title: Can child-pedestrians' hazard perception skills be enhanced?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Traffic collisions yield a substantial rate of morbidity and injury among child-pedestrians. We explored the formation of an innovative hazard perception training intervention - Child-pedestrians Anticipate and Act Hazard Perception Training (CA(2)HPT). Training was based upon enhancing participants' ability to anticipate potential hazards by exposing them to an array of traffic scenes viewed from different angles.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-four 7-9-year-olds have participated. Trainees underwent a 40-min intervention of observing typical residential traffic scenarios in a simulated dome projection environment while engaging in a hazard detection task. Trainees were encouraged to note differences between the scenarios presented to them from separate angles (a pedestrian's point-of-view and a higher perspective angle). Next, trainees and control group members were required to perform crossing decision tasks.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Trainees were found to be more aware of potential hazards related to restricted field of view relative to control.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Child pedestrians are responsive to training and actively detecting materialized hazards may enrich child-pedestrians' ability to cross roads.
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel; Faculty of Management of Technology, HIT Holon Institute of Technology, P.O.B. 305, Holon 5810201, Israel. Electronic address: meia@bgu.ac.il.
authors.forename: Anat
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Meir
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors.forename: Tal
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Oron-Gilad
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors.forename: Yisrael
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Parmet
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000367:Age Factors; D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D000069636:Pedestrians / Q000523:psychology*; D010465:Perception; D012306:Risk
keywords: Children; Educational intervention; Hazard perception; Road crossing; Skills; Traffic crashes