Safe Pedestrian Behaviours among Children Aged 7 to 9 in Malaysia

Abstract

The present study examined safe pedestrian behaviours according to the Malaysian Road Safety Education module among 7-year-old to 9-year-old children in Malaysia. A survey was conducted with a relatively large (n = 1206) random sample of children aged 7 to 9 years old, drawn from 24 selected schools in six states in Malaysia based on the highest numbers of crash cases. Analysis of one-way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference in safe pedestrian behaviours between different ages. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score of safe pedestrian behaviours for 7-year-old children was significantly higher than that of 8-year-old children (p = .004) and 9-year-old children (p = .021). No statistically significant difference was revealed between the 8-year-olds and 9-year-olds (p = .859) at the 0.05 level. Although many children reported safe pedestrian behaviours, low levels of certain safe pedestrian behaviours were also reported – less than 30% of the children aged 7 to 9 reported to ‘always’ wear bright clothes, walk against the traffic, and wave at the drivers to cross the road. In addition, a small percentage (9.9-13.6%) of children aged 7 to 9 also reported to ‘always’ wear dark clothes at night, cross the street between parked cars, and run to cross the road. These findings may inform programs to improve children’s safe pedestrian behaviours.