CHILD PEDESTRIAN INJURIES ON RESIDENTIAL STREETS: IMPLICATIONS FOR TRAFFIC ENGINEERING

Abstract

Because the nature of children prevents them from handling the demands of traffic, and speed is a strong risk factor for child pedestrian injury, neighborhood streets need to be designed to reduce traffic speeds. To better understand the role of neighborhood features in childhood pedestrian injury, the neighborhood environments of 39 children who were injured in the same block as their home were studied and compared to the neighborhood environments of 62 uninjured children. Five variables (vehicle volume, vehicle speed, parked vehicles, total pedestrians and multiple-family housing) were analyzed with an exponential model of the risk ratio using logistic regression conditional on the match. When seeking to reduce the injury risk in an identified high-risk location, the joint exponential model shows the most promising variable for change is speed. Results suggest it is more important to control speed than vehicular volume to prevent child pedestrian injuries on residential streets. Traffic calming can be used to reduce vehicle speed without restricting vehicle access.