Child Pedestrian Exposure and Accidents Page 1

1Introduction

1.1 Background

Although Great Britain’s overall road safety record is very good in comparison with other countries, the

accident rate for child pedestrians is higher than average for the EU countries (see Figure 1.1). Other

northern European countries, in particular, have accident rates per child which are substantially lower.

The Road Safety Division of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) has

been keen to understand the reasons for these differences in accident rates, and to identify ways of

reducing accident rates in Great Britain.

Against this background, the Road Safety Division commissioned MVA Ltd with the Institute for Transport

Studies of the University of Leeds to undertake a comparative study of child pedestrian accidents and

exposure to risk in Great Britain, France and the Netherlands. The study, which commenced in January

1997, was completed in June 1999. Survey fieldwork was undertaken by Facts International Ltd.

1.2 Objectives

The aim of this study was to understand the differences in exposure and accident rates of 5 to 15 year olds

within similar road environments and, by identifying the factors that may explain higher accident rates in

Great Britain, to assess the implications for policy.

The results of this study should provide a useful basis for the development of road safety policy in Great

Britain, but they will also be of value to the other countries included in the comparison. This is especially

true since there are few reliable sources of exposure data currently available. In addition, the methodology

developed as part of the study is new, and is potentially of use to other studies.

1.3 Report Structure

This report provides the main findings of the study along with a brief outline of the study’s background;

objectives; approach; methodology; and analysis procedure. A Technical Report is also available, which

provides a more detailed account of the methodology, in addition to a full set of survey materials and

supporting tables.


The remainder of this report is structured as follows:

• Chapter Two describes the general approach;

• Chapter Three gives an account of the methodology adopted;

• Chapter Four provides an account of the fieldwork undertaken;

• Chapter Five reports on the analysis procedure adopted;

• Chapters Six to Eleven describe the key findings; and

• Chapter Twelve provides the study’s conclusions.

Figure 1.1 Great Britain’s Road Safety Record Compared with Other European Countries

(A) Fatality Rates

(per 100,000 population)

of 6-14 Year Olds for All Road

Traffic Accidents

(C) Fatality Rates


of 10-14 Year Olds for

Pedestrian Accidents

1. Introduction

(B) Fatality Rates


of 6-9 Year Olds for

Pedestrian Accidents


2General Approach

2.1 Accidents, Exposure and Risk

The study approach was built upon the following theoretical foundations.

The overall incidence of accidents in any category can be expressed as:

Number of accidents = Exposure x Risk

where the Exposure is some measure of the opportunity for accidents to occur, and Risk measures the

probability of an accident happening in that particular road environment.

The risk is likely to be greater in some road environments (where the footpath is very close to heavy or fast

traffic, for example). The exposure could be measured in a number of ways, but we have elected to

consider the total time spent in a particular environment, and the number of roads crossed in that

environment, because 90.5%1 of pedestrian accidents occur in connection with crossing the road. Naturally,

the measure of “risk” will be dependent on the measure of “exposure”.

Some of the differences in accident rates between the countries may be explained by differences in

exposure. If so, this may reflect differences in social make-up and cultural traditions which may not

readily be influenced by safety policy (in any case, the advantages and disadvantages of this wider

behaviour would go far beyond safety considerations). Even if the differences are the result of different

exposures on different types of road, there is still much which can be done to make pedestrian exposure

on a given type less dangerous by careful design of the roadside environment, reducing the interaction

between pedestrians and traffic, and the design and control of crossings, while education and training (of

both children and motorists) might change some aspects of behaviour and reduce the risk.

Beyond differences in exposure, it may be the case that the risk is higher in one country than another, even

in a similar road environment. In that case, it will be important to examine the design of the road

environment, the behaviour of both children and drivers and safety policies more widely in those countries

with lower risk. Thus it is important to try to obtain a comparable measure of risk in the different countries.

1The Department of Transport. Road Accidents Great Britain: 1997


2.2 Study Approach

The approach taken to this study was to undertake, in parallel, an Exposure Survey and an Accident Site

Survey. The Exposure Survey measured children’s exposure to different road environments using household

interviews with a representative sample of children in the age group 5-15. These interviews identified the

amount of travel the child had done on the day previous to the interview, by all modes, and identified in

detail all the walk stages of that travel. The study went on to examine how much walking was done in

each different category of road environment, and these environments were described by a wide range of

aspects. To do this, the interviewer selected at random one walk stage from the child’s reported pedestrian

activity and identified on a large-scale map the precise route. The interview collected much detailed

information from the child (or the parent) about this particular walk, but the detail required by the study is

more than the child can be expected to remember or appreciate.

In order to collect this greater level of detail, and to check on the accuracy of the information reported by

the child, the interviewer then ‘re-walked’ the journey, collecting information much more completely than

could be obtained directly from the child. In this way the study built up an extremely comprehensive

picture of a representative set of walked stages. The detail is reliable and is categorised in a consistent

way, because it was collected by a small number of trained interviewers.

The Accident Site Survey examined the sites of a representative sample of accidents where a child pedestrian

was killed or seriously injured2 , collecting the same range and detail of information on the road environment

as was collected for the walks undertaken by children. Unavoidably, sites were being surveyed a year or

so after the accidents, but in the great majority of cases traffic conditions and the road environment

change only slowly with time, and the comparison of accident sites with exposure sites is valid.

In this way, it was possible to match exposure and accidents within a particular area, and by relating one

to the other to estimate accident risk. This overall approach is summarised in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1 Summary of Research Design

2 General Approach

2The definition of ‘seriously injured’ differs in different countries. However, this does not cause any serious problem for thisstudy, since when vehicles collide with pedestrians, whether the result is a serious injury or a fatality is often a matter of chance.Accident sites of slight injuries were not included in the survey since such accidents are often not recorded in adequate detail.Accident rates and risks calculated in the study are normalised for consistency to the known rates for fatal accidents, since thereis less variation between the countries in the definition and recording of fatalities than of serious injuries.


3Methodology

3.1 Introduction

This chapter provides a brief summary of the survey methodology, including:

• an account of survey development;

• a description of sampling procedures adopted; and,

• a report of survey procedures.

3.2 Account of Survey Development

A literature review was undertaken in January 1997, and relevant findings were incorporated into the first

draft of the Exposure Survey questionnaire and Accident Site Survey form. Subsequent amendments to

the environment categorisation were made as the survey development progressed.

The questionnaires and survey procedures for the Exposure Survey were designed and developed in

seven stages over a twelve month period. The first stage involved semi-structured interviews with children

of different ages to gain a broad understanding of their accuracy in recollecting information about

distances walked, times taken, road names, etc. The next five stages each involved pilot surveys in three

locations in Great Britain to test, revise and improve successive versions of the survey sampling and

interview procedures, questionnaires and showcards. The final stage was a full international pilot study

involving 30 interviews in each of the three countries, Great Britain, France and the Netherlands, after

which further amendments were made. Throughout the seven stages the questionnaire developed from

a topic list to the final version of the questionnaire used for the main international survey.

The accident site survey form and survey procedures for the Accident Site Survey were designed and

developed in four stages, over a ten month period. These four stages each involved pilot surveys to test

and refine the initial versions of survey procedures, forms and showcards. The first two stages were

undertaken using sites at complex road junctions in Great Britain, which were not actual accident sites.

The third stage, however, involved assessment of ‘real’ accident sites in Great Britain, taken from the

STATS 19 data base. The final stage was a full international pilot study involving 30 site observation visits

in each of the three countries, Great Britain, France and the Netherlands, after which further amendments

were made.


3.3 Exposure Survey Sampling Methodology

In each of the three countries 1000 children aged 5-15 were selected for interview. The sampling

procedure developed in each country was designed to ensure a soundly representative sample of children

was interviewed. Particular attention was paid towards minimising the extent of bias in the sampling

process with respect to socio-economic group (SEG) and the type and population density of children’s

area of residence, since these factors have been suggested in previous research to be linked with differences

in child accident rates.3

As a result of differences in the way Census information can be accessed in each of the three countries,

slightly different approaches were used to achieve representative samples in each case. However in each

of the countries:

• 25 small areas (Wards in Great Britain) were selected, and within each of these, four smaller

areas (Enumeration Districts in Great Britain) were selected. (Details of the selection process

are provided in the Technical Report4 );

• within each of the 100 areas selected, lists of all addresses were produced. Quotas were set on

SEG and ethnicity to reflect the population in the area. Quotas were also set on age and sex to

ensure an equal spread of interviews across age bands and gender. Finally, quotas were set on

day of week of interview to ensure that the number of days for which children’s travel information

was collected was representative of the actual number of days which were weekends, term time

weekdays and holiday weekdays;

• each of the four EDs (or their equivalent) in each Ward (or their equivalent) was randomly

allocated to one of the four fieldwork waves, spread across the entire year, thus ensuring one ED

(or equivalent) in each ward (or equivalent) was surveyed during each survey wave;

• interviewers were asked to complete 10 interviews in each ED (or equivalent) from the addresses

given, and achieving the quotas set.

3.4 Exposure Survey Questionnaire Structure and Interview Procedure

The interview procedure undertaken in the exposure survey can be summarised in terms of five main

steps, as follows:

• interviewers collected detailed information from respondents about all travel patterns which

they had undertaken on the previous day, outside their home or garden. This information was

recorded in the form of a one day travel diary, separating each trip (journey from origin to

destination for a single main purpose), and breaking each trip down into stages (a new stage

begins each time a new mode of transport begins, including walking);

• from the previous day’s information, interviewers selected one walk trip (or walk stage of a trip)

at random, which was made by foot (or roller blade/skate), and which either started or ended

within three miles of the respondent’s home;

3 Methodology

3Christie N (1995) The high-risk child pedestrian: socio-economic and environmental factors in their accidents. TRL ProjectReport 117Preston B (1972) Statistical Analysis of Child Pedestrian Accidents in Manchester and Salford, Accident Analysis andPrevention Volume 4 pp323 - 3324MVA Ltd in Association with Leeds University Institute for Transport Studies (1999), Comparative Study of European ChildPedestrian Exposure and Accidents - Technical Report


• interviewers asked respondents detailed questions about:

- the exact route of the selected walk trip (or walk stage of a trip);

- certain features on each of the roads walked along or crossed;

- who they were with at each stage; and,

- the purpose of the journey;

• interviewers collected demographic information about the respondents;

• interviewers ‘re-walked’ the route for which information had been collected during the interview,

collecting further details about the road and roadside environment of each road walked along

or crossed.

Whilst the above outline provides an overview of the interview procedure, there were many circumstances

where the interviewers were required to undertake a slightly different procedure. For example, under

certain circumstances the interviewer collected information from a day prior to the previous day; and

sometimes the interviewer selected a whole trip for further investigation, and sometimes only part of a trip.

The procedures that were adopted under different circumstances are described in the Technical Report.

3.5 Obtaining and Sampling National Accident Site Data

In each of the three countries, national data sets were obtained for accidents where pedestrians aged

between five and fifteen had been killed or seriously injured (KSI).

In Great Britain, the DETR provided information from the STATS 19 database on all KSI pedestrian

accidents of 5 to 15 year olds occurring between July 1996 and June 1997 (inclusive). This was the latest

almost complete 12 months of data available. In four counties the information on the STATS 19 database

was incomplete for some months in 1997. In these counties accidents from the same months in 1996

were used as replacements.

In France, Centre d’Etudes Techniques de l’Equipement (CETE) provided information on all KSI pedestrian

accidents of 5 to 15 year olds occurring between December 1996 and November 1997 (inclusive). This

was the latest 12 months of complete data.

In The Netherlands , the Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat provided information on all KSI pedestrian

accidents of 5 to 15 year olds occurring in 1996 and 1997. Data from two years was required in order

to achieve a sample of 500 accidents.

In Great Britain and France, reference information on each accident was sent to the local authority/

Department in which the accident occurred, and more detailed information on exact site location was

requested. This was provided in the form of narrative description including road names and landmarks,

or by sketches/computerised maps. In the Netherlands, this level of information was held centrally and

was supplied by the Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat.

From the information acquired, a sample of 500 accidents was selected in each country for the survey.

The samples were selected as follows:

• all accidents resulting in death were selected;

• the remainder of accidents (making the total up to 500 in each country) were selected from

those resulting in serious injury. In Great Britain and France the number selected from each

County/Department was proportional to the number of accidents that had occurred in that

3 Methodology


County/Department. Within each County/Department the accidents were selected using a

random process. In the Netherlands accidents were selected at random, but this was not done

by area, since almost all accidents from the two year period were required;

• only accidents which occurred off the mainland (and hence required travel by boat or plane), or

those where site location was not possible from the information available, or where pedestrian

access was not possible, were excluded.

3.6 Accident Site Survey Procedure

Site surveyors were provided with detailed descriptions of each accident, including their location. Surveyors

were required to visit the exact location of the accident, or their best guess of the site if the exact location

was not identifiable. Where practical, visits took place at the time of day that the accident had occurred.

At the accident site surveyors were required to produce a sketch map of the accident site; take photographs;

and to answer questions on the accident site form about the road and roadside environment of all roads

within 20 metres of the site of the accident.

3 Methodology


4Report on Fieldwork

4.1 Account of Exposure Survey

The Exposure Survey was conducted in three countries - Great Britain, France and the Netherlands. The

numbers of interviews which were undertaken and used in the analysis were 1002, 993 and 1024

respectively.

The 25 interview areas in each country were selected using the sampling methodologies described in the

previous chapter. In each country the areas are representative of the country as a whole in terms of

population density, and provide a good geographical spread across the country.

In each of the 25 areas in each country, approximately 40 interviews were conducted. Approximately 10

interviews were conducted in each of the four smaller areas selected for each wave.

4.2 Profile of Exposure Survey Interviews

In each country quotas were set on gender, age, social class and ethnicity. Quotas were set to ensure

that:

• the profile of Exposure Survey respondents in each area reflected the profile of all children/

households in that area; and,

• the profile of Exposure Survey respondents in the 25 areas combined reflected the profile of all

children/households in the 25 areas combined. (These were very similar to the profiles of all

households/children in the country).

Inevitably, the statistical sampling provided some differences between target and out turn, especially in

relation to SEG. Consequently, where appropriate in the analysis, weighting factors were applied to

ensure the data collected truly reflected the total population of each country. The weighting procedures

adopted are described in full in Chapter Five.

A further quota was set to ensure the days for which children’s travel patterns were recorded were

representative of the actual number of days which were weekends, term time weekdays and holiday

weekdays. As with demographic characteristics, weighting factors were applied during analysis to ensure

the data reflected the ‘actual’ number of days which exist in each category.


4.3 Reliability of Exposure Survey

The purpose of the rewalk surveys was to collect more detailed information than could reliably be obtained

from the children’s recollections. In order to check that the children’s recollections were reasonably

accurate, however, the children’s reported number of road crossing activities was compared with that

identified by the interviewer on the rewalk. This comparison is given in the Technical Report. The best-fit

line through the data was almost exactly on the 45° line between the two data sets, ie the road crossing

activities reported by the children equalled that reported by the interviewers, and there was no bias in the

children’s reports.

4.4 Account of Accident Site Survey

The Accident Site Survey was conducted in the same three countries - Great Britain, the Netherlands and

France. In each country site surveys were conducted throughout the country, at the locations where the

accidents occurred.

In each country all fatal accidents which had occurred over a given time period (as described in Chapter

3) were selected for the survey. The remaining sites visited were those resulting in serious injury. The

sampling procedure for selecting accidents resulting in serious injury is provided in Chapter 3.

Table 4.1 shows the number of accidents surveyed in each country, broken down by those resulting in a

fatality, and those resulting in serious injury.

Table 4.1 Number of Accident Sites Surveyed

Accident Type Great Britain The Netherlands France

Fatal 93 19 57

Serious Injury 407 474 442

Total 500 493 499

It was recognised that there will be differences between the countries in the proportions of fatalities. The

rationale here is that the difference between a fatal and serious injury is often a matter of chance. We

concentrated on fatal and serious accidents because the sites are better described than those where the

injury is only slight.

The terms “killed” and “seriously injured” are defined formally in slightly different ways in the different

countries, though in practice in the police reporting they are likely to be treated similarly. The analysis

made in this study is not, however, dependent on the absolute numbers of accidents but only on the

proportions of fatal accident sites falling into any given analysis category.

4 Report on Fieldwork


5Analysis Procedure

5.1 Introduction

The study has provided an extremely rich data bank of approximately 1000 exposure records and 500

accident site records from each of the three countries. It is capable of providing information about a very

wide range of aspects, and will doubtless provide a quarry of information to be researched for years to

come, but the analysis reported here concentrates on identifying those aspects of the data which seem

best-placed to answer the specific key question:

Why should child pedestrian accident rates be substantially higher in Britain

than in either the Netherlands or France, despite our good road safety record

overall?

5.2 Tabulating the Data

A hierarchical coding structure was employed with both the exposure survey and the accident site survey.

This corresponded to the layout of the questionnaires, so that for the exposure survey the day’s travel

diary, the detailed description of the re-walked journey, and the general household background data,

were coded at three separate levels. Similarly for the accident site survey, the general description of the

site layout, the detailed description of each road involved, and the detailed description of the footpaths

and surrounding area on each side of each road, were coded at three separate levels. A unique serial

number was attached to each survey and site record, so that all levels could be linked together and their

combined information analysed.

As noted in Chapter 4, targets were set for the surveys which were intended to ensure that the samples of

Exposure Survey Respondents were representative of the child populations of each country. Inevitably, the

returns differed somewhat from the targets. We can assume that the accident sites are representative,

since they are a large sample randomly selected from all child accident records at the KSI level. For the

exposure records, wherever we are dealing with aggregates or averages, the members of each national

sample have been adjusted where necessary to represent the known distribution of socio-demographic

attributes in the population.

To do this, weighting factors have been applied to correct the observed samples for any deviation from

the national characteristics in relation to age group (5-7; 8-11; 12-15); ethnicity (% non-white); SEG

(weighted to two broad bands in some cases); and type of day (weekday term time; weekday holiday;

weekend).


Analysis began by constructing aggregate tabulations for each country, and overall, calculating the:

• percentage of total exposure time spent in a given environment;

• percentage of road crossing activity in a given environment; and,

• percentage of accident sites in a given environment.

Standard deviations were also calculated, and the appropriate weightings applied. This was done for all

the categories of road environment identified in the surveys, and the tabulations were examined to identify

relevant differences between the countries.

5.3 Estimating Accident Risk

The surveys have been carefully designed to ensure that the road environments of both exposure and

accidents have been categorised and surveyed on a comparable basis. Obviously, the children surveyed

in the Exposure Survey were not those involved in the accidents whose sites were surveyed, so that

correlations between the two can only be judged across samples sufficiently large to provide representative

distributions of exposure and accidents across the various categories. With the large sample sizes available

here, proportions of exposure and accidents are likely to be representative of the total child population

even when categorised in detail.

For those attributes present in both exposure and accident site data, an estimate of RISKRISKRISKRISKRISK was calculated

as the ratio of:

% of accidents involving attribute a x Overall accident rate

% of exposure involving attribute a

using time or the number of roads crossed for exposure, or both, as appropriate, and estimating the

combined standard deviation. Here, the overall accident rate for the country in question has been taken

as the fatality rate per 100,000 in 1997 (the year of the accidents surveyed), obtained from regression

lines through all the accident data from 1992 to 1997 in order to smooth the statistical year-on-year

fluctuations. Fatal accidents have been used because the statistics are more reliable and less subject to

definitional variation than “severe” accidents. The 1997 values used in the analysis are:

• 1.39 fatalities per 100,000 for Britain;

• 0.82 fatalities per 100,000 for France;

• 0.54 fatalities per 100,000 for the Netherlands.

These estimates of risk could then be compared between the countries to identify those environments

where the risk in Britain seemed to be substantially larger than in the other countries.

5.4 Effect of Distribution of Exposure Across Different Road Environments

The overall accident rate in a country is a combination of three factors:

• the amount of exposure;

• the distribution of exposure across different road environments; and,

• the relative risk of the different road environments.

5 Analysis Procedure


If appropriate lessons are to be learned, it is important to distinguish between these three effects. To do

this, the following calculation was made:

• the average “risk” associated with any road environment was estimated across all three countries;

• for each country, this was multiplied by the amount of exposure measured within that category

to give the “expected” accident rate if each road environment carried the same risk in all

countries;

• “expected” accident rates were added together for all categories of the variable to obtain a

measure of the different accident rates to be expected in the three countries because of the

different distributions of exposure across the various categories of environment, disregarding

the possible effect of the same environment carrying a different risk in different countries.

Comparison of this “expected” rate with the actual rate then indicates what proportion of the overall

differences between countries is due to differences in the distribution of exposure, as distinct from differences

in risk between the countries for a given environment.

5.5 Regression Models

The estimates of risk obtained above refer to single categories of environment or, in a few cases, to the

road environment categorised in two dimensions. Attempts to use the same approach in more dimensions

quickly founder on diminishing sample size as further sub-division reduces the number of records in most

cells to the point where the calculation is dominated by statistical scatter.

The link between exposure and accidents was investigated in a greater number of dimensions using multi-

variate analysis. In doing this, however, it is necessary to rely on averages of exposure and accidents

measured across areas sufficiently large that the samples can be assumed to be representative of the

child population of the entire area. Consequently, the survey records from each country were allocated

to 8 or 10 large areas within each country. The records for the sampled children and accident sites were

weighted to the known totals of children and KSI accidents in each area, but the summed accident rates

across all areas were normalised to the fatal accident rate rather than the KSI rate. This was done

because, as noted above, it avoids definitional differences for severe accidents between the countries.

Statistical regression models of the form:

were estimated, where RA = road attributes in the range r0 to rm (for example, different types of road or

traffic conditions), SD is a socio-demographic attribute in the range s0 to sm, and Nc is a country dummy.

The coefficients Ara and B

sd determine the strength of the correlation, and their values and statistical

significance are the quantities of interest. The same models were also estimated separately for each

country without using the country dummy. As far as possible, variables which were discrete were treated

as quasi-continuous by, for example, treating the road hierarchy as 1 for a main through-road, 2 for a

local distributor, etc, in order to reduce the total numbers of different variables and coefficients required,

and therefore the statistical uncertainty attaching to the coefficients. Both step-wise regression and models

constructed on the basis of rational combinations of environments which appeared to be important in the

risk estimates made from the tabulations (Section 5.2 above) were estimated.


In Accidents = ∑∑∑∑∑ Ara.In(%E in RA) + ∑∑∑∑∑ B

sdSD + N

c

RA=rm

RA=r0

SD=sm

SD=s0


Unfortunately, the value of the regression analysis was reduced by two unavoidable problems:

• in these analyses, the accident rate in a given area has to be treated as the dependent variable,

so that the wealth of information concerning the accident sites cannot be used: categorisation

of the environment is restricted to the right-hand (exposure) side of the equation; and,

• the dependence of overall accident rate on exposure in the different road environments in each

of the areas used for analysis tends to be confounded by geographic variations of accident rates

with, for example, higher rates in the north of Britain than in the south.



6Findings: Overall ChildPedestrian Exposure

6.1 Overall Exposure to the Road Environment

Figure 6.1 summarises the amount of time children in each country spent travelling on each mode. This

information was obtained from the children’s one day travel diaries. Naturally, this study is concerned

only with pedestrian activity (taken here to include roller-blade use, since this is an increasingly common

activity and shares the same characteristics), but it is helpful to take first an overview of all travel activity.

Figure 6.1 Mean Exposure per Day per Person by Mode, and Number of Roads Crossed

on Foot/Roller Blade

Standard deviations indicated by line extending from ends of each bar.

The amount of time spent on foot near roads is very similar in all three countries, with slightly less time

spent in Britain than in France or the Netherlands. The number of roads crossed is substantially lower in

Britain than in the other countries. Thus total exposure, whether measured in time or road crossing

activity, offers no explanation of the higher child pedestrian accident rate in Britain compared with the

other countries, and the explanation must be sought in terms of differences in the patterns of exposure,

and in different levels of risk in the roadside environments.


There is certainly much more cycling in the Netherlands than in Britain, but in France the time spent

cycling is only marginally higher than in Britain. The greater use of cycle in the Netherlands seems to be

traded to a small extent against less use of car or bus, but it extends the daily total “travel time” substantially:

children in Britain and France spend 45.8 and 45.6 minutes respectively travelling, compared with 58.3

minutes in the Netherlands. Of course, some of this “travelling” may actually have been playing. Activities

outside the home were categorised by journey purpose5 , including time specifically described as “playing”,

or “hanging about the streets”. If this time is subtracted from the total time spent near roads, the daily

totals become 39.5, 37.3 and 45.9 minutes for Britain, France and the Netherlands respectively, though

of course some of the other “travel” may well include playing.

Children in the Netherlands spend almost twice as much time playing in the streets, on foot or bicycle, as

in the other countries, and the use of bicycle greatly increases their total time on or near roads. Apart

from bicycle, the distribution of time across the different modes is similar in all three countries, though

children in Britain use car slightly more than the others, while those in France make greatest use of public

transport.

Children in the Netherlands spend less time on foot to or from school than in Britain or France, but this is

more than compensated by the longer time spent cycling to or from school. Time spent walking back

from school is consistently less than walking to school in all countries, but car time is also less from school

than to it, so this does not appear to be a result of parents picking up children from school. The longer

time spent by children in the Netherlands playing or hanging about the streets might suggest that the

residential road environment is safer there. Time spent visiting friends and for “other” purposes is similar

in all three countries, though largest in Britain.

6.2 Dependence of Exposure on Age and Sex

Figure 6.2 plots the mean time spent per day in the vicinity of roads by children of each age from 5 to 15

in the three countries. Disaggregation by age increases the statistical scatter to give a rather uneven

distribution, but it seems that children in both France and the Netherlands tend to have a similar dependence

of exposure with age, showing a slight decline as age increases, while exposure in Britain is appreciably

lower than in the other countries for ages 5 to 7, and possibly slightly higher for ages 12 to 15, with a

trend which increases with age. By contrast, Figure 6.3 shows that if exposure is measured by the number

of times roads are crossed, instead of by the time spent near them, then in all three countries the number

of crossings tends to increase with age and there are marked differences in exposure of younger children,

with fewest crossings in Britain and most in the Netherlands, though the gap tends to narrow for older

children.

6 Findings: Overall Child Pedestrian Exposure

5 Detailed information about travel purpose, and the basic data on many of the aspects mentioned in this Report, can befound in the Technical Report.


Figure 6.2 Time Exposure by Age

Figure 6.3 Number of Roads Crossed by Age

Figure 6.4 compares the time spent near roads by males and females separately. Differences between

the sexes are not generally statistically significant, though the surveys suggest that in Britain females

spend rather more time near roads than males, while the reverse is true in France and the Netherlands.

Overall differences between the sexes in the number of times roads are crossed are also small, except

that in both France and the Netherlands older females (in the age group 12-15) undertake substantially

more crossing activities than males (30% more in the Netherlands and 19% more in France).



Figure 6.4 Time Exposure for Males and Females

These similarities in patterns of exposure are not matched by the numbers of accidents, however, and the

estimated risk (as calculated by the method described in Section 5.3) to males is substantially greater

than that to females in all countries and at all ages, as Table 6.1 shows. Here, the risk is estimated on the

basis of accidents per unit time of exposure in the road environment, but the pattern of risk estimated on

the basis of road crossing activity is very similar. The gap tends to narrow as children become older. In the

Table differences in risk between the sexes are indicated in bold where they differ by more than twice the

sum of the standard deviations, roughly equivalent to statistically significance at the 10% level. Risks in

Britain are significantly higher than those in the Netherlands in most categories, but only males in the

highest and lowest age groups show significantly higher risks than in France. The strong contrast with the

Netherlands is understandable in view of the much lower overall child pedestrian accident rate there. In

Britain and France, though not in the Netherlands, the risk for males tends to decline with age, while that

for females increases with age, though the trends are not very significant statistically.

Table 6.1 Estimated Accident Risk per Unit of Exposure for Males and Femalesby Age Group

Britain France Netherlands

Age Group Sex Time Crossing Time Crossing Time Crossing

Activity Activity Activity

5-9 male 2.09 2.00 1.02 1.12 0.70 0.77

female 0.80 0.83 0.59 0.53 0.37 0.34

10-11 male 1.85 1.85 1.09 1.13 1.03 0.77

female 0.91 0.91 0.53 0.51 0.27 0.34

12-15 male 1.68 1.61 0.87 0.98 0.63 0.80

female 1.12 1.17 0.77 0.68 0.43 0.35

Bold text indicates where the value for Great Britain differs from that for other countries by more than twice sum ofs.d.’s (ie ~5% level of significance).

Analysis of exposure by socio-economic group shows very little difference in either total time spent near

roads, or in the number of times roads are crossed, between aggregations of the higher SEGs and the

lower SEGs, except in France, where the higher SEGs spend 19% more time, but make 13% fewer

crossings, than the lower SEGs.



Figure 6.5 shows time exposure in minutes per day spent near or on the road for the purpose identified as

“playing”, disaggregated by sex and age group. The larger time spent in play in the Netherlands is very

clear, and the difference is largest for the younger age group. Children in Britain spend less time playing

than in either France or the Netherlands, but again the difference is much more marked for the younger

age groups. In France and the Netherlands girls spend less time playing near roads than boys, whereas

in Britain there is little difference overall, and younger girls actually spend more time near roads than

younger boys.

Figure 6.5 Time Spent Playing on Foot or Roller Blade Near Roads, by Age and Sex

(minutes per day)

In Britain and France it was possible to classify the areas surveyed for exposure according to whether they

were primarily in a large “city”, medium-sized “town”, or essentially “rural”. This was not possible for the

Dutch data, nor was this classification available for the accident data, so that risk could not be estimated

on this basis. There is a clear trend towards total time exposure being substantially greater in British cities

than in smaller towns or rural areas, at 35.2 minutes per day for 12-15 year olds in cities, 28.9 minutes

in towns, and 20.6 minutes in rural areas. For 5-9 year olds exposure in towns, at 22.2 minutes, is higher

than in cities (19.4), but again exposure in rural areas is substantially less at 17 minutes. There is no clear

trend in France.

It was also possible to classify time exposure in terms of whether it had taken place in full daylight, at

dawn or dusk, or in the dark, and in view of the daylight-saving-time debate this is of potential interest.

Unfortunately, the same categorisation was not available in the accident records so no estimates of

accident risk at different levels of light could be made. As Table 6.2 shows, the great majority of exposure

takes place in full daylight, and as one might expect the minority which takes place in the dark or at dawn

or dusk increases with age. However, it is not the case that a larger proportion of exposure takes place

in the dark in the more northerly countries: in the lower age group France has the largest proportion of

dark exposure, while in the higher age group both the Netherlands and France have substantially more

exposure in the dark than does Britain.



Table 6.2 Percentage of Time Exposure Spent in Full Daylight, by Age Group

Age Group Britain France Netherlands

5-9 93.6 87.7 94.0

12-15 86.6 81.0 78.3

Summary

Time spent near roads in Britain is very similar to that in France or the Netherlands, and there is less

road crossing activity. Children in the Netherlands spend substantially more time cycling, but this is in

addition to time spent walking and not a substitute for it. Thus differences in overall exposure do not

explain the differences in overall child pedestrian accident rates.

Differences in exposure between boys and girls, and between age groups, are relatively small. How-

ever, the accident risk per unit of exposure is substantially greater for boys than for girls, by a factor of

two or more for younger children, though the gap narrows for older children.

Differences in exposure between age groups are relatively small, with an upward trend with age in

Britain, and slight downward trends in France and the Netherlands.

Total time exposure is greater in cities than in towns or rural areas in Britain, but this trend is less clear

in France.

British children spend less exposure in the dark or dusk than do children in France or the Netherlands



7Findings: Exposure onDifferent Types of Road

7.1 Introduction and Explanation of Figures

Chapter 6 suggested that the higher child pedestrian accident rate in Britain compared with France or the

Netherlands could not be explained by differences in total exposure. Thus the explanation must be that

either similar road environments carry a higher accident risk in Britain than elsewhere, or British children

spend more of their exposure on more dangerous types of road. We therefore need to look at both the

distribution of exposure and the relative risk of different environments.

This Chapter examines the time children spend in different types of road, and the number of times they

cross these roads, where roads will be categorised by their position in the road hierarchy, the volume of

traffic using them, and traffic speed. In this and later Chapters, where appropriate, the findings are

illustrated by bar charts showing:

• the percentage of total time exposure, or of road crossing activity, or both, spent in each

environment;

• an estimate of the relative risk of time exposure, or road crossing activity, or both, in each

category of road environment associated with that attribute. The method of estimating the

“risk” is described in Section 5.3. Since risks are normalised to the 1997 smoothed fatal

accident rates in each country, and the mean rate is 0.92 fatalities per 100,000 for all three

countries combined, a simple rule of thumb is that a relative risk of 1 indicates a fairly “average”

risk, and risks can be judged as particularly high or low in relation to unity. Note that the

estimated risk is likely to change as it is subjected to further disaggregation by category of road

environment, so “risk” should not be regarded as an invariant measure of each separate aspect

of the road environment. Nevertheless, this quantification of risks is an important output of this

study. The results have been checked, as shown in Technical Report, to ensure that the selected

sample of accident sites, which contains all fatal accident sites plus a random selection of

serious injury accidents, has not biased the estimates. No statistically significant difference was

found between risks estimated from the full accident sample, and those estimated using the fatal

injury sample only.

Comprehensive tabulations of exposure, accidents and risk, disaggregated by a wide range of variables,

can be found in the Technical Report.


7.2 The Road Hierarchy

Figures 7.1 and 7.2 summarise the distribution of exposure across the categories of road type used in the

surveys, and give estimates of the risk in each category, for exposure time and road crossing activity

respectively. In each diagram the standard deviation on the mean is indicated by a line at the top of the

bar, and wherever the mean for Britain differs from that of one of the other countries by more than twice

the sum of the standard deviations an asterisk is shown on the bars for Britain and the other country or

countries which are significantly different. If the distributions of exposure or risk were normal this would

correspond to a level of significance of about 95% confidence that the difference has not arisen by

chance, but in fact the distributions are skewed and the level of significance will be slightly less.

Figure 7.1 Time Exposure: Percentage Exposure and Relative Risk Categorised by

Road Type

Standard deviations indicated by line extending from ends of each bar. Asterisks indicate where the value forGreat Britain differs from that for other countries by more than twice sum of s.d.’s (ie ~5% level of significance).

Figure 7.2 Crossing Activity Exposure: Percent of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk

Categorised by Road Type


7 Findings: Exposure on Different Types of Road


The distribution of exposure across the different types of road is very different in the three countries.

Children spend considerably more time near main through-roads, and cross them more, in Britain than

in France or the Netherlands. French children spend half their time near local distributors, and little on

local “residential” roads. Children in the Netherlands spend little time or crossing activity on main

through-roads (where the risk seems especially high), and more than in the other countries in local

residential roads, where there has been a long-established practice of providing and designing-in protection

from traffic. All this suggests fundamental differences in road hierarchies and densities, and in the

relationship between housing and the road system, between the countries.

For both exposure time and crossing activity, it is clear that main through roads carry a much higher risk

than more minor roads, and there is a general reduction of risk down the road hierarchy. Overall there

is no suggestion that main through-roads in Britain are associated with a higher risk than in the other

countries, but local distributor roads may be less safe, and local residential roads in the Netherlands

seem to carry markedly less risk than in either Britain or France. By contrast, the Netherlands shows an

increased risk on main through roads, and one might speculate that children there are less familiar with

such roads because the local residential environment is better protected.

Thus, although main roads in Britain do not carry a higher risk (per unit time or per crossing) than in the

other countries, British children spend more time, and undertake more crossing activites, on them, and

the overall accident rate can therefore be expected to be higher because of this.

As explained in Section 5.4, the extent to which the observed differences in national accident rates can be

explained by the differences in distribution of child pedestrian exposure, as opposed to differences in

accident risk associated with similar types of road environment, can be estimated by assuming that each

type of road carries the same risk in all three countries (ie the average risk estimated across all three), and

calculating the accident rate which would then be implied by the observed amounts of exposure on the

different types. Table 7.1 illustrates this type of calculation.

Table 7.1 Expected Accident Rate Due to Different Distributions of Exposure by Road

Type at Overall Average Risk for Each Type

(Estimated fatal accidents per year per 100,000 children)

Great Britain France Netherlands

Road Type Time Crossing Time Crossing Time Crossing


% % % % % %

Main through road 0.69 0.73 0.41 0.48 0.19 0.16

Local distributor road 0.14 0.11 0.45 0.47 0.12 0.11

Local residential road 0.24 0.24 0.09 0.08 0.29 0.29

Local non residential road 0.01 0.03 0.01 0.00 0.09 0.06

Cul-de-sac 0.02 0.03 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.02

Other 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.02 0.05

Sum of “expected” CPA fatality 1.13 1.19 1.00 1.08 0.73 0.71

rates on all road types

(% of NL rate) (154%) (169%) (138%) (153%) (100%) (100%)

Average CPA fatality rate per 1.39 0.82 0.54

head (1997) (% of NL rate) (257%) (152%) (100%)



In the table, although the risk per unit time or per crossing activity on main roads is assumed to be the

same in all countries, the total risk on main roads in Britain is almost twice that in France, and about four

times that in the Netherlands, simply because British children spend more time on them. By contrast, for

local distributors the total risk is less in Britain than in France even though the relative risk (per unit

exposure) is significantly greater in Britain, because children in France spend much more time on them

than do children in Britain. When these expected accident rates are summed across all road types the

“expected” fatality rate due to the distribution of exposure time is 54% higher in Britain than in the

Netherlands, and 13% higher than in France.

These differences in the distribution of time exposure explain roughly 34% of the difference between the

overall accident rates of Britain and the Netherlands (54% of 157%), and 19% of the difference relative

to France. Similarly, differences in crossing activity account for 44% of the difference in overall accident

rate between Britain and the Netherlands, but only for 15% of the difference with France.

The remainder of the differences in national accident rates is presumably explained by different levels of

risk in similar road environments in the different countries: ie, a given type of road appears to be safer in

one country than another. This may be because of the design of the environment, or the behaviour of

motorists, or the behaviour of children, or a mixture of all three. For example, local distributor and

residential roads in Britain seem to be associated with a higher relative risk than in either France or the

Netherlands. But this conclusion should be treated with caution, since, as will become clear in later

sections, it is likely that differences in the distribution of exposure across other attributes of the road

environment, within a given road category, also account for some of the difference in overall accident

rate.

When exposure and risk on the different types of road are disaggregated by age and sex (Figure 7.3),

there is relatively little difference between the percentage of time spent by younger children and older

children, or by males and females. In this and subsequent disaggregations comparisons will be made

between the age groups 5-9 and 12-15, comparing children of primary school age with those of secondary

school age, and disregarding the age group 10-11, which may attend either level of school. Results for

time exposure are shown here, but those for crossing activity are very similar. Only in France does the

younger age group spend substantially less time (only half the time) on main roads than the older age

group, and consequently more time on residential roads and other types. In general, though, the

distributions are all very similar, and presumably reflect the distribution of home locations. The

disaggregation of risk shows that the larger risk on main roads in the Netherlands than in Britain identified

above is associated with accidents to boys: risks to girls are actually slightly lower in the Netherlands than

Britain, though these differences are not statistically significant. Indeed, the smaller sample sizes in this

disaggregation provide few significant differences, but the risk in residential roads is significantly higher

than in the Netherlands for both sexes and age groups. On main roads, young boys in France carry a

much higher risk than older boys. Otherwise, there is a general tendency in all countries for the risk to be

lower for females than males, and to reduce down the road hierarchy, but there is no very consistent

pattern of differences between the age groups.



Figure 7.3 Time Exposure: Risk and Percentage Exposure on Different Types of Road

Categorised by Age and Sex

Figure 7.3a Main Through Roads

Figure 7.3b Local Distributor Roads



Figure 7.3c Local Residential Roads

Figure 7.3d Local Non Residential Roads


Disaggregation of exposure in different types of road by different social groups shows surprisingly little

difference between the higher and lower groups, just as Section 6.1 found little difference in overall

exposure by social group. Table 7.2 groups the various SEGs in each country (which are not comparable

between countries) into just two groups, higher and lower6 , and summarises their exposure by road type.


6 The aggregations are A+B+C1 and C2+D for Britain, 1 and 2 for France (omitting 3 which is a small group), and 1+2 and3+4+5 for the Netherlands.


Table 7.2 Exposure in Different Types of Road Disaggregated by Socio-Economic Group


Road Type Higher SEG Lower SEG Higher SEG Lower SEG Higher SEG Lower SEG

Time exposure, minutes per day

Main road 5.7 6.7 3.9 3.6 1.9 1.7

Local distributor 4.5 3.7 14.2 13.1 3.9 3.1

Local residential 10.3 9.1 4.6 3.4 10.8 12.5

Other 3.9 3.9 5.4 3.6 6.3 5.1

Number of roads crossed per day

Main road 1.09 1.20 0.97 1.03 0.43 0.38

Local distributor 0.76 0.77 3.67 4.31 1.34 1.14

Local residential 2.23 2.39 0.89 1.12 4.36 5.13

Other 0.69 0.62 0.18 0.12 2.02 1.66

In Britain and France it was possible to classify the areas surveyed for exposure according to whether they

were primarily in a large “city”, medium-sized “town”, or essentially “rural”. This was not possible for the

Dutch data, nor was this classification available for the accident data, so that risk could not be estimated

on this basis. Table 7.3 shows time exposure (minutes per day) in different types of area by age. In Britain

exposure on main roads decreases with town size. British cities and towns show broadly similar exposures

in residential roads, but exposure is much less in rural areas. All these trends are less clear in France.

Generally, younger children have less exposure than older children in most types of road, though not in

residential or “other” road types in France.

Table 7.3 Time Exposure (minutes per day) in Different Types of Area by Age Group

Britain France

Road Type Ages City Town Rural City Town Rural

Main road all 8.88 6.52 3.48 3.53 2.29 4.43

5 to 9 6.95 4.33 3.14 2.89 1.12 2.69

12 to 15 10.26 7.62 4.41 4.95 4.25 7.11

Local all 3.25 2.94 6.52 14.74 14.63 11.89

distributor 5 to 9 2.53 2.99 4.13 12.42 16.24 10.67

12 to 15 2.99 2.51 4.45 14.44 16.02 11.86

Local all 11.14 10.07 8.08 4.14 2.41 3.87

residential 5 to 9 8.76 10.82 5.36 5.55 2.44 5.42

12 to 15 17.65 11.34 8.72 2.25 1.45 2.34

Other all 1.83 4.17 5.15 5.55 2.68 5.22

5 to 9 0.66 3.80 3.32 5.00 1.99 5.68

12 to 15 2.83 5.54 2.54 1.72 3.34 2.20

All types all 25.10 23.72 23.23 28.0 22.0 25.4

5 to 9 18.90 21.94 15.95 25.86 21.79 24.46

12 to 15 33.73 27.01 20.12 23.36 25.06 23.51



Summary

There is a clear reduction of accident risk down the road hierarchy, with main through-roads associ-

ated with a risk more than three times that for more local roads.

Children in Britain spend substantially more time on main roads than in the other countries. There is

little difference in exposure between younger and older children, or between males and females, on

the different types of road, except that in France younger children spend only half the time on main

roads that older children spend, but with four times the risk, and in the Netherlands a markedly high

overall risk on main roads is primarily due to males in all age groups.

There is very little difference between socio-economic groups in their distribution of exposure across

the different road types

The differences in the distribution of exposure across the different types of road seem to explain about

40% of the observed differences in overall accident rates between Britain and the Netherlands, and up

to 20% of the difference between Britain and France.

Main roads in Britain do not seem to be inherently less safe than those in the other countries, but local

distributor and residential roads might carry an intrinsically higher risk.

7.3 Traffic Volume

The survey was unable to make sample counts of traffic flows, but surveyors were asked to estimate

whether (a) vehicles passed by only “occasionally”, (b) 1 or 2 vehicles were generally in sight, or (c)

whether traffic passed by “all the time”. This categorisation seems to have been made consistently, as the

estimates of risk demonstrate. Figures 7.4 and 7.5 summarise the distribution of exposure and estimates

of risk in each category, for exposure time and the number of road crossings respectively.


Traffic Volume





Categorised by Traffic Volume


Children in Britain experience significantly more exposure to high traffic flows than in the Netherlands for

both time and crossing activity exposure, and significantly less crossing activity exposure to low flows.

Britain has more exposure at lower levels than France, but exposure is similar at higher levels.

There is a consistent increase in risk with traffic volume. Given that, overall, the risk near continuous

traffic flows is only about twice that near occasional traffic it appears that risk rises less rapidly than pro-

rata with flow. Obviously, a mistake on the part of the child is more likely to result in an accident if traffic

is frequent, but it may be that children are more aware of the dangers in busy streets.

The risk in Britain is significantly higher for time exposure than that in France at medium traffic flows, but

otherwise it is similar to that in the other countries. However, the crossing activity risk seems to be

consistently higher at all levels of flow, and significantly so in most cases.

Calculation of expected accident rates as a consequence of the observed distribution of exposure, in a

similar way to that illustrated in table 7.1 for different road types, shows that the greater exposure of

British children to higher traffic volumes explains about 20% of the difference in overall accident rate

relative to the Netherlands for both time and the number of roads crossed, but in the comparison with

France time exposure explains nothing of the difference, and crossing activity explains only 7%.

Summary

Accident risk increases consistently with traffic volume, but probably much less rapidly than pro rata.

The risk associated with road crossing activity in Britain is higher than in the other countries at all traffic

volumes, though the gap narrows at higher flows.

The greater exposure of British children to higher traffic volumes than in the Netherlands explains

about a fifth of the difference in overall accident rates between these countries, but not the differences

relative to France.



7.4 Traffic Speed

The surveys were unable to make quantitative estimates of traffic speed, but for both exposure and

accident sites a record was kept of the prevailing speed limit, and the surveyor was asked to judge

whether traffic was “ faster”, “slower” or “about the same speed” as “most traffic in towns”. This latter

judgement is a particularly difficult qualitative one, and the briefing of the fieldwork surveyors attempted

to instil as much consistency into it as possible. In practice, the estimates of risk based on these

categorisations suggest that the surveyors have achieved remarkable consistency. It is possible, however,

that this may to some extent be an artifice caused by surveyors of roads known to be accident sites

ascribing higher speeds than those they would estimate in the re-walks for a similar environment where

no accident is known to have occurred.

Figures 7.6 and 7.7 summarise the distribution of exposure and estimates of risk across both speed limits

and judged speed categories, for exposure time and the number of roads crossed respectively.


Traffic Speed





Categorised by Traffic Speed


It is very noticeable that exposure in the Netherlands and France, whether measured by time or by the

number of roads crossed, contains a much larger proportion of lower speed limits, and of traffic judged

to be travelling “slower than most traffic in towns”, than is the case in Britain. Low speed limits, and traffic

judged to be travelling “slower than normal”, are especially prevalent in the Dutch exposure. Thus once

again the exposure of British children seems to be more prevalent in the more dangerous situations than

is the case in the other countries.

Overall, although the samples of exposure or accidents at some speed limits are too small to place much

reliance on the estimate of risk, there is a very consistent pattern of risk increasing with both speed limits

and the surveyors’ judgements of the relative speed of traffic. The risk seems to increase rapidly with

speed, so that against the speed limit (which does not necessarily indicate the actual mean speed of

traffic) the risk at 30mph is more than twice that at 20mph, and that at 40mph three or four times as large

as that at 30mph. Similarly, the estimated risk tends to increase very rapidly from the slowest to the

quickest category of assessed speed. In many cases the estimated risk at a given speed is significantly

higher in Britain than in the other countries, but because of the clustering of exposure at the standard

urban limit this is likely to reflect largely the higher overall accident rate in Britain than any specific risk

associated with a given speed limit.

The greater exposure of children in France and the Netherlands to lower speed limits accounts for about

40% of the difference in Britain’s overall accident rate relative to France for both time and crossing activity

exposure, and for 30% (time) and 20% (crossing activity) of the difference relative to the Netherlands. The

greater exposure to traffic judged to be relatively faster in Britain explains about 15% (time) and 25%

(crossing activity) of the difference in overall accident rate relative to France, and 17% (time) and 25%

(crossing activity) relative to the Netherlands.



Summary

Accident risks increase with traffic speed, whether measured by the speed limit or by judgement of

relative speed, and more rapidly than pro-rata with speed.

Children in France and the Netherlands spend a larger proportion of their exposure in speed limits less

than the standard urban limit of 30mph/50kph, and on roads where traffic is judged to be “slower”

than normal, than do children in Britain.

Even at the same speed limit, or in the same speed category, roads in Britain might pose a higher risk

than those in the other countries, though this conclusion is weak.

Differences in the patterns of exposure by speed limit explain between 15% and 40% of the differences

in overall accident rate between Britain and France, and 20% to 30% of the difference between Britain

and the Netherlands.

7.5 Road Width and Presence of Special Lanes

In the surveys, roads were characterised by their widths, and the presence of special lanes such as bus

priority lanes, tram lanes or cycle lanes was noted. Since width of the road can be expected to be more

relevant to crossing the road than to walking along it only the results for crossing activities are summarised

here in Figure 7.8. The findings for time exposure are very similar, and can be found in the Technical

Report.

Not surprisingly most exposure is on roads with one lane in each direction. However, children in the

Netherlands cross narrow roads much more frequently than children in Britain even though narrow roads

account for similar proportions of time exposure in both countries. There is a significantly greater proportion

of one-way roads in the Netherlands and, especially, France, than in Britain.

The estimated risks associated with narrow roads are less than for wider roads, as one would expect, and

in general there is a systematic increase in risk with road width for both two-way and one-way roads.

One-way roads in France are associated with significantly less risk than two-way roads, but in the other

countries there is little difference. Estimated risks in Britain tend to be rather larger than those in the other

countries, but this merely reflects the differences in overall level of accidents and does not suggest that

any particular width of road is more dangerous.




Categorised by Width of Road and Presence of Special Lanes


Obviously, road width is correlated with road type, and disaggregation of exposure by both width and

position in the hierarchy shows that the relative use of main roads and local distributors in Britain and

France produces similar exposures in terms of road widths. In the Netherlands only 1 per cent of main

through-roads, and 2 per cent of local distributors, are wider than 1 lane in each direction, so Dutch

children rarely encounter wide roads, even in their relatively small proportion of exposure to the more

major roads. When they do their estimated risk is especially high. This could be another example of

children who are normally well-protected being less aware of danger in less protected environments,

though the sample sizes are too small to draw reliable conclusions.

There is very little exposure to special priority lanes in Britain (3%), compared with 8-13% in the Netherlands,

and 10 to 18% in France. Cycle lanes are likely to be more prevalent in the Netherlands, and tram lanes

in France, than in Britain, though even so the proportion of exposure in France seems surprisingly high. In

the Netherlands the presence of special lanes seems to increase the risk to a statistically significant higher

level (2.7) compared with the risk without special lanes (0.4), whereas in France the risk is actually

significantly lower where there are special lanes (0.2 compared with 0.9). In Britain there is no significant

difference in risk, but the sample is very small.

Calculation of the expected accident rates suggests that the different distributions of exposure across

different road widths, assuming similar risks for the road types in all countries, might explain 15 to 18% of

the difference in overall accident rates between Britain and the Netherlands. Distribution of exposure

time explains a similar proportion of the difference with France, but the distribution of crossing activity

explains about half of the difference in overall accidents because France has substantially fewer crossings

on 2-way, 2-lane roads and more on 1-way, 1-lane roads where the risk is relatively low.



Summary

The estimated accident risks increase with road width for different types of road.

Children in the Netherlands cross wider roads less frequently than in Britain or France.

Special (priority) lanes are more common in the Netherlands and, especially, France than in Britain.

They are associated with substantially higher accident risks in the Netherlands, but not in France.

In general, the distribution of exposure with width offers less explanation of the differences between the

countries than does road type, except for the distribution of road crossing activity in a comparison of

Britain and France, which explains half of the difference in accident rates between them.

7.6 Special Measures to Reduce Speed

We have already seen that children in Britain tend to spend more time on more major roads, with higher

volumes of traffic and higher traffic speeds, than in France or the Netherlands. To a large extent this is a

consequence of the historical pattern of built development in relation to the road system. Newer

development often explicitly aims at separating residential development from traffic, and over time this

will increasingly shift child pedestrian activity towards less busy roads. The timescale for this is long,

however, and it is operating against the current trend towards increasing traffic and busier roads. It is

important therefore to ensure that accident risks are reduced within the present road system, both by

training drivers and children to behave in ways which make accidents less likely, and by designing the

roads and promoting regulations which will reduce the accident risk.

The last Section suggested strongly that Britain has scope to impose lower speed limits on suitable roads,

but road design and policy can go beyond speed limits in applying a wide range of traffic calming

measures. These are becoming increasingly common in most countries, and the study has collected

information on the prevalence of special measures to slow down traffic, beyond speed limits alone.

“Special measures” included road humps or other obstacles in the road to slow down traffic; speed

cameras; artificial curves or chicanes; road narrowings to provide pedestrian islands; parking bays, etc;

different types of road surface; and others, to be specified by the surveyor.

Overall, there is a greater prevalence of calming measures in the Netherlands compared with Britain or

France. This was found to be highly significant statistically: in the Netherlands about half of both time

and crossing exposure is in the presence of some sort of special measure, while in Britain and France the

proportion is about 15% for time exposure and 10% for crossing exposure.

The estimated risks on roads with special measures was found to be higher in Britain and France than the

Netherlands: 2.13, 0.88 and 0.31 respectively for time exposure and 3.20, 1.12 and 0.32 for crossings.

If the Netherlands had no special measures the overall accident risk would be increased by about 45%,

bridging almost a third of the gap between the Netherlands and Britain.

When the accident sites in Britain were surveyed in relation to whether the special measures noted in the

survey were in place at the time of the accident, or had been installed since in response to the perceived

danger, it was discovered that a substantial fraction had been installed between the accident and the

survey. Some 41% of the 19 surveyed cases of humps, 37% of 16 cases of road narrowings, and seven

of the eight surveyed cases of different road surfacings, were installed following the accident. If the

estimated risks are reworked with the accident sites recategorised according to whether there were special

measures present at the time of the accident, the risk based on time exposure with special measures

present is reduced to 1.20±0.16, and the risk based on number of roads crossed is reduced to 1.81±0.23.



It was not possible to identify the timing of installation of the special measures in the Netherlands and

France, so the same sort of adjustment cannot be made to the estimated risks there: such an adjustment

would be likely to reduce the risks associated with special measures in these countries also. It may be

that, with such an adjustment, the differences in estimated risk between Britain and France are of no

statistical significance. However, as with some other aspects of the road environment, the estimated

accident risks in the presence of special measures will remain significantly higher than those in the

Netherlands. It seems therefore that further investigation of special measures in the Netherlands, in

comparison with Britain, is required.

Summary

Half of exposure in the Netherlands is in the presence of special measures to reduce speed, compared

with only 10-15% for Britain and France.

It seems likely that special measures may play a substantial role in reducing the Netherlands overall

accident rate, perhaps accounting for a third of the gap between the countries.

Further investigation of the design and introduction of special measures on local roads in the Nether-

lands in comparison with Britain may be worthwhile.



8Findings: Crossing theRoad

8.1 Crossing Place and Position

Most pedestrian accidents occur when crossing a road, so it is particularly important to examine differences

in crossing behaviour and environment between the countries. Of course, the previous chapter has

examined exposure and risk when crossing the road in a range of different traffic environments, but this

chapter investigates the location and type of crossing used.

Firstly, Figure 8.1 summarises the extent to which children use properly marked pedestrian crossings, or

cross the road without such protection, and whether they cross near a junction or away from a junction,

since crossing the road mid-block is often considered to be more dangerous, and gives estimates of risk

in each category.

Figure 8.1 Percentage of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk Categorised by Use of

Marked or Unmarked Crossings and by Nearness to a Junction



Interestingly, statistically significant differences in behaviour lie between Britain and France, and behaviour

in the Netherlands is very similar to that in Britain. Children in France are much more likely to use a

marked crossing, and much less likely to cross away from a junction, than in the other countries: this may

be a result of a generally higher density of marked crossings on French streets. The risks of using marked

or unmarked crossings, or of crossing activity mid-block, are not significantly different between Britain

and the Netherlands, though the risk is generally higher in Britain, but the contrast with France is striking.

The risks associated with a marked crossing, or with crossing activity near a junction, are significantly

higher in Britain than France, yet the risks of using an unmarked crossing or of crossing activity midblock

are significantly lower. Moreover, in Britain the risk associated with an unmarked crossing is significantly

lower than for a marked crossing. The Netherlands also show a risk for unmarked crossing activity which

is less than that for marked crossing activity, though the difference is barely significant. In France, conversely,

unmarked crossing activity is associated with a significantly higher risk than marked crossing activity.

Disaggregation by age and sex shows only small differences between girls and boys, or between younger

and older children, in the probability of using an unmarked crossing. In Britain older children are slightly

more likely to cross at an unmarked crossing (84% for 12-15 year-olds compared with 79% for 5-9 year-

olds), while the reverse is true in France (31% compared with 39% respectively), but these differences are

not significant. Differences between the sexes are never more than a few percentage points. There are,

however, substantial differences in risk, as Table 8.1 shows. Again, we see that the overall risk associated

with unmarked crossing activity is less than that for marked crossing activity in Britain and the Netherlands,

while the opposite is the case in France. The risk is greater for boys than girls in most cases, as was seen

to be generally true for overall exposure in Table 6.1. In Britain and France there is a tendency for the

risks to be greater in the higher age group for both males and females, especially for marked crossing

activity, whereas in Section 6.1 the risk decreased with age for males for all types of road crossing activity

taken together because of the increased use with age of unmarked crossing activity in Britain, where

unmarked crossing activities have the lower risk, and the increased use with age of marked crossing

activity in France, where marked crossing activities carry the lower risk.

Table 8.1 Estimated Accident Risk per Road Crossing Activity per 100,000 Children per

Year


Crossing Activity Male Female Male Female Male Female

Age 5-9

marked 2.53 1.77 0.81 0.45 1.01 0.46

unmarked 1.75 0.62 1.55 0.68 0.66 0.32

Age12-15

marked 3.13 2.48 0.53 0.63 1.05 0.61

unmarked 1.30 0.92 1.80 0.96 0.59 0.33

Those who did not use a marked crossing were asked why they had not. About half said that they crossed

at an unmarked place because it was too far to a marked crossing. The proportion was similar in all

countries, though slightly smaller, at 43%, in the Netherlands than in Britain (55%) or France (54%). All

those who did not use a marked crossing were asked to report the time they would take to reach the

nearest marked crossing. This is a difficult estimate for children to make, and many did not supply an

answer, but where they did there was reasonable agreement between the child’s estimate and that of the

rewalk surveyor. The average time to a crossing is substantially less in France, at 1.7 minutes, than in

Britain ( 2.9 minutes) or the Netherlands (3.8 minutes), illustrating the relative frequency of crossings

(often simple zebra crossings) in France. There is no very consistent difference in time to the nearest

8 Findings: Crossing the Road


crossing by age or sex, except in Britain where girls in both younger and older age groups report times of

half or less those reported by boys. This seems more likely to be indicative of unreliability in reporting

than real.

In Britain the lower SEGs are more likely (22%) than the higher SEGs (17%) to use properly marked

crossings, but the difference is not statistically significant. In France and the Netherlands the probability

of using a marked crossing is the same for both SEG groups. The lower SEGs in Britain also report

shorter times to the nearest crossing than the higher SEGs, presumably because they are more likely to

live at higher residential densities where crossings are more frequent. However, the opposite is the case

in the Netherlands, and there is little difference in France. These differences probably relate to differences

in built density and housing type in the three countries (see Section 9.3).

Younger children are twice as likely to cross away from a junction than older children in Britain, but in the

other countries any differences by age are small, except that older girls in France are substantially less

likely to cross mid-block than boys or younger children of either sex. As we have seen in other aspects,

the estimated risk for crossing activity near or far from a junction is higher for younger boys than for

younger girls in Britain, by a factor of two or more in this case, but there are no marked differences

between the sexes in the other countries, or for older boys in Britain.

In the Technical Report the type and location of crossing activities have been disaggregated by Road

Type. Unsurprisingly, the likelihood of children using an unmarked crossing increases as one goes down

the road hierarchy in all three countries. In all except local non-residential roads the associated risk for

the Netherlands is less on marked crossings than unmarked crossings, but in Britain, by contrast, there is

a higher risk on marked crossings than unmarked crossings on all except main roads. Moreover, the risk

on marked crossings in Britain increases from main roads to local roads, suggesting that the design and

performance of local crossings should be examined more closely.

Similarly, mid-block road crossing activity is most prevalent on main roads, but the risk seems to be

smaller in all three countries than on the more minor roads. This may be because children are more

aware of the danger when crossing main roads.

Disaggregation by Traffic Volume shows that the use of unmarked crossings declines rapidly as traffic

volume increases, but the risk increases, being twice or more for continuous traffic than when traffic is

light. The risk also increases with traffic volume on marked crossings in France and the Netherlands,

whereas curiously in Britain the risk in “continuous” traffic is less, and significantly so, than the risk in

medium-heavy traffic. It is possible that this reflects an easier crossing in congested traffic.

Disaggregation by the presence of special measures to slow traffic shows that Britain is relatively much

less likely to provide special measures where children are undertaking unmarked crossing activity, while

in the other countries the prevalence of special measures is fairly similar for marked and unmarked

crossing activity. There is a high level of protection of unmarked crossing activities in the Netherlands at

47%, though this is lower than the 57% for marked crossing activities. The counter-intuitive risks persist

in Britain, and now more clearly in France, for this disaggregation, with crossing activity in the presence

of special measures associated with higher risks than when there are no special measures, and with the

difference in risk particularly high for unmarked crossing activities.

Calculation of expected accident rates suggests that the distribution of crossing places explains only 12%

of the difference in overall accident rate relative to the Netherlands, where there is quite a lot of mid-

block crossing activity, but 53% of the difference with France.



Summary

French children are much less likely to use an unmarked crossing than in Britain or the Netherlands.

Children in Britain are more likely than children in the other countries to cross roads between junctions.

Marked crossings are associated with a higher risk than unmarked road crossings in both Britain and

the Netherlands, while the reverse is true for France. Crossing activity at a junction carries least risk in

all countries.

The risk of crossing the road is generally higher for boys than girls, and in Britain and France the risks

are greater in the higher age groups. In Britain, education and training in relation to crossing the road

should pay especial attention to the behaviour of boys when crossing the road, and to younger boys

where the difference in risk between boys and girls is very marked. The lower socio-economic groups

in Britain are more likely to use marked crossings than the higher groups.

Dutch children are much more likely to be protected by special measures to slow traffic when they cross

at unmarked places or mid-block than is the case in Britain.

Differences in crossing behaviour with regard to place and type of crossing explain little of the differ-

ence between Britain and the Netherlands, but half of the difference with France.

8.2 Type of Junction and Crossing

Figures 8.2 and 8.3 summarise the distribution of road crossing activity according to the type of junction

involved and crossing used.

Figure 8.2 Percentage of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk Categorised by Type of

Junction and Location (for crossings near a junction)




Figure 8.3 Percentage of Crossing Activity and Relative Risk Categorised by Type of

Crossing


Overall, crossing activities at T junctions are more prevalent in Britain, while in the Netherlands and

France they were much more likely to be at a cross-roads. In all cases, crossing activities were more likely

on the minor arm rather than the major arm of a T junction, and at a cross-roads with similarly-sized arms

rather than one with a major and minor arm. Risks are significantly higher on the major arms than the

minor arms. The crossing activities in Britain are associated with significantly higher risks than in the other

countries on several of the locations, and it seems that British junctions are, on the whole, more dangerous

than those in the other countries for child pedestrians. It may be productive to examine the relevant

regulations in the different countries, perhaps with special attention to the priorities given to pedestrians

and turning traffic.

The risks associated with different types of crossing do not provide a consistent picture across the countries,

but many are based on relatively small samples. In Britain traffic signals with pedestrian call buttons are

significantly safer than zebras, which may be safer than traffic lights without a pedestrian call button

though the difference is not significant. Having someone (a crossing warden) to assist carries a relatively

low risk, but not as low as with pedestrian-called lights, though again the difference is not significant.

Zebras are very prevalent in France, as are traffic lights without a pedestrian button, and both show lower

risks than in Britain. Given the general perception that traffic is more likely to stop for a pedestrian on a

zebra crossing in Britain than in France, this may be another example of awareness of risk producing a

more cautious attitude on the part of the child. All in all, there is nothing here to suggest that particular

types of crossing are intrinsically less safe in Britain than elsewhere.

Summary

Road crossing activity at British junctions carry a higher risk than those in the other countries, but there

is nothing to suggest that particular types of British crossings are less safe: pedestrian-called traffic

signals (pelicans) may be safer, and although uncontrolled zebra crossings in Britain may carry a

higher risk than in the other countries, they account for only four percent of crossing activity.




8.3 Visibility at Crossings

Good visibility of oncoming traffic is normally considered to be an important aid to safety, and both sites

of crossing activity and accident sites were categorised according to whether traffic could be seen for less

than 20 metres, between 20 and 40 metres, and for more than 40 metres. There was no significant

difference between the countries in the categorisations of crossing places by visibility, or in the estimated

risks, nor was there any strong correlation of good visibility with reduced risk.

Summary

Visibility at places of crossing activity offers no explanation for differences between accident rates in the

three countries, nor does poor visibility seem to be associated consistently with increased risk.


9Findings: The Roadside

9.1 Details of the Footpath

Figure 9.1 distinguishes several aspects of the footpath, including whether there was a footpath or footway

separate from the road or not.


Details of the Footpath


Only 2 per cent of time exposure in Britain had no separate path, compared with 12 percent in the

Netherlands and 7 percent in France. The larger proportion in France is understandable in view of the

more rural character of the country, but the relatively large fraction in the Netherlands is presumably to be

understood in terms of protection of residential areas where pedestrians have priority over vehicles and

therefore need no separate path. If so, the protection does not seem to result in lower risk, since in both

Britain and the Netherlands the absence of a path substantially increases risk. In contrast, France shows

much the same risk with or without a footpath, possibly because of a greater awareness of risk by children,

or motorists, or both.


Where footpaths exist, they are significantly wider in the Netherlands than in Britain. The estimated risk

increases as the path becomes narrower in all countries, and the difference is statistically significant in

France and the Netherlands, but not in Britain.

Figure 9.2 indicates the types of barriers that exist between the road and footpath. There is more likely to

be a barrier between the road and footpath in the Netherlands than in Britain or France, but in Britain and

the Netherlands the presence of a barrier is associated with higher levels of risk rather than lower, possibly

because barriers are provided in situations judged to be dangerous. There are some significant differences

in the prevalence of different sorts of barrier, but in general the higher estimated risks in Britain merely

reflect the higher overall accident rate. The risk attached to verges with trees in Britain is particularly high,

though such verges are less common than in the Netherlands.


Details of the Barrier


Overall, the distribution of exposure with and without footpaths, with and without barriers, or with different

types of barrier, offers little explanation of differences in overall accident rates between the countries.

Summary

There is much less exposure on British roads without a footpath than in France or the Netherlands: the

absence of a footpath is associated with substantially higher risk in Britain and the Netherlands, but not

in France.

Footpaths tend to be wider in the Netherlands than in Britain or France, and narrow paths are associ-

ated with higher risk.

Overall, differences in these physical attributes of footpaths offer no appreciable explanation of differ-

ences in overall accident rates between the countries

9 Findings: The Roadside


9.2 Parked Vehicles

The presence of parked vehicles is often assumed to increase the accident risk to children crossing or

playing near roads. In the surveys, the amount of parked vehicles was assessed into three categories: no

parked vehicles, parked vehicles in some places, and parked vehicles all along the road. The briefing of

the surveyors imposed a consistent judgement on this aspect.

In all countries, roughly one third of total time exposure is on roads without any parked vehicles, but

exposure in Britain is slightly less likely than in the other countries to be in roads where there is parking all

along the road, and more likely to be in roads where there is a moderate amount of parking. Thus

differences in the distribution of exposure are minor, and cannot explain any appreciable fraction of the

observed differences in overall accident rates.

Interestingly, in both Britain and France the estimated risk is substantially greater when there are no

parked vehicles than when there are many, with the risk increasing consistently across the three categories.

In the Netherlands, by contrast, the estimated risk is much the same in all categories, and at the lowest

level of risk (ie with maximum parking) found in the other countries. However, these overall findings are

likely to be confused by the relative distributions of exposure on different types of road, where, overall,

parking is less prevalent on main roads and more so on local roads.

Consequently it is more productive to examine the effect of parked vehicles when disaggregated by Road

Type, as in Figure 9.3. In this two-way disaggregation the standard deviations are inevitably larger and

there are fewer significant differences, but it shows a variety of relationships. Even so, Britain still tends to

show the risk increasing as the amount of parking declines, and the trend is statistically significant for

main throughroads and local distributors. France also shows a lower risk associated with frequent parked

vehicles than with few in the most important road types, though the trends across the three categories are

not consistent. In the Netherlands the tendency is for risk to increase with the amount of parking, but the

standard deviations are large and the trends are not statistically significant. Overall, there is no consistent

relationship between risk and parking. Although parked vehicles may obscure children crossing the

road, they also narrow the width of road to be crossed, while traffic may travel at higher speed on roads

clear of parked vehicles. Risks on all the road types with little parking are significantly higher in Britain

than elsewhere, and risks on residential roads are significantly less in the Netherlands than in Britain at all

levels of parking. Thus, overall, the effect of parked vehicles remains unclear, but the differences in

exposure to parking are similar in the different countries, and do not account for any of the observed

differences in accident rates.




Number of Parked Vehicles and Road Type

Standard deviations indicated by line extending from ends of each bar.

Summary

There is little difference between the countries in the distribution of exposure in relation to parked

vehicles.

The risk associated with parked vehicles on residential roads seems less in the Netherlands than in

Britain or France, though very similar on main roads.

There is no very consistent relationship between risk and parked vehicles: the expected increase in risk

with the amount of parking is seen in the Netherlands, but the converse tendency is seen in Britain and,

to a lesser extent, in France.

9.3 Surrounding Buildings

An important aspect of the road environment is the position and type of buildings which surround the

road, since these will affect the type of activities children are likely to be involved in, and perhaps the

position of these activities relative to the road. However, some aspects of the type of buildings will be

correlated with socio-economic characteristics of the children most frequently in the area, and it is important

to try to disentangle the effects of the physical layout and nature of the buildings from these more personal

characteristics. Chapter 7 showed little difference in exposure on different types of road by the different

socio-economic groups, so any dependence on the surrounding built environment must be distinct from

type of road. Unfortunately the socio-economic grouping of the accident victims is unknown, so it is not

possible to determine whether the differences in risk shown here are related to this factor. This Section is

restricted to a first examination of the buildings themselves, but it will be important in later research to

examine the effects of the children’s socio-economic grouping, and other attributes of their households.

Figure 9.4 summarises time exposure and estimated risks for various categorisations of the buildings.




Details of Nearby Buildings


In France buildings are much more likely to abut the pavement than in Britain or the Netherlands. This

simply reflects the different built development in France, with less suburbanisation into houses with gardens,

though it might be noted that recent development is increasingly of this type. However, whereas the

estimated risk suggests that it is safer to have a gap between buildings and the road in Britain and the

Netherlands, the reverse seems to be the case in France, so it would seem that there is a compensatory

tendency for greater prevalence to reduce the risk.

This should be interpreted cautiously, since disaggregation of nearby buildings by socio-economic group

shows, as expected , that houses next to the pavement are correlated with lower socio-economic status,

and lower socio-economic status is generally found to be associated with higher accident risk (for example

see Christie 19957 ). There are consistent differences between the countries, since although lower SEGs

in Britain are more likely than the higher SEGs to be in roads bordered by houses without their own

driveways, there is little difference between the SEGs in this respect in France or the Netherlands, though

in all cases the lower SEGs are markedly more likely to be in roads bordered by blocks of apartments.

The relative difference between the SEGs in this latter respect is smaller in France than in the other

countries, though as noted above apartments are much more common in France.

In Britain, the estimated risk increases from houses with driveways, to houses without driveways, to apartment

blocks, which is probably mainly a reflection of declining socio-economic status. In the Netherlands,

houses without driveways are more prevalent than in Britain, but are associated with much the same risk

as houses with driveways, though apartment blocks show a significantly higher risk. In France the variation

in risk is quite the opposite, though the trend is not significant. It does suggest, however, that either the

correlation of housing type with socio-economic status is quite different in France from Britain, or that

children in France, being accustomed to having buildings closer to the road, are better able to cope with

any potential increase in accident risk. The Netherlands seems to lie between France and Britain in this

comparison. Shops in Britain also seem to be associated with a relatively high risk, perhaps because

children are more likely to be distracted from the road, but this is not the case in the other countries.


7 Christie N (1995) The high-risk child pedestrian: socio-economic and environmental factors in their accidents. TRL ProjectReport 117


In all countries, the absence of buildings from the roadside seems to be linked to higher risk, though it is

possible that this also reflects a distinction between urban and rural roads, and perhaps between the

existence or not of a footpath.

Although there are marked differences between the countries in the types of buildings bordering the

roads, calculation of the “expected accident rate” does not explain any of the overall difference in accident

rates between them because the assumption of the same levels of risk for similar environments in the

different countries is clearly invalid in this application.

Summary

Houses in France are much more likely to be close to the footpath than in Britain or the Netherlands,

and apartment blocks are much more prevalent.

In Britain, greater risk is associated with houses close to the road and with apartment blocks. This may

be primarily the effect of correlations with socio-economic aspects of the children concerned, but it is

absent in France and much reduced in the Netherlands.

Although there are substantial differences in the distribution of exposure they cannot be used to explain

differences in overall accident rates between the countries because there seems to be some compen-

satory tendency for the most prevalent built forms in each country to be associated with lower risk.



10Findings: Aspects ofBehaviour

10.1 Introduction

The exposure surveys collected a range of information about the children’s behaviour which was not

available from the accident records, and so risk could not be estimated. Nevertheless, there are differences

between the countries which may have implications for the overall accident rates.

10.2 Accompaniment

The exposure survey collected information about whether the child was accompanied on the sampled

walk and, if so, whether the companions were under or over 16 years old. A reasonable hypothesis would

be that accompaniment by people over 16 might make exposure safer, while it is possible that

accompaniment by younger people, such as friends of a similar age, might divert attention and increase

the risk of an accident.

Differences in exposure between the countries are only on the verge of statistical significance, but they

suggest an interesting pattern, as Table 10.1 shows.

Table 10.1 Exposure Categorised by Accompaniment


Accompaniment Time Crossing Time Crossing Time Crossing


% % % % % %

Alone 28 26 24 28 31 40

With others all under 16 39 37 32 23 34 26

With at least one 16+ 33 35 37 40 29 29

Values are shown in bold where the value for Great Britain differs from that for other country indicated by more than twicesum of s.d.’s (ie ~5% level of significance)

Children in the Netherlands are more likely to be alone than those in the other countries, despite the fact

that a larger fraction of their pedestrian time is spent “playing or hanging about”, as was seen in Chapter

6. One might speculate that if the residential roads of the Netherlands offer more protection against the

intrusion of traffic, as seems to be the picture emerging from the preceding analysis, the children are

more willing to spend time playing and alone on them. By contrast, children in Britain are more likely


than those in the other countries to be accompanied by others under 16, which might possibly increase

the risk (though there is no accident data base for this speculation). Children in France are most likely to

be accompanied by someone of 16 or over, which may reduce their risk. This may perhaps also tie in with

the observation in Section 6.6 that French children are more likely to use marked road crossings, and less

likely to use unmarked road crossings or cross mid-block, than those in the other countries.

As one might expect, there are marked differences between the age groups in accompaniment, with the

youngest age group (5-9) spending only half the time alone near a road that the oldest group (12-15)

spends, and much more time with adults (Table 10.2). This pattern is similar in all the countries. There

are no marked differences between the sexes, except that in Britain older girls are 50% more likely than

older boys to be with other children. This is not true of France or the Netherlands.

Table 10.2 Accompaniment Categorised by Age and Sex

Britain The Netherlands France

Accompaniment: Age 5-9 Age 12-15 Age 5-9 Age 12-15 Age 5-9 Age 12-15

% Exposure Time Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female

Alone 17 8 41 30 21 27 48 53 15 6 41 41

With others all under 16 22 28 42 64 39 34 34 34 32 26 42 32

With at least one 16+ 61 64 16 6 45 39 19 13 53 68 18 27

10.3 Speed of Walking

None of the differences in Table 10.3 are very significant, but it suggests that children in Britain are, on

the whole, walking faster than those in other countries, and less likely to be playing. Walking faster might

perhaps increase the accident risk, but spending less time playing might reduce it. These differences are

curious, but offer no clear explanation of the observed differences in accident rates between the countries.

Table 10.3 Time Exposure Categorised by Type of Activity


Activity Time % Time % Time %

Walking faster than normal/running 20 15 14

Walking at normal speed 66 59 59

Walking slower than normal 6 10 9

Standing around/chatting 2 1 2

Playing 5 8 9

10.4 Location of Activity

Table 10.4 summarises the location of the “pedestrian” activity in relation to the road. There is a significantly

higher proportion of time spent on the road, as distinct from the pavement, in France and the Netherlands.

Children in the Netherlands also spend a significant amount of time in an area which is neither the

pavement nor the road, which may relate to the rather specialised designs of some protected residential

areas. Other things being equal, this greater amount of on-road activity in France and the Netherlands

might be expected to increase the accident risk there, and it offers no explanation for the higher overall

accident risk in Britain.

10 Findings: Aspects of Behaviour


Table 10.4 Time Exposure Categorised by Location of Activity


Location of activity Time % Time % Time %

On pavement only 90 77 68

On pavement and road 4 4 4

On road only 4 17 18

On neither pavement nor road 3 1 10

Values are shown in bold where the value for Great Britain differs from that for other country indicated by morethan twice sum of s.d.’s (ie ~5% level of significance).

The exposure survey asked children how long it would take to walk to the nearest formal children’s

playground, and how long to a “play area” which was not a formal playground. The average times were

3.8 minutes to a playground in Britain, compared with 2.8 minutes in France and 2.1 minutes in the

Netherlands. Times to a play area were 3.3, 1.9 and 3.0 minutes respectively. Thus playgrounds may be

slightly more readily to hand in the Netherlands, and “play areas” in France, but the differences are not

very marked. There are only small differences in access by the different socio-economic groupings also,

and there is no evidence in any of the countries that the lower SEGs have less access to off-the-road play

areas than the higher ones, and are therefore more constrained to play on the streets.

10.5 Exposure by Day of Week

Table 10.5 categorises both time exposure and crossing activity according to the type of day: weekday in

school term time, weekday in the school holidays, or weekend. None of the differences are significant at

the 5% level, but France seems to have more school holidays than the other countries. There is an

interesting difference between time exposure and crossing activity, in that schooldays seem to require

more roads to be crossed per unit time than does pedestrian activity in the holidays or at weekends,

perhaps because children travel further from home or more purposefully on school days. There is nothing

here to offer an explanation of the overall differences in accident rates between the countries, however.

Table 10.5 Exposure Categorised by Day of Week


Day of week Time Crossing Time Crossing Time Crossing


% % % % % %

Weekday term-time 52 57 44 52 51 56

Weekday holiday 20 14 29 19 22 19

Weekend 27 28 26 24 27 25




Summary

Children in the Netherlands are more likely than in the other countries to be on their own in the road

environment.

Children in Britain are more likely to be accompanied by other children.

Children in France are more likely to be accompanied by someone of 16 or over.

There are significant differences between the countries in some detailed aspects of the type, location

and timing of walking activity, but they provide no obvious explanation of the overall differences in

accident rates between the countries.


11Findings: MultivariateRegression Analysis

11.1 Introduction

In addition to the estimation of risk and of the aggregate effect of distributing exposure across the different

road environment categories, the dataset has also been investigated using several different regression

models. As explained in Chapter 5, it has not been possible to do this without omitting most of the detail

obtained in the accident site surveys, so in this application the available dataset is much less rich than for

the previous analyses of this Chapter. In general, this analysis added little of substance to the analyses of

the previous Chapters, and only a brief summary is given here. A fuller account can be found in the

Technical Report.

11.2 Regression Analysis Across Categories of Road Environment

The general form of the model used was:

where A0 is a constant and the summation is across a range of different road attributes RA from r0 to rm,

while Nc is a dummy variable for each country in the case where the three national datasets are combined.

These models have been estimated separately for time exposure and the number of crossings, since the

two measures of exposure are strongly correlated with each other.

Estimation of the models has been made stepwise using the SPSS statistical analysis package, but because

many of the independent explanatory variables are themselves inter-correlated particular combinations

have been specified in an effort to identify the combination of variables able to provide best explanation,

and to test the dependence of the overall accident rate on individual parameters.

Overall, the models perform poorly. Table 11.1 summarises models based only on the major road and

traffic descriptors: road type, traffic volume, speed limit and road width. Only coefficients significantly

different from zero at the 10% level or better are shown. In interpreting the results, which are based on a

large number of coefficients in total, it should be recognised that one in ten of the values can be expected

to be significantly different from zero on a purely random basis. Only the model for the Netherlands offers

substantial explanation, with a strong and statistically significant dependence of accidents on traffic volume

and road type, for time exposure, and on traffic volume for road crossing activities. However, speed limit

RA=rm

RA=r0

ln Accident rate = A0 + ΣΣΣΣΣ A

re.ln(%E in RA) + N

c


is also significant for time exposure but it carries a negative sign. This illustrates the underlying problem,

already discussed in the previous risk estimates, that the variables describing the type of road and traffic

are highly correlated: main roads tend to carry high volumes of traffic, they are generally wide, and they

operate at the higher speed limits. Thus once the positive correlation of the accident rate with main roads

has been attached to road type and traffic volume, the negative relation with speed limit may be indicating

that areas with higher speed limits may also be less urban than those with a mixture of lower speed limits.

Since areas which are more urban tend to have higher child pedestrian accident rates, the lower rate in

less urban areas is correlated with speed limit in this analysis, giving a negative relationship. The country

dummies carry the expected signs, with Britain showing a higher accident rate and France a lower one,

though the values are not significantly different from zero, and it is surprising that the dummy for the

Netherlands shows so little significance as to be excluded from the estimation altogether.

Table 11.1 Results of the Multi-Variate Regression Analyses

Explanatory variable Time Exposure Number of Roads Crossed

Coefficient S.D. t statistic Coefficient S.D. t statistic

Great Britain No significant coefficients at 10% No significant coefficients at 10%

R2=0.19 R

2=0.46

France No significant coefficients at 10% No significant coefficients at 10%

R2=0.53 R

2=0.49

the Netherlands

Road Type 1.16 0.47 2.47 -1.68 1.89 -0.89

Traffic Volume 5.22 1.06 4.90 3.81 1.66 2.30

Speed Limit -8.25 1.58 -5.24 -5.56 5.02 -1.11

R2=0.91 R

2=0.83

All countries

Traffic Volume 2.47 1.20 2.06 2.82 1.15 2.45

Road Width -3.50 1.11 -3.15

Dummy for GB 0.50 0.45 1.11 1.17 0.600 1.96

Dummy for F -0.62 0.58 -1.06 0.10 0.65 0.15

R2=0.63 R

2=0.70

The poor performance of these models suggests that the variation in accident rates across the geographic

areas is determined largely by factors outside the categorisations examined in the survey. This may be

especially true in Britain and France, since accident rates are substantially higher in the north of Britain

than the south, and in the north and east of France than the south and west. The smaller geographical

extent of the Netherlands gives less scope for such effects and, although there is substantial variation in

rates by area, it does not show any marked geographic pattern, which may account for the better

performance of the Dutch model.

11.3 Adding Other Variables

Table 11.2 summarises the results obtained when the survey data on the presence of special measures,

parked cars, pavement width and presence of pedestrian barriers were added to the model. Only those

coefficients estimated to be statistically significantly different from zero at the 10% level or better are given

here.

11 Findings: Multivariate Regression Analysis


Table 11.2 Multi-Variate Regression Analyses of Accident Rate in Geographic Areas

Against Time Exposure Categorised by Relevant Variables

Explanatory Time Exposure Number of Roads Crossed

Variable Coefficient S.D. t statistic Coefficient S.D. t statistic

Great Britain

Speed Limit 10.36 5.21 1.99 No significant coefficients

Barriers present 0.37 0.16 2.33

Parked vehicles 0.45 0.20 2.26

R2=0.93 R

2=0.76

France

Traffic Volume 2.76 0.97 2.85 3.13 0.66 4.74


Speed limit -15.37 2.53 -6.07

Near junction -8.75 1.86 -4.71

Special measures -1.57 0.47 -3.36

R2=0.98 R

2=0.99

the Netherlands

Near junction No significant coefficients -3.56 1.30 -2.75

R2=0.98 R

2=0.94

All countries

Road Width -2.59 1,28 -2.03

Special measures 0.20 0.09 2.21 -3.14 1.59 -1.97


Pavement width -1.36 0.70 -1.94

Near junction -9.64 4.10 -2.35

Dummy for NL -1.48 0.76 -1.94

Dummy for F -1.01 0.26 -3.88

R2=0.87 R

2=0.98

With these additional variables, the model provides a much-improved level of explanation, and several of

the coefficients are significantly different from zero, though now the Dutch model provides only one

significant coefficient, and much of the previous significance with the road and traffic variables has

disappeared, which suggests correlation between the new variables and the road and traffic variables.

The correlations are as expected, and broadly in agreement with the risk analysis, for:

• speed limit (in Britain for time exposure);

• traffic volume (in France for both time and crossings exposure);

• crossing activities near a junction (in France, the Netherlands and overall); and,

• pavement width (overall).

and in the dummies for Britain relative to France and the Netherlands for time exposure. It is interesting

that this analysis shows a positive correlation between the accident rate and the amount of parked

vehicles, with a similar strength in Britain, France and overall, in contradiction to the unexpected relationship



found previously. Special measures are correlated positively with the accident rate for time exposure, ie

the rate is higher when special measures are present, but the crossing activity model shows a negative

correlation. The positive coefficient on barriers for Britain is also consistent with the higher risk estimated

when barriers were present than when they were not. However, the negative coefficient on speed limit for

crossing activities in France is counter-intuitive, possibly for the reasons noted above, as is the negative

coefficient on road width overall.

11.4 Summary of Multivariate Regression Analysis Results

Overall, the regression model gives rather mixed results, and is able to add little to the findings of the risk

analysis. It suffers from the overriding disadvantage that, in treating the area-wide accident rate as the

dependent variable, it is obliged to discard half the available data by omitting the survey categorisation

of the sample of accident sites. Much of the variation in accident rates between the areas used as a basis

for averaging both accident and exposure data seems to be due to geographical factors outside the

range of variables assessed in the surveys.

In general, though, the coefficients of the model lend support to the pattern of risk estimated in the

previous sections. The strongest relationship tends to be between accident rate and traffic volume, and

secondary to this the risk also increases with road type. The analysis suggests that the accident risk

increases with the number of parked vehicles, and reduces with pavement width and with the nearness of

a crossing place to a junction. Both Britain and France show an increased risk with parked vehicles in this

analysis, contradicting the relationships found in the risk analysis. The variation with pavement width and

proximity to a junction supports the findings of the risk analysis.



12Conclusions

12.1 Total Pedestrian Exposure

The total time spent near roads is very similar in all three countries, with the average daily pedestrian

exposure in Britain (25.9 minutes) being slightly smaller than that in France (27.8 minutes) or the Netherlands

(26.4 minutes). Children in Britain also undertake substantially fewer road crossing activities than in the

other countries (5.0 compared with 6.7 in France and 8.6 in the Netherlands). Thus differences in

total exposure cannot explain the higher overall accident rate in Britain.

In passing, it might be noted that children in the Netherlands spend substantially more time cycling, at

17.9 minutes per day, compared with 2.3 minutes in Britain and 3.5 minutes in France. However, this

seems to be in addition to time spent walking and not a substitute for it. This extra time is compensated

only marginally by less time spent on public transport or in cars, and leads to an average total daily travel

time (including purposeful travel and play time) which is substantially higher in the Netherlands (for both

travel and play) than in either Britain or France.

In Britain total time spent per day near roads was greater in cities than in towns or rural areas, but this

trend was less clear in France, and the relevant categorisation was not available in the Netherlands.

British children spend less exposure in the dark or dusk than do children in France or the Netherlands.

Differences in exposure between age groups are relatively small, with an upward trend with age in Britain,

and slight downward trends in France and the Netherlands. However, the accident risk per unit of

exposure is substantially greater for boys than for girls, by a factor of two or more for younger children,

though the gap narrows for older children.

12.2 Distribution of Exposure: Infrastructure and Traffic Characteristics

Although the total exposure in each country cannot explain the higher accident rate in Britain, it is distributed

very differently across some of the many categories of road environment identified in the surveys. Some

of these differences in distribution help to explain much of the difference in accident rates. The aspects

offering greatest explanation are listed below.

Type of Road

There is a clear reduction of accident risk down the road hierarchy, with main through-roads associated

with a risk more than three times that for more local roads. Children in Britain spend substantially more


time on main roads than in the other countries, and the differences in the distribution of exposure across

the different types of road seem to explain about 40% of the observed differences in overall accident rates

between Britain and the Netherlands, and 30% of the difference between Britain and France.

In France younger children spend only half the time on main roads that older children spend, but with four

times the risk, and in the Netherlands a markedly high overall risk on main roads is primarily due to males

in all age groups. There is very little difference between socio-economic groups in their distribution of

exposure across the different road types.

Traffic Volume

The surveys made a qualitative judgement as to whether traffic flows were light, medium or heavy, and the

estimated accident risks increase consistently with traffic volume. The increase is probably much less

rapid than pro rata because children are more aware of accident risks where traffic is heavier. The

greater exposure of British children to higher traffic volumes than in the Netherlands explains about a fifth

of the difference in overall accident rates between these countries, but not the differences relative to

France.

Traffic Speed

In the surveys, speed could only be measured by the prevailing speed limit or by a qualitative judgement

of speed relative to that “normal” in towns. Accident risks were calculated from the survey data to

increase in a consistent way with both measures of traffic speed, and more rapidly than pro-rata with

speed. Children in France and the Netherlands spend a larger proportion of their exposure in speed

limits less than the standard urban limit of 30mph/50kph, and on roads where traffic is judged to be

“slower” than normal, than do children in Britain. These differences in exposure time explain 22% of the

difference in overall accident rate relative to the Netherlands, and 13% relative to France. For road

crossing activities, however, the patterns of exposure in Britain and the Netherlands are much closer, and

it is France which shows relatively few roads crossed in faster traffic. In this case the distribution of

crossing activities explains only 7% of the difference with the Netherlands, but 55% of the difference with

France.

Infrastructure and Traffic Characteristics in Combination

Type of road and traffic volume, and to some extent traffic speed, are strongly interconnected. In Britain

children spend more time on main roads, and therefore they are likely to be exposed to higher flows of

traffic, and perhaps faster traffic. The distribution of exposure across the different types of road is related

to the spatial layout of the road network and its hierarchy, and to the built environment around it, especially

in relation to housing but also in relation to the children’s destinations such as schools, shops, recreational

areas etc. It is not clear that road safety policy can have much direct effect on this distribution of activity,

but programmes such as the urban safety projects of the 1980s8 demonstrated that accident risks on such

roads can be reduced substantially by channelling traffic away from pedestrians as much as possible, and

restructuring aspects of the road hierarchy. Moreover, it is clearly important to offer road safety training

and education in relation to busy roads. The activity patterns are strongly influenced by land-use

development practices and policies, and by highway design, and consideration of road safety policy in

these areas might move Britain closer to the distributions of exposure found in the other countries. It

might be argued that France, with its relatively low overall population density, has more scope than Britain

to keep its major roads separate from development which generates or attracts child pedestrians, but the

density of urban areas in France, where most pedestrian accidents happen, is generally higher than in

12 Conclusions

8 See, for example, Mackie A M, H A Ward and R T Walker, Urban safety project: Overall evaluation of area wide schemes.

TRL Report RR263 (TRL, 1986)


Britain. In any case, this argument is clearly not applicable to the Netherlands, which manages to keep

a larger part of child pedestrian activity lower in the road hierarchy. Moreover, it is also clear that lower

speed limits apply to a greater proportion of child exposure in France and the Netherlands than in Britain.

Both of the following factors therefore merit policy consideration:

• the spatial relation of major roads to housing;

• speed limits in residential areas.

In relation to speed, it should be noted that half of exposure in the Netherlands is in the presence of

special measures to reduce speed, compared with only 10-15% for Britain and France. This will be

discussed further in Section 12.4.

Because road type, traffic volume, speed limit, and road width are all inter-correlated, it is not possible to

say what fraction of the observed differences in overall accident rate between the countries can be

explained by the different distributions of exposure across all the categories of environment taken together.

Moreover, the calculation of “expected accident rates” is based on the assumption that a given type of

environment carries the same risk in all countries. In practice, however, there is a tendency for situations

which are less safe to carry a relatively lower risk per unit of exposure in those countries where children

are most exposed to them. For this reason, the calculation of “expected accident rate” is likely to over-

estimate the extent to which any single aspect might explain the overall differences between the countries.

Nevertheless, it seems likely that:

different distributions of exposure across different pedestrian

environments could explain about half of the observed differences in

accident rate between Britain and both the Netherlands and France.

12.3 Distribution of Exposure: Behaviour

Other differences in the distribution of exposure between the countries seem to be related more to differences

in child pedestrian behaviour than to their activities taking place in different types of road environment.

These aspects might provide productive targets for education and training:

Crossing Places

Key findings were that:

• French children are much less likely to use an unmarked crossing than in Britain or the Netherlands;

• children in Britain are more likely than children in the other countries to cross between junctions.

However, unmarked crossing activities appear to be associated with a lower risk than marked crossing

activities in Britain, perhaps because they occur mostly on safer stretches of road. The Netherlands shows

a similar effect overall, but this disappears when crossing activities are disaggregated by road type and in

most road types unmarked crossing activities carry the higher risk, whereas the effect persists in Britain in

all except the main roads. Moreover, much of the unmarked crossing activity in the Netherlands is in the

protected residential areas.

Crossing activity at a junction carries least risk in all countries, so the higher proportion of mid-block

crossing activity in Britain may be cause for policy concern. The risk of crossing activity away from

junctions is actually highest in France, but it is also high in Britain. The risk of crossing activity at or near

a junction is high in Britain compared with other countries, and further investigation of this seems justified.

12 Conclusions


Taking the calculation of “expected accident rates” based on average risks, these differences in crossing

explain little of the difference between Britain and the Netherlands, but half of the difference with France.

The risk of crossing activity is generally higher for boys than girls, and in Britain and France the risks are

greater in the higher age groups. In Britain, the lower socio-economic groups are more likely to use

marked crossings than the higher groups.

Crossing activities at British junctions carry a higher risk than those in the other countries, but there is

nothing to suggest that particular types of British crossings are less safe: pedestrian-called traffic signals

(pelicans) may be safer, and although uncontrolled zebra crossings in Britain may carry a higher risk than

in the other countries, they account for only four percent of crossings made.

Accompaniment

French children are more likely to be accompanied by someone over 16 years old when crossing the

road, while British children are more likely to be accompanied by other children. Without comparable

accident data it is not possible to say whether this reduces the risk in France or increases it in Britain, but

it offers some potential explanation.

12.4 Design of the Road Environment

The finding that children in Britain tend to spend more time on more major roads, with higher volumes of

traffic and higher traffic speeds, than in France or the Netherlands is largely a consequence of the

historical pattern of built development in relation to the road system. Newer development often explicitly

aims at separating residential development from traffic, and over time this will increasingly shift child

pedestrian activity towards less busy roads. The timescale for this is long, however, and it is operating

against the current trend towards increasing traffic and busier roads. It is important therefore to ensure

that accident risks are reduced within the present road system, both by training drivers and children to

behave in ways which make accidents less likely, and by designing the roads and promoting regulations

which will reduce the accident risk.

After taking account of the differences in distribution of exposure noted in Sections 12.2 and 12.3, the

estimates of risk obtained by comparing the categorisations of accidents and exposure indicate a number

of road environments which might be intrinsically less safe in Britain than in the other countries. Examination

of the design of these environments might prove productive. However, these conclusions should be

treated with caution, since in any given environment it is not possible to say whether a higher risk is due

to:

• less safe design of the physical surroundings;

• less safe behaviour by child pedestrians in that environment; or,

• less safe behaviour by motorists in that environment.

The most important differences in unit risk (i.e. per minute of exposure or per road crossing) are examined

below.

Road Type

Main roads in Britain do not seem to be inherently less safe than those in the other countries, but local

distributor and residential roads seem to carry an intrinsically higher risk.

12 Conclusions


Special Measures to Reduce Speed

Special measures to reduce speed are much more prevalent in the Netherlands than in Britain (51

percent of time exposure in the Netherlands is in the presence of special measures, compared with only

16 percent in Britain and 14 percent in France). However, if special measures in the Netherlands had

carried the same risk as normal roads the accident rate there would be increased by about 45 percent,

bringing about a third of the gap with Britain, and closing the gap with France.

Crossings

British junction crossing activity appears to carry a higher risk than it does in the other countries, but there

is nothing to suggest that any particular type of British crossing activity is less safe than its foreign counterpart,

and pedestrian-called traffic signals (pelicans) may be safer. There seems to be no consistent relationship

between poor visibility at crossing places and increased risk, and in any case there is little difference

between the countries in visibility at sites of crossing activity.

Footpaths

The estimated accident risk decreases with width of the footpath. Footpaths tend to be wider in the

Netherlands, and this will reduce the risk marginally there but, overall, differences in the physical attributes

of footpaths offer no appreciable explanation of differences in overall accident rates between the countries.

Exposure in the Netherlands is much more likely to be with some form of raised barrier present between

the footpath and the road than in the other countries. In Britain, verges with trees are associated with a

higher risk than verges without trees. The absence of a footpath is associated with substantially higher

risk in Britain and the Netherlands, though not in France, but there is much less exposure on British roads

without a footpath than in France or the Netherlands.

Parked Vehicles

The risk associated with parked vehicles on local roads seems less in the Netherlands than in Britain or

France, though very similar on main roads. The analysis suggests inconsistent relationships between

accident risk and the amount of parking, with the risk tending to increase with the amount of parking in

the Netherlands, but to decline with parking in Britain and France. There is nothing here to suggest that

parked cars are more of a problem in Britain than elsewhere, though it is obviously sensible to encourage

children to be aware of the dangers of parked cars, and the results suggest that the focus should be on

residential areas in this respect.

Potentially, the presence of special lanes increases the accident risk, perhaps because of children’s

unfamiliarity with them, but they are more common in the Netherlands and, especially, France than in

Britain. They are associated with substantially higher accident risks in the Netherlands, but not in France.

They do not explain any of the difference between Britain and the other countries.

The Built Environment

In Britain, greater risk is associated with houses close to the road and with apartment blocks. This may

primarily be the effect of correlations with socio-economic aspects of the children concerned, but it is

absent in France and much reduced in the Netherlands. Houses in France are much more likely to be

close to the footpath than in Britain or the Netherlands, and apartment blocks are more prevalent. This

may therefore be the effect of greater familiarity with the dangers, and/or less correlation between socio-

economic status and these categorisations of housing. There is a higher risk associated with shops in

Britain, but not in the other two countries. Overall, differences in the distribution of exposure between

12 Conclusions


different categories of the built environment do not provide any explanation of differences in overall

accident rate between the countries.

12.5 Summary of Conclusions

In summary, therefore, probably half of the difference in overall accident rate between Britain and the

other countries can be explained in terms of British children’s greater exposure to busier roads, and this

could be addressed by:

• traffic safety schemes which aim to separate major traffic streams from pedestrians;

• education and training to improve safety behaviour on major roads.

But even on a like-for-like basis the accident risk in many of Britain’s road environments is significantly

greater than in France or the Netherlands, and the study suggests that road safety policy could focus on

the following as the main aspects of policy and design of the road environment where risk might be

reduced:

• traffic calming and lower speed limits;

• the design of local distributor and residential roads especially, to provide a more forgiving road

environment where mistakes by child pedestrians are less likely to result in accidents and injuries;

• crossings at junctions.

In particular, it is important to establish why the risk in the presence of special measures should be so

much higher in Britain than in the Netherlands.

12 Conclusions



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