No abstract

No abstract

This study investigated the nature and causes of unsafe driving behavior at roundabouts through an on-road study. Four urban double-lane roundabouts with different layouts were selected for an on-road study. Sixty-six drivers (41 males and 25 females) aged 18–65 years took part in the study. Unsafe behaviors observed during the in situ survey were divided into three different categories: entry unsafe behaviors, circulation unsafe behaviors, and exit unsafe behaviors. Three chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID) analyses were developed in order to analyze the influence of roundabout characteristics and maneuvers on unsafe behaviors at double-lane roundabouts. The results confirmed the awareness that double-lane roundabouts are unsafe and inadvisable. More than half of unsafe driving behaviors were found to be entry unsafe behaviors. Moreover, the entry radius was found to be the geometric variable most influencing unsafe driving behaviors.

Pedestrians aged over 65 are known to be a critical group in terms of road safety because they represent the age group with the highest number of fatalities or injured persons in road accidents. It is therefore important to identify and characterize how old pedestrians perceive pedestrian paths with respect to their age related declines in perceptual and physical abilities and with respect to their experiences as road users. The aim of this study is first of all to understand which critical issues old pedestrians found in the pedestrian paths they usually walk. More specifically, the final aim is to capture and analyze the key components that influence the elderly pedestrians' perception of pedestrian paths and to identify how these perceptions change for different pedestrian "profiles" based on human factors. The aspects related to human factors considered are the gender, the factors associated with the experience as road users and the factors related to age related problems (mobility, vision and hearing problems). The results show that the judgment expressed by the elderly on the critical issues of pedestrian paths they usually walk is significantly linked to gender, to their experience as road users, and to vision problem, which compromise the correct perception of the road environment. This is important to determine interventions and could support traffic engineers, planners, and decision-makers to consider the contributing factors in engineering countermeasures.

Pedestrian injury is a major hazard to the health of children in most developed countries. Pedestrian accidents are one of the first causes of injury-related deaths and hospitalizations among children aged 5 to 14 in industrialized countries. This study has a dual objective: 1) to identify the factors affecting Italian parents' propensity to use private cars to accompany their children to school; 2) to analyze the availability of Italian parents to let their children walk to school alone. In order to develop this analysis, the data collected from a survey conducted in front of 9 schools (kindergartens and primary schools) in Catania were used. A path analysis was carried out to analyze these data. The results show that the habit of driving children to school is still very common in Italy. Main reasons why parents drive their children to school are the lack of safe home-school paths and the availability of regular or irregular parking spaces near the school. These results can be useful for those involved in transport planning and safety in order to implement effective actions aimed at encouraging the use of one or several human-powered modes of transportation such as walking or cycling. The results furthermore suggest that infrastructure-centered interventions, such as traffic calming measures and safer pedestrian crossings, can increase parents' safety perception of the home-school paths and thus raise the probability that children walk to school.