Pedestrian Safety in Roundabouts

Roundabouts are becoming a more common type of intersection in Canada. A roundabout traditionally has no traffic control device such as traffic signals allocating the right-of-way between motorists and pedestrians. The pedestrian must decide when it is safe to step into the crosswalk and cross at a roundabout and the motorist must adjust their behaviour appropriately as they encounter waiting or crossing pedestrians. This paper examines the pedestrian/vehicle collision patterns at roundabouts from several municipalities in Ontario, compared to signalized intersections with similar vehicular and pedestrian volumes. The paper develops a method to calculate pedestrian collision rates. It then identifies the pedestrian collision rates, the severity of the collisions, collision characteristics including background conditions and driver and pedestrian characteristics, implications with respect to human factors, and recommended improvements to data collection for pedestrian/vehicle collisions in roundabouts and at signalized intersections. (A) For the covering abstract of this conference see ITRD record number 201310RT334E.