Traffic accidents form a most serious threat to lives and health of children. Three types of countermeasures can be distinguished: engineering, enforcement and education. The traffic research centre at the university of groningen has followed the third countermeasure approach by carrying out a child traffic education research project. In this project, experimental and field studies were carried out along three lines: (1) experiments concerning the development with age of necessary psychological functions, (2) child pedestrian training experiments, and (3) unobtrusive observation studies of road-crossing behaviour. The present study concerns the latter line of research. The study begins with the presentation of a conceptual framework which puts observational studies in perspective with other research approaches concerning child traffic education. The next chapter deals with the methods and results of the training of observers to follow children (and adults) and score their road-crossing behaviour. In the subsequent chapters behavioural patterns of preschool children and adults, crossing in various task conditions in a quiet residential area, are described in great detail and interpreted in terms of information processing. Further, effects of an experimental child pedestrian training programme on road-crossing behaviour of children and the adults involved are evaluated. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting