Associations between social drinking events and pedestrian behavior - An observational study

Abstract

IntroductionPedestrian injuries are important public health and traffic safety issues. In recent years, the problem is worsening and no single cause has been identified. To examine this tragic phenomenon, it is necessary to learn more about the behaviors people engage in while walking, where they walk, and how often they walk. MethodsA naturalistic observational study was conducted using two data collection tools to discern pedestrian road crossing behavior and intersection characteristics surrounding three social drinking venues in Washington, DC. Pedestrian demographic variables and unsafe pedestrian behaviors such as walking against pedestrian crossing signals, walking outside of crosswalk, distraction, and probable impairment were gathered. Descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, and logistic regression were performed using SAS Statistical Software to identify trends among unsafe behaviors. ResultsThere were 1,101 pedestrians observed. The most prevalent risky road crossing behavior was walking against the pedestrian crossing signal (n = 353, 32%), followed by distraction (n = 182, 17%) and walking outside of the crosswalk (n = 160, 15%). There were 574 (52%) pedestrians who exhibited at least one unsafe road crossing behavior. Observation site location was statistically significant with all three road crossing behaviors, while sex was not statistically significant with any of the behaviors. Three of the seven crosswalks observed produced statistically significant results when predicting unsafe road crossing behaviors in logistic regression at the alpha level of 0.05. Direction of pedestrian travel produced statistically significant results in the same logistic regression model (p = .003). ConclusionsThis study reinforces the prevalence of unsafe road crossing behaviors and identifies several opportunities for future research by examining environmental influences of intersection characteristics and investigating types of distraction and alcohol impairment. In addition, new and innovative interventions aimed specifically at pedestrian's behavior when crossing the road using a public health approach may be helpful.