Assessing the attitudes and bahaviors of pedestrians and drivers in traffic situations

Institute of Transportation Engineers. ITE Journal, Apr 2003 by Redmon, Tamara

THIS FEATURE DESCRIBES THE ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS OF PEDESTRIANS AND DRIVERS AS OBSERVED IN SEVERAL FOCUS GROUP SESSIONS HELD BY THE FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION IN LATE 2001. BASED ON THESE OBSERVATIONS, SEVERAL SUGGESTIONS ARE MADE FOR IMPROVING PEDESTRIAN SAFETY USING A THREE-PRONGED APPROACH.

PEDESTRIANS RESENT DRIVERS for their lack of attention to what is going on around them in traffic situations (see Figure 1) and drivers blame pedestrians both for behaving erratically and for failing to use designated crossing areas. Moreover, attitudes and experiences change depending on whether one is a driver or a pedestrian. What are pedestrians and drivers thinking? Why do they do the things they do? What can engineers and other transportation professionals do to ensure that both pedestrians and drivers practice safe behavior? The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sought the answers to these questions in developing a pedestrian safety campaign, which was completed in December 2002.

Improving pedestrian safety involves three elements:

making pedestrians aware of safe pedestrian behavior, the meaning of pedestrian signs and signals and things they can do to improve their own safety;

making drivers aware of pedestrians by getting them to drive safely and yield to pedestrians (especially in urban areas and neighborhoods); and

getting engineers and planners to think of pedestrian accommodation and safety in designing roadways and other transportation facilities.

Historically, FHWA has concentrated on the last approach and given little attention to pedestrian/driver factors. Accordingly, the purpose of FHWA's pedestrian safety campaign was threefold:

to sensitize drivers to the fact that pedestrians are legitimate road users and their presence always should be expected on or near a roadway;

to teach people about minimizing their risk as pedestrians; and

to develop program materials to explain or enhance the operation of engineering measures (such as WALK signals and crosswalks), which would be applicable to various media (TV, print, radio, or film) and reproducible for adaptation and use by state and local governments and other safety organizations.

METHODOLOGY

As part of FHWA's development of campaign messages, four focus group meetings were held with drivers and pedestrians in Washington, DC, USA, and Los Angeles, CA, USA, in late 2001. Typically, focus groups have about 10 participants and are intended to provide insight into the thinking of an average member of the general public.

Focus groups are not statistically significant, but they can provide very useful information about attitudes and behaviors. The use of focus groups as a research method has gained popularity over the past several years because a group of people involved in a discussion can generate a deeper understanding of a subject than a single qualitative method such as a survey.

As a qualitative research method, focus groups create a process of sharing and comparing among participants to generate needed data about a topic.1 For FHWA's purposes, focus groups were better than other research methodologies (such as surveys) for gathering information because they allowed the use of probing questions, follow-up and discussion among participants, which was necessary for the development of messages for a campaign targeted at changing driver and pedestrian behaviors. Although FHWA's focus groups lacked statistical significance, they provided useful information for designing a comprehensive safety program to engineers and others interested in reducing pedestrian fatalities.

The focus group meetings provided valuable insight into factors that influence the behaviors of both drivers and pedestrians. (Some of these factors were very surprising.) Two focus groups included pedestrians aged 21-65 and two included drivers aged 18-25.

Drivers aged 18-25 were identified as most likely to be involved in a crash concerning a pedestrian. Participants in the first driver focus group were male. Females were included in the second driver group to determine if their behaviors and attitudes were similar to those of male drivers in the same age group. (Females did have the same general attitudes about driving and cars. However, they seemed more likely to understand pedestrian issues.)

The second pedestrian focus group was expanded to ensure that pedestrians with school-aged children were included and to determine if those people were concerned about the safety of their children who walked to school and other activities. (Participants were concerned.) Additionally, the second groups of both drivers and pedestrians were expanded to ensure that Hispanics and Asians were included (African-Americans also were included, but they were represented adequately in the first wave of focus groups).

Additional criteria for participants attending the driver focus groups were driving 150 miles or more per week and driving four days or more per week. Driving had to be the primary means of transportation for at least half of the participants. Additional criteria for the pedestrian focus groups were the inclusion of at least four females and four males and exposure to traffic situations while walking.