Vulunerable Road Users

What is a vulunerable Road User?

A road user who has a high casualty rate and should therefore be given special attention in road safety policy

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European Commission Definition for Vulunerable users

Non-motorised road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists as well as motor-cyclists and persons with disabilities or reduced mobility and orientations

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Elvik, 2010

Driving may be dangerous, but not as dangerous as walking or cycling when exposure is taken into account

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For example?

a pedestrian who is involved in an accident is less likely to injure other road users as a result compared to a truck driver who is injured, which is more likely to cause injury to other road users

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However, You are unlikely to do what everyday?

walk a 200 mile journey regularly – for walking risk per hour iss roughly comparable to that of driving. However, riding a pedal cycle or a motorbike comes out as dangerous.

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What will this essay evaluate?

Why there is a higher risk associated with motorcyclists, pedal cyclists and pedestrians, and analyse how to reduce the risks associated with vulunerable road users

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What are motorcyclists composed of?

A category of road users that are particularly exposed to the risk of having injury or fatal accidents

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What is there risk of being killed in France?

25 times greater than for private passenger vehicle users (ONISR, 2010)

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What did French National Road safety observatory report?

motorcyclists account for 20.8% of people killed and 18% of those injured. They only account for 3.6% of all registered vehicles (ONISR, 2010)

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What is this excess risk not specific to? but may concern?

This excess risk among motor cyclists is not specific to France; it concerns may other countries ((Clarke et al., 2007; Langley et al., 2000; NHTSA, 2008; SafetyNet, 2008)

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Therefore what is a primary concern?

Improving safety for motorcyclists

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What does the literature suggest that one of the most common type of crash is?

Involving a motorcycle is one which a vehicle pulls out in front of an oncoming motorcycle at an intersection, junction or driveway, violating the oncoming motorcyclist to respond with an avoidance maneuver (Clabaux et al, 2012, ACEM, 2004)

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What does the driver say if this accident happens?

The driver of the other car sees the motorcyclist but makes an incorrect judgement about how far away or how fast it is going in a way that overestimates their time to respond

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Why are these collisions typically believed to occur (Caird and Hancock, 1994)

Such collisions are typically believed to occur because a motorcycles size,shape, and contrast affords it poor visual cues as to its speed and subsequent closing distance

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Therefore, this collision reports what?

the driver sees the motorcyclist but makes a decision error

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However, what is the more worrying type of collision?

Driver reports simply fails to see the oncoming motorcyclist (looked but failed to see)

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Pammer, Sabadas, Lentern (2017) What factor did they state was why LBFTS collisions occur?

Conspicuity factors

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What are these factors?

Harder to see, due to size, speed and colour

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Why do motorcyclists demonstrate low conspicuity on the road?

Motorcycles are small relative to other vehicles, typically have a single headlight are dark and have low contrast relative to the road and surrounds

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What has a large amount of evidence been devoted to?

Increasing the conspicuity of motorcyclists such as changes to headlight design and use ((Hole & Tyrrell, 1995; Janoff, 1973; Janoff & Cassel, 1971), bright reflective clothing and reflective components on the motorcycle itself

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However, what can conspicuity factors not be?

The whole story when it comes to LBFTS crashes

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Why?

Incidences of motorcycle crashes should increase under conditions of decreasing visibility, such as rain, fog or dark.

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However when are LBFTS crashes reported?

Most common LBFTS crash occurs under good day time visibility in urban driving with an experienced driver (Hancock, OronGGilad and Thorn, 2005).

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Suggesting that failing to see motorcycles must have something to do with what?

drivers approach the driving situation and allocate attention when driving

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Thus, motorcyclists fail to be processed into what?

fail to hit conscious awareness when they are encountered on the road even in situations where they are easy to see.

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How do we approach the driving situation?

With an ‘attentional set’ (Most, Scholl and Clifford and Simons, 2005) consisting of cars, roads, pedestrian, traffic lights, crash barriers, street lights and so on.

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What we see in the world is directed by what?

we expect to see

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What may explain why motorcycles are more likely to be involved in LBFTS crashes?

The notion of perceptual cycle and attentional set

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Why do LBFTS crashes involving motorcycles occur?

attentional set of the driver prioritizes other objects on the road that are more likely to be detected, thus relegating motorcycles way down on the perceptual cycle hierarchy.

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What did Pammer et al (2017) find?

participants are twice as likely to miss a motorcycle compared with a taxi. Participants reported that they would expect to miss a motorcycle on the road.

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However what was a good thing about this task?

- The current study is a static task, and although it was designed to simulate some of the decision making cognition that occurs when driving and is consistent with other driving studies (e.g., Huestegge, Skottke, Anders, Musseler, & Debus, 2010)

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What was a limitation of this study?

It still only represents a rough facsimile of the real, dynamic driving situation. For example, motion provides drivers with information about the speed of a vehicle to determine whether it is safe to proceed (Caird & Hancock, 1994

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Therefore it is not?

Generalisable to the real world.

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What did Brown (2002) note about studying int his area?

It has been considered somewhat controversial, but further investigations of such perceptual factors could clearly have great importance in the understanding of MC accident causation

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Reeder et al (1996) what did they look at?

Examined the opinions and behaviours (Therefore perceived risk of young motorcyclists in New Zealand

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What did they examine?

- An examination of the literature found three broad areas of concerns, the extent and use of protective gear, motorcyclists level of conspicuity and risky illegal behaviours

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What was protective opinions more common than?

Protective behaviours despite a widespread belief in their efficacy.

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For example?

Protective clothing, for example, was often not worn because it was, in many cases, unacceptable to the users.

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Why?

Fashion may be a contributory factor to this, as may be the cost of the clothing itself.

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What was more common?

The use of headlights in daytime was, however, found to be much more common

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Wells et al (2004)

Wells et al. (2004), for example, suggest that wearing fluorescent and/or retro-reflective clothing is related to a significant decrease of approximately 37% in motorcyclists’ risk of injury

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What is another means of prevention?

the results of this study suggest that speed management, for example using road design strategies (“traffic calming” techniques) or enforcement strategies

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Elvik and Vaa, 2004, looked at what?

- The positive effect of these measures on injury accidents has been established

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However, what did they conclude?

Concerning their effects on urban injury accidents involving motorcyclists, before-and-after assessments are still needed

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Webster and Mackie (1996) suggested the use of what?

- Concerning traffic-calming approaches, Webster and Mackie (1996) observed that implementing 72 traffic-calming schemes (20- mph zones) led to a reduction of approximately 73% in the mean rate of motorcycle crashes

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Stone and Broughton, (2003)

Pedal cycle accidents are most likely to happen on a T- junction, straight roads and crossroads

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Walker (2007)

Cycled 320 km in May-June 2006 with an ultrasonic distance sensor recording the distance of every vehicle passing him

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What did Walker find?

Walker found that the further he cycled from the road edge, the closer he was to passing vehicles

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What was another finding?

Vehicles left him more room when he was not wearing a helmet

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Elvik, 2011)

Results of other studies suggest that pedal cyclists who are injured run a high risk of systaining a head injury and this injury is often the direct cause of death in fatal accidents.

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Waters (1986)

- A study of the patterns of injury sustained by motorcyclists, who in the UK almost invariably wear crash helmets and PCs who almost invariably do not, suggested that PCs often suffered and died from, head injuries without sustaining any other injur

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It seems likely to suggest that pedal cyclists were commonly involved in low speed accidents and suffered what?

suffered serious injuries of only their most vulnerable region, the head.

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Therefore, PCs die from?

A direct result of their head injury and that MCs generally do gain some head protection from wearing a crash helmet

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What do MCs suffer proportionately fewer of?

Less severe injuries of the head than PCs suggest that their crash helmets do provide a considerable measure of protection

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What did the Cochrane REview by Rivara and Thompson (2000)

If you bang your head the consequences will be less severe if you are wearing a protective helmet

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Based on this review they recommend that cyclists should what?

Be encouraged to wear helmets. The form of encouragement that they favour is compulsion

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What is the issue with this statement?

Risk compensation, does the behaviour of cyclists change as a consequence of wearing a helmet in ways that offset the protective benefit of helmets in accidents

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What did Rivara and Thompson (2000) assert?

The empirical evidence to support the risk compensation theory is limited if not absent

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Gamble and Walker (2016)

They suggested that certainly such evidence is limited or absent from the sources they choose to cite- find abundant evidence for risk compensation

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What did they suggest that risk compensation was?

People's perception of safety influence their risk compensation

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Under what circumstances has risk compensation been studied

children running obstacle courses with and without safety gear (Morrongiello, Walpole, & Lassenby, 2007), and bicyclists descending a steep hill with and without helmets (Phillips et al., 2011).

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What has work to date been based on?

The assumption that people respond only to safety measures of which they are aware - an idea encapsulated in Hedlund's First rule of risk compensation

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Which is what?

“If I don’t know it’s there, I won’t compensate for a safety measure” (Hedlund, 2000, p. 87

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What did Walker (2007) suggest about female cyclists?

Female cyclists might be perceived as less predictable, so conducted a subsidiary study (75cm from road edge) wearing a long female wig gained him extra 14cm of passing space

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Keigan et al (2009)

Males over involved in fatal cycle accidents generally (72% male' 28% female), this does not attempt to control for exposure

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Females are more likely to be what?

Female cyclists were most likely to be killed at crossroads and multiple junctions (52% male: 48% female) - Female cyclists were most likely to be killed by Heavy Goods Vehicles (45% male: 55% female)

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Therefore what could be used to reduce accidents with cyclists?

• Education of both HGV drivers & cyclists is important. • But improved mirrors and electronic aids on HGVs could reduce the problem. • And side-underrun protection on HGVS could lessen the severity of injuries to cyclists and motorcyclists

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What are the 3 dimensions of traffic safety? (Wegman, 2012)

Exposure (miles travelled), Risk (probability of crash) and Harm (Consequences of crash)

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Increases in exposure need to be balanced by what?

Reductions in risk and harm

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Safety in Numbers and Non linearities in risk (WEgmen et al, 2012)

o Large numbers of cyclists in countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany are associated with high densities of bicycle facilities

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There is no solid evidence that what?

low fatality rates can only be explained by ‘numbers’. Therefore, Jacobsen's conclusion may be wrong if we simply add numbers of cyclists to the system without adding safety quality, that is to say, risk reducing measures.

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From this perspective Wegmen paraphased the safety in numbers as what?

expectancy/awareness is one important factor, but the other one is safe conditions for cyclists, and it is not evident yet which of these two—or perhaps another factor—has resulted and will result in lower risks.

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What is an important area for future research?

Facilities to make cycling safer

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In the Us, for example, how many pedestrians are injured and killed each year by vehicles?

60,000 injured, 5000 pedestrians killed

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Why is there an increase incidence of crashes involving pedestrians?

Primarily a consequence of lower illumination rather than other factors that vary between day and night such as driver fatigue and the use of alcohol (Owens and Sivak, 1996)

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What does this suggest?

Night drivers are often unable to recognise and respond to pedestrians from a safe distance

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What will a pedestrian often have to judge?

The rate of approach of an oncoming vehicle to determine whether they can cross the road safely before it passes.

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What is the ability to judge based on?

one key factor turns out to be the age of the viewer (Wann, poulter and Purcell, 2011

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Looming is greater when what?

view a slow vehicle close to you, than a fast vehicle further away.

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For example?

. a vehicle 10m away travelling at 10m/s looms more than a vehicle at 20m away travelling at 20m/s, but they will both hit you at the same time!

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Wann et al calculated what?

the maximum speed a vehicle could be travelling at for the viewer to still detect that it was coming towards them to arrive in five seconds (faster = better).

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Detection of looming vehicles is relatively good when what?

You can look straight at them – e.g. you can detect them at high speeds (hence far away).

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Children under 11 may not what?

be able to do this task at all for approach speeds above 25 mph

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Stewart et al, 1993

Time to contact errors for different heights of line corresponding to adult and child heights show TTC overestimates for child stimuli, underestimates for “adult” stimuli.

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when does low visibility of pedestrians occur?

65% occur at night

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What is biological motion (Johansson, 1975)?

o Johansson showed observers films of actors making natural movements while wearing points of light on their major joints (ankles, knees, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists).

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However, what was found?

o Although only these points of light were visible in Johansson’s films, observers could recognize a walking human form in as little as 100–200 ms

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Later research by Johansson and others confirmed what?

patterns of human motion are rich sources of information to which the human visual system is particularly attuned.

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What does full biological motion reflector dramatically enhance?

Visibility (Wood et al, 2011)

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Wood et al (2005) reported what?

only 5% of their drivers detected a roadside pedestrian wearing dark clothing when in a challenging but common night time condition

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Even though what?

even though the drivers were aware that experimenters were monitoring their ability to respond to pedestrians.

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While a variety of approaches have been used to make pedestrians what?

More conspicuous to drivers at night (including evolving vehicle and roadway lighting technologies and night vision enhancement systems)

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What is an alternative approach?

pedestrians wear clothing designs that take advantage of drivers’ perceptual capacity to recognize the unique patterns of motion that specify normal human gait–biological motion (or biomotion).

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To our knowledge, only onepublished report has failed to what?

conspicuity advantage for pedestrians wearing biomotion configurations (Moberly and Langham, 2002).

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In that lab based study, what was found?

65 participants viewed a 10-min videotaped scenario of a nighttime drive and pressed a button when they were certain that a pedestrian was present.

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The authors found what?

no support for their predictions that moving pedestrians would be seen at greater distances when retroreflective markings were attached to the pedestrian’s ankles, knees, wrists, and elbows relative to when the pedestrian wore a reflective vest

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What have previous researchers found?

repeatedly demonstrated that pedestrians are even more conspicuous to drivers at night when reflective material is attached to the pedestrian’s major moveable joints rather than to their torso (Balk et al., 2008

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Even when drivers can see a pedestrian what do they not always do?

Stop for them

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A broad program included an educational campaign and signs used for?

by a larger number of pedestrians would achieve more driver compliance. As Geller (1995, p. 190) pointed out, ‘‘preaching to the choir is not as beneficial as enlisting the choir to preach to others.’’

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One can enlist pedestrians as the behaviour change agents using what?

using hand-held signs to gain the consequence of pedestrian safe environments and to make them when driving more likely to stop for pedestrians (Nasar, 2003)

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Preusser and Blomberg (1984)

- A comprehensive public education programme aimed at reducing child pedestrian accidents (Midblock Dash & Dart) o In-Class Film o Poster o Television Spots

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What does education do?

- Education describes what happens in the real world (e.g., ‘‘in an automobile crash, safety belt usage can protect you from injury or death’’, Berry et al., 1992, p. 655).

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Consequences explain what?

the awards or penalties from doing or not doing the behavior (e.g., ‘‘Wear Your Seat Belt and Receive a Chance to Win a Valuable Prize!’’ Berry et al., 1992, p. 655).

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Prompts request the target behaviour without what?

describing the consequences (e.g., ‘‘Thank You for Buckling Up’’, Berry et al., 1992).

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What do consequences explain?

the awards or penalties from doing or not doing the behavior (e.g., ‘‘Wear Your Seat Belt and Receive a Chance to Win a Valuable Prize!’’ Berry et al., 1992, p. 655).

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What do prompts request?

the target behavior, without describing the consequences (e.g., ‘‘Thank You for Buckling Up’’, Berry et al., 1992

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What do written consequences work more?

consistently across a variety of settings than do education or prompts (cf. Berry et al., 1992), socially assisted written prompts have shown consistent success (Geller, Bruff, & Nimmer, 1985; Thyer, Geller, Williams, & Purcell, 1987).

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Berry et al (1992) found that?

that written prompts (‘‘Thank You for Buckling Up’’, or ‘‘Please Buckle Up, I Care’’) posted at a university parking lot produced an increase in seat belt usage.

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Public education campaigns?

but they are complex and expensive to administer. - And even when pedestrians know what safe behaviour is, they won’t necessarily engage in it if it is inconvenient.

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Vulunerable Road Users

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