The research is described which led to the production of a code for pedestrians crossing the road. Some hundreds of mothers of young children, road safety officers and teachers were asked to assess the relative importance of 20 items concerned with crossing roads safely. There was considerable agreement about priorities and, based on this, some alternative forms of a new crossing code were devised. 294 children between 5 and 7 were questioned at the roadside to see whether they could understand these terms and phrases. On a basis of these results, what appeared to be the best wording was chosen and 170 children aged 7-8 were tested at the roadside to find out whether they could carry out the instructions: their ability to read the code was also tested. The results were satisfactory and the new code was publicised later (may 1971) as the "green cross code". This publicity was associated with an 11 per cent reduction in child casualties, even though 16 months later a survey among 595 children aged 7-15 showed that most of them could not say what the content of the code was very exactly, while many confused it with the "kerb drill". (Author/publisher)
Abstract