Investigating Drivers’ Behaviour at Non-Signalised Pedestrian Crossings

Pedestrian safety is one of the most serious problems in Estonian traffic. Thus every third person killed on the roads is a pedestrian. The main goal of this paper was to find which factors could affect drivers’ attitude to give way to pedestrians at non-signalised crossings. By the obtained data we could follow up that the main factor influencing drivers willingness to give way at non-signalised urban crossings was motor vehicle traffic volume. The second part of the study involves drivers speed choice at pedestrian crossings. Here we considered that: 1. The driving speeds at crossings are rather high. At almost 60 % of runs the speed was higher than a speed limit. 2. The change in speed at the vicinity of zebra crossing is minor. The situation is especially critical at the crossings with speed limit of 70 km/h. On these sites an average speed is dangerously high at the whole vicinity of zebra crossing and does not allow breaking safely when driver occurs the pedestrian waiting at the roadside.