DIFFERENCES IN TRAFFIC JUDGMENTS BETWEEN YOUNG AND OLD ADULT PEDESTRIANS

Older pedestrians have been shown to be over-involved in casualty cras hes, compared to younger pedestrians, in recent reports. This study se t out to investigate whether older pedestrians' road crossing behaviou r might render them more vulnerable to crashes because of declines in their physical, sensory, perceptual or cognitive abilities. An initial 'blackspot' accident analysis highlighted the types of crashes in whi ch older (and younger) adult pedestrians were involved and likely cros sing actions. Road crossing behaviour was then systematically measured from unobtrusive video recordings of individual road crossings for a sample of younger and older pedestrians at several urban locations. On two-way undivided roads, older pedestrians crossed more frequently wh en there was closer moving traffic and generally adopted less safe roa d crossing strategies than their younger counterparts. On one-way divi ded roads, their crossing behaviour was considerably more safe and sim ilar to that of younger pedestrians. The findings suggest that age-rel ated perceptual and cognitive deficits may play a substantial role in many of the crashes involving older pedestrians. (C) 1997 Elsevier Sci ence Ltd.