Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road user group. Most pedestrian-vehicle incidences involve a pedestrian crossing the roadway. The probability of a driver yielding to a pedestrian crossing a road highly depends on driver’s ability to see the pedestrian quite in advance for the driver to take appropriate evasive action. Parked and/or stopped vehicles in the vicinity of a pedestrian crossing may obstruct sights of both pedestrian and driver leading to a crash between them. To enhance pedestrian visibility at pedestrian crossings in some countries pavement zigzag line markings are used to restrict parking, stopping, and overtaking within the crossing. Likeany other traffic control device, zigzag lines’ effectiveness hinges on road user’s understanding of its meaning. This paper looks back in the literature the understanding of these lines by different road user groups. Themeaning of zigzag lines has proved to be a dilemma to some road users androad safety stakeholders in some countries.
Abstract