Walking Safety TipsYou greatly reduce the chances of getting injured
as a pedestrian if you follow these simple safety tips:
- Supervise young children and do not leave them alone to play, especially near a street
or the driveway.
- Make sure that the children's play area is at least 200 feet from any dangerous area
(such as a street, driveway, a vacant lot, or water). If it is within 200 feet, the
play area should be fenced.
- Obey the school safety patrol, crossing guard, or police officer when walking near a
school.
- Teach children to cross streets at a corner, use crosswalks (whenever possible), and
obey the traffic signals. Teach them to check for approaching vehicles before crossing
even with the green light or "walk" sign on.
- Make sure children under age 10 are supervised when crossing the street. You may
also need to supervise older children, especially when they cross streets with heavy
traffic or more than two lanes.
- Teach children to look left-right-left again before crossing a street and to keep
looking as they cross. Practice this behavior with them until they master it.
- Teach children to walk facing on-coming traffic if no sidewalks are available.
- Wear light-colored clothing if walking at dawn, at dusk, or after dark. Even better,
wear reflective tape (placed diagonally across the back) and carry a flashlight.
- Make sure that doors leading to the outside of the house, including garage doors, cannot
be opened by young children. This is to prevent children from getting out of the house
unnoticed by their parents and being injured in traffic.
- Do not drink alcohol and walk near traffic.
- As a driver, take extra care to look out for children who might enter the road
unexpectedly.
Who Is Affected?
Walking is a great way to get exercise and simply to get around. Unfortunately, walking
is not always safe. In 1997, more than 5,000 pedestrians were killed in traffic-related
incidents in the United States. Most were young children, the elderly, and persons who
were intoxicated. These deaths among children are highest in the five- to nine-year-old
age group and are higher among boys than girls. In fact, in 1996 pedestrian injury deaths
were the fourth leading cause of death overall for children aged 5-9.
In 1997, at least 77,000 pedestrians were injured but did not die. Of these, roughly
26,000 were children under the age of 16. Child pedestrians tend to sustain more serious
injuries to the head and neck than adults, in part because of children's smaller size.
How children are injured as pedestrians varies by age. For example:
- Toddlers' pedestrian injuries are mainly from being run over by a driver backing a
vehicle in the driveway. Toddlers' small size makes them difficult for drivers to see,
especially if they are playing behind the vehicle.
- Preschoolers' injuries are typically from darting out between two parked cars on a
residential street. Children this small are easily hidden from the view of drivers by
parked cars, trucks, or bushes. Preschool children often are not able to judge distances
and vehicle speeds accurately.
- Pedestrian injuries among children ages 6-12 mainly occur from collisions with a car in
the middle of the block and on busy streets. Many parents overestimate their children's
street-crossing ability. The truth is that many elementary-school-aged children still
don't understand traffic signals and patterns and can confuse left and right when crossing
a street. Also, adult drivers often incorrectly assume that a child always will yield the
right-of-way.
Among adults, alcohol use is a major reason for pedestrian deaths. One-third of all
fatally injured pedestrians aged 16 and older have blood alcohol concentrations (BACs)
above the legal limit. The situation worsens at night. More than half of all adult
pedestrians killed at night have BACs above the legal limit.
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