Crosswalks confusing for drivers

By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2007-03-11

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In his book Target Risk 2, Gerald Wilde expounds his theory that anything we do to improve safety tends to lose out to our natural inclination to maintain our risk level at what professor Wilde calls our "target level" . According to this theory, improving the pavement markings and the signage at a pedestrian crosswalk would not necessarily improve its safety.

A recent paper by a University of California Graduate student researcher backs up this theory. Meghan Fehlig Mitman and her group of researchers found that both drivers and pedestrians are confused about their rights at unmarked crosswalks and as a consequence, both are more careful.

On the other hand, when the crosswalk is well marked and signposted pedestrians are less cautious and rely too much on the markings and signs to protect them. At the unmarked crossings pedestrians wait for gaps in traffic, look both ways and waste no time crossing.

Not surprisingly, Mitman found that more complicated intersections were even more confusing. And, interestingly, she found that senior drivers had a better understanding of the law.

Engineering solutions, such as pedestrian refuge islands, pedestrian overpasses, or raised crosswalks are not the complete answer, Mitman and her researchers concluded. They are too expensive to address a widespread problem. Education and enforcement must play a greater role in providing solutions to crosswalk safety, she said.

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