The impact of pedestrian countdown signals on pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions: a reanalysis of data from a quasi-experimental study

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Abstract

Objective

To perform a more sophisticated analysis of previously published data that advances the understanding of the efficacy of pedestrian countdown signal (PCS) installation on pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions (PMVCs), in the city of Toronto, Canada.

Methods

This is an updated analysis of the same dataset from Camden et al. A quasi-experimental design was used to evaluate the effect of PCS on PMVC. A Poisson regression analysis, using a one-group comparison of PMVC, pre-PCS installation to post-PCS installation was used, controlling for season and temporal effects. The outcome was the frequency of reported PMVC (January 2000–December 2009). Similar models were used to analyse specific types of collisions defined by age of pedestrian, injury severity, and pedestrian and vehicle action. Incidence rate ratios with 95% CI are presented.

Results

This analysis included 9262 PMVC, 2760 during or after PCS installation, at 1965 intersections. There was a 26% increase in the rate of collisions, pre to post-PCS installation (incidence rate ratio=1.26, 95% CI 1.11 to 1.42).

Conclusions

The installation of PCS at 1965 signalised intersections in the city of Toronto resulted in an increase in PMVC rates post-PCS installation. PCSs may have an unintended consequence of increasing pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions in some settings.

Related collections

Most cited references 6

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A comparison of hospital and police road injury data.

K D Rosman, M Knuiman (1994)

In order to gather as much information as possible on road crashes and outcomes, routinely collected police reports of traffic accidents and hospital discharge files were individually matched or "linked" using a computerised iterative procedure on name-identified data from both sources. The two groups of linked and unlinked hospital records were compared. Within the linked dataset, a comparison of like variables was made and showed good agreement between the two sources on accident type and road user type. However, police-reported levels of injury severity were shown to be less reliable. In addition, the proportion of hospital inpatient records that linked to a police record was found to be influenced by several factors. The overall linkage rate from hospital to police was 64% but varied from 29% for motorcyclists in single-vehicle accidents to 79% for motor vehicle drivers. The linkage rate increased with increasing levels of injury severity and was substantially lower for casualties of certain ethnic groups. It was deduced that for most instances where a hospital record did not link to a police record, the crash had not been reported. These findings confirm that there was considerable underreporting of hospitalised road casualties to the police and that the extent of underreporting was greater for those less severely injured.

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San Francisco pedestrian injury surveillance: mapping, under-reporting, and injury severity in police and hospital records.

M Radetsky, Margaret Knudson, M J Vassar … (2005)

Police reports of severely injured pedestrians help identify hazardous traffic areas in San Francisco, but they under-report non-fatal collisions. We set out to: identify injured pedestrians who were missing from police collision reports, see what biases exist in injury reporting and assess the utility of broad categories of police severe injury (including fatal) for mapping and analysis. We linked data on injured pedestrians from police collision reports listed in the Statewide Integrated Traffic Reporting System (SWITRS, n = 1991) with records of pedestrians treated at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH, n = 1323) for 2000 and 2001. Data were analyzed using bivariate statistics, logistic regression and mapping. : We found that police collision reports underestimated the number of injured pedestrians by 21% (531/2442). Pedestrians treated at SFGH who were African-American were less likely then whites (odds ratio = 0.55, p-value < or= 0.01), and females were more likely than males (odds ratio = 1.5, p-value < or = 0.01) to have a police collision report. Over 70% of pedestrians deemed by the police to have a severe injury received treatment at SFGH, regardless of the collision's distance from SFGH. The sensitivity of a police-designated severe injury (including fatal) was 69% and the specificity was 89% when compared with a known SFGH assessment. But, sensitivity declined when we included pedestrians without a SFGH record. Though collision reports have demonstrated limitations, broad categories of police severity may be sensitive enough to map locations where numerous severe injuries occur, for timely countermeasure selection.

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Limitations of data compiled from police reports on pediatric pedestrian and bicycle motor vehicle events.

Karl Castillo, P F Agran, D. Winn (1990)

Police reports were compared to the information provided by a hospital monitoring system for children under 15 years old injured as pedestrians and bicyclists by moving motor vehicles in Orange County, California. The analysis was limited to identifying caveats in the police report database. Underreporting by police was conservatively estimated at 20% for pedestrians and 10% for bicyclists. Comparison of the pedestrian databases suggested underreporting by police of incidents involving 0-4-year-olds, nontraffic incidents, incidents in which the vehicle was backing up, and cases not involving a child crossing a street. Comparison of the bicyclist databases indicated an underreporting by police of nontraffic cases. These caveats, in part, are related to police agency reporting requirements. The police injury severity scale was found to correlate poorly with a scale based on medical diagnoses, and substantial underreporting by police of serious injuries was demonstrated. We suggest that utilization of police injury severity scales be limited to categories of fatal, injured, and not injured (when available).

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Inj Prev

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Inj. Prev

Journal ID (hwp): injuryprev

Journal ID (publisher-id): ip

Title: Injury Prevention

Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group (BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JR )

ISSN (Print): 1353-8047

ISSN (Electronic): 1475-5785

Publication date (Print): June 2014

Publication date (Electronic): 24 September 2013

Volume: 20

Issue: 3

Pages: 155-158

Affiliations

[1 ]Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children , Toronto, Ontario, Canada

[2 ]Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto , Toronto, Ontario, Canada

[3 ]Department of Geography and Programs in Environment, University of Toronto Mississauga , Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

[4 ]Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto , Toronto, Ontario, Canada

[5 ]Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hospital for Sick Children , Toronto, Ontario, Canada

[6 ]Department of Surgery, University of Toronto , Toronto, Ontario, Canada

[7 ]Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto , Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Author notes

[Correspondence to ] Dr Sarah Richmond, Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Ave, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 1X8; sarah.richmond@ 123456sickkids.ca ;

Article

Publisher ID: injuryprev-2012-040717

DOI: 10.1136/injuryprev-2012-040717

PMC ID: 4033273

PubMed ID: 24065777

SO-VID: 80fff46e-e9f1-4e56-aa4d-6a73f685f08e

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

History

Date received : 29 November 2012

Date revision received : 23 July 2013

Date accepted : 28 August 2013

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The impact of pedestrian countdown signals on pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions: a reanalysis of data from a quasi-experimental study

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Abstract

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Related collections

25th European Students' Conference

Most cited references 6

A comparison of hospital and police road injury data.

San Francisco pedestrian injury surveillance: mapping, under-reporting, and injury severity in police and hospital records.

Limitations of data compiled from police reports on pediatric pedestrian and bicycle motor vehicle events.

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Cited by 5

Most referenced authors 36