Researchers at Drexel University have for the first time assessed the relationship between pedestrian traffic patterns and road traffic crash risk based on objective measurements.
While walking can improve depressive symptoms, it carries the risk of road traffic accidents (RTA) in communities. According to statistics, annually about 500 thousand pedestrians become victims of such accidents in the world. At the same time, the factors contributing to road accidents have not been studied enough. Their prevention, as a rule, is aimed at organizing safe road infrastructure in the most traumatic areas (in particular, in the area of business centers and university campuses), while their study is often based on surveys. To improve the reliability of measurements, the authors of the new work used GPS navigators to analyze the infrastructure.
The experiment involved 537 participants in the TRAC (Travel Assessment and Community study) study, which aimed to find out how light rail transport affects the physical activity of Americans. For seven days, the subjects (the sample included only Seattle residents) wore an accelerometer and a GPS navigator and kept a journal in which, for example, they noted the motives of movement. Additionally, scientists took into account sociodemographic parameters. To distinguish between walking and other modes of movement, the first was taken at least five-minute periods with an accelerometer reading (the ratio of apparent acceleration to the output signal) of more than 500.
Density maps of the routes of the subjects (A) and the most dangerous road sections (B) / © D. Alex Quistberg et al., The American Journal of Epidemiology, 2017
The count of the volunteers was compared to an accident map: the authors overlaid their routes with the statistically most dangerous sections of the road based on data from the Seattle police for 2007-2013 (a total of 1,720 zones). Subsequent analysis showed that, among the sociodemographic parameters, income, own vehicle ownership and gender correlate with the risk of an accident. Thus, men more often than women moved around traumatic areas, and income less than $ 30 thousand per year, on the contrary, reduced the likelihood of an accident. Owners of a private house (in comparison with residents of apartment buildings), parents with children and spouses were less likely to get into emergencies.
Curiously, the risk of an accident was also related to the purpose, speed and duration of walking. For example, a purposeful and fast walk was associated with a greater risk of an accident than an aimless and slow one. Longer routes also reduced the likelihood of an accident. According to scientists, the influence of motives on the indicator may be due to the fact that utilitarian (pragmatic) walks, as a rule, took place in the city center, where the most dangerous sections of roads are located, including shopping centers. The negative correlation between risk and duration of walking, in turn, may be due to long exposure times.
Details of the work are presented in The American Journal of Epidemiology.
Earlier, Chinese psychologists found that the likelihood of an accident can increase pessimism.