Adolescents’ Mobile Phone Use While Crossing the Road

Baswail Baswail,Allinson Allinson,Pfeffer Pfeffer,Goddard Goddard

doi:10.3390/safety5020027

Abstract

Phones and other portable technology can be a distraction for pedestrians, affecting their ability to cross a road safely. This study focused on adolescents and investigated whether using a phone distracts attention while crossing the road. A field observation outside a secondary school in the north of England was carried out over a four-week period in 2018 with permission from the school. Observations included recording what accessories the pedestrian was carrying (phone, headphones or another electronic device) and their associated action (whether they were holding the device, speaking into a phone, looking at it, holding it to their ear or interacting with it manually). We observed whether the pedestrian looked (or failed to look) left and right before crossing the road, whether they crossed when the pedestrian light was on green or red, and whether they crossed within the cross-walk. We found that 31.37% of road crossings were made by adolescents with a phone or other device. They looked left and right before crossing less frequently when they had an electronic device with them, when looking at the screen and when texting or swiping. In conclusion, the safety of adolescent pedestrians is affected by mobile phones and music players.

Highlights

Pedestrian deaths and injuries are a global problem
We focused on adolescents because they are considered to engage in riskier behaviour than other age groups [18], they are regular users of mobile phones and electronic technology, they may be susceptible to distractions, and they are within the high-risk age group for road traffic injuries
A total of 1080 pedestrian road crossings were made with an electronic device visible to the observer (31.37%) and 2362 without an electronic device (68.62%)

Summary

Introduction

Pedestrian deaths and injuries are a global problem. The World Health Organization [1] reported that 23% of the 1.35 million global road traffic deaths in 2016 were pedestrians. In the UK, 25% of all road deaths reported in 2014 were pedestrians [2]. In cases where the pedestrian was noted as a contributory factor to a traffic collision, ‘the pedestrian failed to look properly’ was the most frequent cause of pedestrian death or injury, accounting for 49% of all such cases. The pedestrian failing to look properly was a contributory factor to road accidents in 39% of cases in which the pedestrian was not injured [4]. The pedestrian failing to look properly may be caused by distractions. Research has established that mobile phones can cause a dangerous distraction to drivers [5,6,7] and legislation against using a hand-held phone while driving exists in 139 countries [1]

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