Pedestrian accidents in Ghana: the plight of the Ghanaian school child.

In the light of heavy pedestrian casualties in the country involving children of school age there is need for recognition of the importance of child traffic safety needs to and from school to ensure a safe walk to school. The children encounter diverse traffic problems on their journeys to and from school. These span from problems with road crossing, walking within roadway due to the absence of footway, bad driver behavior, poor roadway features etc. Most of them often make quite serious mistakes when having to cross the road or stop at traffic signals. They fail to cross at demarcated sections even when they are available; they cross at junctions and run across the road when crossing. Some cross the road in fear and confusion due to their inability to discern whether a vehicle will stop or not which is very dangerous. Most drivers infringe on various traffic safety rules without consideration for the caution needed at school zones. Most of them drive at top speeds even at demarcated crossing points with total disregard for the presence of children. Waiting time for road crossing is long within a range of about 10 seconds to 1 minute which make the children anxious and confused thus resulting in irregular crossing behavior. Coupled with these, the road environment is characterised with a number of problems which aggravates the traffic safety problems of the child. Most of the roads around the schools do not have footways or where they are available; are obstructed by trading activities, trees, poles etc. Some are also narrow, bushy, unpaved etc. Such situations force the children to walk on the paved sections of the road. Others are irregular and inconsistent roadway signing, marking and traffic control devices with some roads having one or the other and others none. Some of the essential traffic calming interventions proposed include, the construction of speed ramps, construction of sidewalks and guardrails, removal of obstructions from walkways, marking for Zebra crossings, installation of pelican crossing points and the posting of traffic wardens to assist children in road crossing. Others are education and enforcement of traffic regulations. There is need for a comprehensive policy on child traffic safety interventions to provide safety, access and mobility for the children (A). For the covering abstract of the conference see E217780.