Abstract
BACKGROUND: Pedestrian injuries are responsible for most transport related fatalities among children, emphasizing the importance of implementing good practices to improve child pedestrian safety. Pedestrian fatality risk is directly related to speed. Accidents involving a car traveling more than 40 km/h have drastically a higher risk of death. The city of Sherbrooke and various stakeholders build up community-wide strategies based upon engineering, enforcement, advocacy and education to reduce vehicle speed in school zones to improve pedestrian safety, reduce injuries severity and promote active transport. OBJECTIVES: To compare the average vehicle speeds in school zones between school hours (7am-5pm, Monday to Friday) and the rest of the week (evenings, nights and weekend). DESIGN/METHODS: A cross-sectional study to measure vehicle speeds was performed during 26 complete days, in October and November 2015 after implementing community prevention strategies around 4 elementary school zones in the city of Sherbrooke. Vehicle speed measurements before the intervention were available for one school zone and used for a before-after analysis. RESULTS: A total of 130, 274 vehicle speeds were measured in fall 2015. The mean speed for all school zones was 36.9 ± 5.4 km/h between 7am-5pm compared to 42.7 ± 5.8 km/h for evening, night and weekend hours (p < 0.0001). Furthermore, we observed an 9% reduction of vehicle speed on 7am-5pm weekdays after the implementation of prevention strategies in 2015. The mean speed was 36.4 km/h in 2013 and 33.2 km/h in 2015. CONCLUSION: Community-based interventions are an efficient method to reduce speed during school hours. These strategies led to a reduction in average speed during other hours of the day and during the weekend. However, the average speed measured in school zones were not under 30 km/h between 7am-5pm. These strategies could help other cities to promote safe pedestrian environments and improve active transportation and physical activity among children.
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