title: The relative risk of nearside accidents is high for the youngest and oldest pedestrians.
abstract: Police road accident data from Great Britain for 1990-2009 were analysed. RR(NF) is the risk of a casualty occurring in the first half of road crossing, the half nearest to the pedestrian's starting position at the roadside, compared to the risk of it occurring in the second half. Children and younger adult pedestrians had a high relative risk of being killed or seriously injured in the nearside of the road (RR(NF)). RR(NF) decreased with age, for men and women, but rose again for people aged over 85 years. It was also substantially lower for children under 10 years old. Three possible explanations for lifespan changes in RR(NF) were evaluated: that change results from slower walking speeds, from a specific failure to attend to the far side before beginning to cross, or from generalised attention control failure. Young people's higher RR(NF) is consistent with evidence that they are prone to generalised attention control failures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Library Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom. G.L.Dunbar@warwick.ac.uk
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dunbar
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000401:mortality / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D051346:Mobility Limitation; D011930:Reaction Time; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006113:United Kingdom; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality; D055815:Young Adult