Pedestrian Safety

Children’s primary mode of independent transportation is walking. Children can walk to go to school, the park, or a friend’s house. Ensuring children are safe as pedestrians, requires special attention due to their physical size and cognitive development.

Important factors in keeping child pedestrians safe are; teaching children how to safely cross the street, adult supervision, city infrastructure including sidewalks and crosswalks, and driver awareness.

Child Development and Pedestrian Safety

Crossing a street presents many dangers to child pedestrians. Young children are not capable of understanding these dangers and do not develop the skills necessary for crossing a street safely until they are at least nine years of age. Children between the ages of 5 and 19 have the highest incidence rate of pedestrian-related injury compared to all other ages in Saskatchewan.

Children are not small adults. Some differences that affect a child’s ability to safely cross the street include the following.

Vision: A child’s peripheral vision is still developing; they have about two-thirds of the peripheral vision of an adult. This means they may not see a car coming out of the corner of their eye in the same way as an adult.
Hearing: Children are unable to detect the location or direction a sound is coming from.
Size: Due to their smaller size, children can be difficult for drivers to see. Children are easily hidden by bushes and parked cars.
Mental development: Children are unable to determine the speed of a vehicle that is coming towards them.
Perception: Children often think that if they can see a driver the driver can see them, but this is not always true.

Safety Tips

Parents, caregivers, and other adults can begin teaching children about pedestrian safety from a young age. Even toddlers can begin to understand and practice safety skills. The following safety tips will help adults when teaching children about pedestrian safety.

Teach children from a young age to hold an adult’s hand whenever there are moving vehicles nearby. This includes in parking lots, when crossing the street, and when walking along a busy street.
Include children when preparing to cross the street by thinking out loud. Adults can say, “Let’s check both ways for cars together before we cross the street. I don’t see any cars coming. Do you see any cars coming?”
Explain to children that using their eyes and ears as they prepare to cross the street will help them to be aware of dangers. Remind them that it is important to stay alert even when they are on a crosswalk, or when there is a crossing guard or traffic signal that says it is their turn to cross.
Show children places that cars might be other than the street. For example, cars can back out of driveways, move suddenly from parking spots, or come out of back alleys.
Teach children to never run into the street, even if they are chasing a toy or ball.

Pedestrian Safety in the Community

Walking can benefit children’s overall health and well-being. Fewer children walk to school today than in the past, but there are actions that can be taken to allow children to safely add walking to their daily plans. The whole community can participate in creating safe spaces for children to benefit from walking.

Children and families can go for walks together and talk about ways to stay safe as pedestrians while walking through the neighbourhood. There may be specific situations children need to learn about in different neighbourhoods, such as crossing busy streets, navigating traffic circles, and choosing the safest routes.
Community members can work together to create and maintain safe neighbourhoods by starting discussions about how to encourage walking in safe ways and alerting community leaders of safety concerns. Safety concerns might include signage that is difficult to see, walking paths that have been damaged, or other problems that could become hazards to child pedestrians.
Community members can advocate for community developments that address active and safe pedestrian travel. This could include the installation of four-way crossings, legislation of speed reductions, and creation of spaces that separate pedestrians from motor vehicles, such as walking paths. Visit Project CHASE to learn more about evidence-based adaptations to the built environment that help keep pedestrians safe.
Schools can work together with parents and caregivers to organize school-based active transportation activities such as ‘walk to school’ days, where pedestrian safety practices are taught and practiced. Schools, parents, and caregivers can also support each other in organizing a Walking School Bus (link ‘walking school bus’ to jump down page to walking school bus section), or a School Safety Patrol.

Different towns, cities, and neighbourhoods will face different safety issues that affect child pedestrian safety. Not everyone is able to control or change where they live, making it essential for the whole community to keep child pedestrian safety in mind.

You are six times more likely to kill a pedestrian if you hit them driving 50 km/h than at 30 km/h.

Drivers, not cellphones, are the biggest cause of pedestrian injury.

Walking School Bus

A Walking School Bus is a group of children (passengers) and adults (drivers) who walk to and from school along a designated and safe route. The “bus” picks up students in the morning and drops them off, in the reverse order, in the afternoon.

The program can be developed to fit the needs of the participants; as informal as two families taking turns walking their children to school or as formal as a route with designated stops, a timetable, and a regularly rotated schedule of parents and volunteers. The “bus” can run as seldom or as often as the parents want to “drive” it and as the children want to “ride it”.

Walking School Bus: A Guide for Parents and Teachers

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Benefits of a Walking School Bus

Exercise and Health Benefits

An increase in the amount of physical activity for children during the day that is convenient and improves health. Increased physical activity decreases the risk of obesity, osteoporosis, depression, and diabetes and builds a positive self-image.

Safety

Children will be part of a large, visible, and supervised group when walking to school. Walking decreases the amount of traffic around schools, minimizing the risk of pedestrian or traffic related injuries.

Road Sense

Children begin to learn safe pedestrian skills and are better equipped to deal with traffic when alone.

Socializing

Children have the chance to talk and make new friends. Working together fosters a sense of community and self-confidence for both adults and children.