• Yi-Ling He, Ruo-Tong Li, Li Li, David C Schwebel, He-Lai Huang, Qing-Yi Yin, and Guo-Qing Hu.
• School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China; Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, Changsha 410078, China.
• Chin. J. Traumatol. 2019 Apr 1; 22 (2): 63-68.

PurposeVehicle-pedestrian conflicts are common at road intersections when traffic lights change. However, the impact of traffic light on transportation safety and efficiency remains poorly understood.MethodsA two-stage study was used to survey the proportion of intersections with conflicting traffic lights and the related transportation efficiency and safety were evaluated as well. First, a cross-sectional study estimated the proportion of signalized intersections with conflicting left-turning vehicle-pedestrian traffic lights in Changsha city, China. Second, a natural experiment compared transportation efficiency and safety between intersections with and without conflicting left-turning vehicle-pedestrian traffic lights. Risky conflicts, where motor vehicles violated laws and failed to yield to pedestrians in crosswalk were used as a surrogate for transportation safety. The number of motor vehicles and pedestrians passing through the intersections per second and per meter were used to estimate transportation efficiency. Data were collected and analyzed in 2015 (from March to December). A search of online news from domestic media sources was also conducted to collect pedestrian injury data occurring at the intersections.ResultsAbout one-fourth (57/216) intersections had conflicting left-turning traffic lights (95% CI: 20.5%, 32.3%). Risky vehicle-pedestrian conflicts were more frequently observed at intersections with conflicting lights compared to those without (incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 3.13; pedestrians: IRR = 4.02), after adjusting for type of day (weekday vs. weekend), the time period of observation, and motor vehicles traffic flow. Intersections without conflicting vehicle-pedestrian traffic lights had similar transportation efficiency to those with conflicting lights after controlling for covariates (p > 0.05). The systematic review of news media reports yielded 10 left-turning vehicle-pedestrian crash events between 2011 and 2017, involving 11 moderate or severe pedestrian injuries and 3 fatal pedestrian injuries.ConclusionOver one-fourth of road intersections in Changsha city, China have conflicting left-turning traffic lights. Conflicting traffic lights cannot improve transportation efficiency, but increase risky conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians.Copyright © 2019 Daping Hospital and the Research Institute of Surgery of the Third Military Medical University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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