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Encouraging safer use of crosswalks

University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

In an effort to prevent and reduce accidents that might happen within the campus of the University of British Columbia, our research was interested in what kind of interventions could be put into place to increase safe pedestrian behaviour involving the use of crosswalks. Using an observational study design, we investigated whether the presence of a visual prompt (road sign) or manipulating the feeling of being monitored on their behaviour would increase safe or unsafe crosswalk usage by pedestrians. We hypothesized the following: 1. The presence of only the visual cue would result in no significant difference from control, and 2. When pedestrians feel like they are being monitored, they are more likely to use the crosswalk safely. Our results supported both of our hypotheses. Our main finding was that individuals are more likely to use the crosswalk safely when there was one person wearing a safety vest and holding up a sign that encouraged safe crosswalk behaviour. Our results further revealed that having more than one person with a sign does not significantly increase safe crosswalk behavior, but it did reduce the number of people engaging in unsafe crosswalk behaviour than displaying the sign alone. We discuss the implications of this study with regards to suggestions for creating a safer environment for pedestrians and to reduce unsafe road crossing behaviours. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Text

UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Report; University of British Columbia. PSYC 321

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0343109

Arts, Faculty of; Psychology, Department of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/