A safe environment for children and elderly as pedestrians and bicyclists : a synthesis based on an analysis of in-depth studies of fatalities, police-reported crashes and behaviour studies.

Children frequently lack the ability to correctly direct and maintain their attention on traffic, to judge speeds, and localize sounds. Compared to adults, they also have more limited cones of visions, less capacity to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, and less ability to control their impulses. Elderly people because of the ageing process sometimes lack the ability to correctly comprehend the traffic situation. Therefore special attention has to be given to the design of the traffic environment for children and elderly. Based on a literature review, a number of hypotheses are formulated to describe factors that are decisive for determining whether crashes involving children and elderly will occur or not and the severity of those crashes. Swedish and Finnish indepth studies of crashes, police reported crashes, conflict studies and data describing 11 738 video filmed pedestrian and bicyclist passages have been analyzed to test these hypotheses. The factors that contribute to crashes are identified and a set of principles are proposed when designing urban traffic environments for children and elderly to eliminate these causes. The main principle proposed is that actual vehicle speeds should be no more than 30 km/h wherever children or elderly cross streets. Complementary countermeasures are proposed for children and elderly to see and bee seen and to improve orientation. (Author/publisher)