Pedestrian-vehicle crashes: risk perception and responsibility attribution among children, adolescents and adults

Background: child pedestrian injuries in china result from crashes not just with cars. weconsidered how chinese youth and young adults perceive pedestrian risk from four vehicletypes-bicycles, electric bicycles, cars, buses—evaluating perceptions for two factors that mayinfluence pedestrian behavior and risk-taking, perception of road environment risk andresponsibility to avoid crashes. understanding how pedestrians perceive risk, and how theseperceptions change as children grow older, could guide prevention efforts.methods: 383 children (grades 3-4, 5-6, 8) and university students completed self-reportsurveys. we analyzed overall responses, plus age/gender differences in risk perception andresponsibility attribution, across vehicle types and number of vehicles approaching, usingmultivariate analysis of variance (manova) and generalized estimating equation (gee)models.results: overall, larger vehicles were perceived as riskier (p less than .001). compared tochildren, university students perceived bicycles and electric bicycles as less risky (mean=2.66 vs.3.69, 3.34 vs. 3.62, respectively, p less than .05). cars and buses were perceived as equallyrisky across age groups. across all vehicle types and number of vehicles traversing the road,both children and young adults perceived more pedestrian responsibility to avoid collisionsrelative to drivers (p less than .001). children attributed less personal responsibility to avoidpedestrian-vehicle crashes than university students (e.g., buses odds ratio (or)=0.20, p less than.001; or=0.26, p less than .01; or=0.28, p less than .01 for third/fourth, fifth/sixth, eighthgraders, respectively). university students and fifth/sixth graders also identified greaterpedestrian responsibility to avoid collisions with multiple vs. one vehicle approaching (e.g.,university students/cars or=4.17, p less than .001).conclusions: we discuss cognitive and perceptual development factors in childhood,adolescence, and young adulthood that may contribute to differences in risk perception andresponsibility attribution among chinese pedestrians and suggest future research should explorethose processes and subsequently develop evidence-based interventions to reduce pedestrianinjury risk.