Analysis of Pedestrian Accidents in Irbid City, Jordan

Abstract

The numbers of people who are walking and bicycling continues to increase all over the world and pedestrian accidents are becoming a serious problem in the developed and developing countries. However, the problem is more severe in the developing countries, such as Jordan where pedestrians represented 32.5% of all traffic accident fatalities and 23.8% of all traffic accident injuries during the year 2010. This study aims at analyzing pedestrian accidents in Irbid city, as an example for urban areas in Jordan, based on a total of 1090 pedestrian accidents that have occurred in the City during the three years period (1999 - 2001). The analysis was based on pedestrian characteristics, driver characteristics, accident time, accident location, weather, road surface condition, illumination condition, vehicle characteristics, speed limit, accident severity, pedestrian faults, and driver faults. Geographic Information System (GIS) tool was used to locate all pedestrian accidents over the study area. The results of the study showed that the majority of pedestrian accidents have occurred at non-intersection locations, during clear and sunny weather, on dry surface, during daylight, and at low speed limits. Also, more pedestrian accidents have occurred during the afternoons, on Thursdays, and during July. The majority of involved drivers in pedestrian accidents were males, with private license type, driving private vehicles and committed the fault of “not giving priority to pedestrians”. The majority of pedestrian victims were males, children less than 15 years old, and hit by vehicles while crossing the road.