Traffic accidents are a major threat to the life and health of preschool children. Pedestrian training is one possible countermeasure. It was attempted to identify important and feasible training objectives. This was done on the basis of (1) a comprehensive behaviour requirement analysis of the pedestrian task, (2) assessment of important tasks on the basis of empirical data concerning child pedestrian's accidents, exposure and behaviour, and (3) assessment of feasibility of tasks on the basis of empirical studies in the area of developmental psychology. On the basis of various principles from learning psychology and pilot experiments a pedestrian training program was developed for preschool children, to be carried out by parents, backed up by some preschool activities. The program appeared to have positive effects on pedestrian behaviour. After this experiment an implementation study was carried out in two cities in order to study the degree of acceptance of the program when scientists were not interfering as was the case in the prior experiment. Further possibilities for evaluation are discussed to be carried out when the program is implemented nationwide. For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD abstract no 264967.
Abstract