Abstract
The paper presents an investigation of urban pedestrian safety with Gdansk as an example of a typical large Polish city and Hamburg as an example of a large Western Europe city. The paper starts with a presentation of basic transport characteristics of the both towns followed by accident characteristics with a focus on the frequency and severity of pedestrian accidents. There is a large difference in highway design guidelines between the two countries since pedestrian issues are hardly even mentioned in Polish specifications. Finally, the paper reviews current research in Hamburg and Gdansk concerning pedestrian safety.