This individual-level case-control study analyzed the risk of a pedestrian-motor-vehicle collision taking place at a given location on a state route in King County, Washington. Binomial logit models estimated the odds of a collision occurring as related to the road and the neighborhood environments, and adjusting for exposure. Separate models were run for SR 99, the principal transregional four-plus-lane arterial (n = 824), and for all the other state routes (n = 1602). The strongest significant correlates of the risk of a collision occurring were: the presence of crosswalks with or without traffic signals, the facility’s number of lanes, and the presence of retail uses near the collision or control location. Also positively significant were the number of traffic signals and the street-block size near the collision location; and the collision being located outside of the City of Seattle. Exposure variables including road-level measures such as average daily traffic (ADT) and posted speed, and neighborhood-level measures such as the number of residential units and bus ridership, were significant in at least one of the models. Employment density appeared to be an unreliable measure of exposure. Pedestrian activity generators such as schools and colleges were not significantly associated with the risk of collision. Research assessing the risk of collision based on the characteristics of location provided tangible information as to where safety measures should be targeted and what specific aspects of the collision environment needed attention to prevent future collisions.
Abstract