Investigating Drivers’ Behaviour at Non-Signalised Pedestrian Crossings

Abstract

Pedestrian safety is one of the most serious problems in Estonian traffic. Thus every third person killed on the roads is a pedestrian. The main goal of this paper was to find which factors could affect drivers’ attitude to give way to pedestrians at non-signalised crossings. By the obtained data we could follow up that the main factor influencing drivers willingness to give way at non-signalised urban crossings was motor vehicle traffic volume. The second part of the study involves drivers speed choice at pedestrian crossings. Here we considered that: 1. The driving speeds at crossings are rather high. At almost 60 % of runs the speed was higher than a speed limit. 2. The change in speed at the vicinity of zebra crossing is minor. The situation is especially critical at the crossings with speed limit of 70 km/h. On these sites an average speed is dangerously high at the whole vicinity of zebra crossing and does not allow breaking safely when driver occurs the pedestrian waiting at the roadside.

Keywords

• road safety
• pedestrian safety
• non-signalised pedestrian crossing
• drivers’ behaviour