Abstract
According to road traffic accident (hereinafter referred to as RTA) statistics, the vulnerable road users are pedestrians in Latvia. The aim of this study is to investigate and analyse technical equipment used on non-signalled pedestrian crossings (zebra crossings) in Latvia and to make suggestions for measures that would increase road traffic safety on zebra crossings. RTAs involving collisions with pedestrians were filtered from the Ministry of the Interior database for a three-year period from 2016 to 2018. Thirty-two zebra crossings with a higher number of accidents with pedestrians were observed on the spot during the daylight and at night in several cities of Latvia. The main emphasis during the observation was placed on traffic signs and zebra road marking performance. Pedestrian crossings were observed from car driver’s view by taking photographs during day-time and night-time observations. Most attention was paid to road sign and road marking visibility from driver’s seat position. Retroreflection coefficient R’ was measured for each pedestrian crossing road sign. It was found that the condition and performance of traffic organisation equipment were not maintained on a regular basis and the life cycle of some traffic signs had well expired. Many road signs do not comply with minimum requirements, and road markings have weak visibility during wet weather conditions. It is recommended to improve visibility of pedestrian crossings from driver’s view in the urban areas by increasing rain vision for road markings and higher retroreflection class for traffic signs.
Highlights
Traffic safety is a major concern for every road user and especially for the vulnerable road users
The European Commission set as its primary goal the prevention of human deaths in road traffic accidents (EC, 2021), which is linked to Vision Zero policy (Kristianssen et al, 2018) developed in Sweden since the 1990s
The goal of this study is to investigate and analyse technical equipment used on zebra crossings in Latvia and to make suggestions for measures that could increase road traffic safety
Summary
Traffic safety is a major concern for every road user and especially for the vulnerable road users. The Latvian statistics (CSDD, 2021) reveals that the number of fatalities and injuries in Latvia per million population is still consistently high. According to the road traffic accident statistics of the European Road Safety Council (ETSC, 2019), for several years Latvia has been occupying one of the last places among the European Union countries. The statistics show that the target set by the European Commission (EC, 2010) to reduce the number of road deaths by 50% compared to 2010 is not reached in Latvia. The European Commission set as its primary goal the prevention of human deaths in road traffic accidents (EC, 2021), which is linked to Vision Zero policy (Kristianssen et al, 2018) developed in Sweden since the 1990s
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