Accident; analysis and prevention
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Pedestrians are vulnerable when crossing the street, especially at non-signalized crosswalks. In China, in spite of the priority that laws entitle the pedestrians, the yielding rates at non-signalized crosswalks are relatively low. In light of this situation, law enforcement cameras have been used to increase the percentage of drivers yielding to pedestrians. ⋯ Yielding behavior analysis shows that the illegitimate yielding behavior percentages are over 10 %, indicating the necessity of improving the awareness of yielding rules, and the implementation of law enforcement cameras would increase the yielding and legitimate yielding probability. Moreover, factors including the adjacent vehicle yielding behavior, number of lanes between pedestrian and vehicle, pedestrian speed change, pedestrian waiting time, pedestrian accepted gap time, vehicle upstream speed and vehicle speed change are significantly associated with conflict severity and drivers yielding behavior. We recommend that supplementary facilities and measures should be used to improve the safety performance of law enforcement cameras.
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Despite many studies on exploring the behaviors of pedestrians crossing the road, there is a need for comprehensive studies that identify the factors that may influence pedestrians crossing behavior at signalized and unsignalized intersections. This study aims to comprehensively examine the influence of gender, age group, group-crossing, technological devices and carrying items on pedestrians crossing behaviors at signalized and unsignalized crosswalks simultaneously. Observational data of 552 pedestrians at two signalized and two unsignalized crosswalks in Tehran were collected. ⋯ Pedestrians talking on their phones had the least cautious behaviors. Pedestrians listening to music mostly looked at the ground or straight direction rather than looking left-right for traffic. The findings from this study are a valuable resource to road authorities and policy makers to develop appropriate targeted strategies to prevent pedestrians' injuries and fatalities and improve crosswalks safety.
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This paper describes a geometric optical relationship between the perceived visual information of approaching vehicles by pedestrians who intend to cross the road and the factors underlying pedestrian accidents in Japan. We create a model based on this visual information, wherein the retinal image corresponding to vehicle velocity perception is broken down into tangential components and normal components in a two-dimensional polar coordinate system that employs the nodal point of the eyeball as the origin. ⋯ The result of the simulation of the visual model showed that the eye height of the pedestrian, the total height of the vehicle and the sensory threshold of motion determine the components by which the maximum perception distance of the vehicle velocity is given. These findings contribute to the enhancement of safety measures in traffic accidents from the pedestrian's perspective.
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Although numerous efforts have been devoted to exploring the effects of area-wide factors on the frequency of pedestrian crashes in neighborhoods over the past two decades, existing studies have largely failed to provide a full picture of the factors that contribute to the incidence of zonal pedestrian crashes, due to the unavailability of reliable exposure data and use of less sound analytical methods. ⋯ The use of population or population density as a surrogate for pedestrian exposure when modeling the frequency of zonal pedestrian crashes is expected to produce biased estimations and invalid inferences. Spatial heterogeneity should also not be negligible when modeling pedestrian crashes involving contiguous spatial units.
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In this paper, the potential of using Augmented Reality (AR) technology to improve the safety of pedestrian crossings was tested, by means of virtual information provided to a driver approaching a zebra crossing area. To achieve this objective, a driving simulator study was carried out. The effectiveness of the system was tested, and the results of the developed simulation tests, with and without AR warning to inform the driver of a pedestrian crossing ahead, were compared. ⋯ Specifically, when the AR warnings were activated, drivers started to decelerate well before the pedestrian crossing, with a low deceleration rate and high TTC and TTZ. This study confirmed the great benefits that AR and connected vehicle technologies could bring to the overall safety conditions on the road network, especially under risky situations and difficult maneuvers. The driving simulator is certainly an effective solution for studying and evaluating such technologies, as well as studying their impact on driving performance.