Accidents on pedestrian crossings in Hong Kong

Pedestrians are involved in over half of the high severity accidents on Hong Kong's roads and two thirds of the fatally injured are pedestrians. Clearly the physically unprotected pedestrian will always be at a disadvantage in collisions with vehicles. Recent safety improvements in vehicle design and highway barrier design have been primarily aimed at minimising the injuries to vehicle occupants involved in a collision. Few protective barriers have been erected to reduce the severity or risk of pedestrian accidents. It is particularly important to maximise safety for pedestrians at crossings on the road surface where the road space must be used by both vehicles and pedestrians. Over a third of the pedestrians injured in Hong Kong are injured on specially designed pedestrian crossings, crossings where the pedestrian should be relatively safe. Investigation of locations with concentrations of pedestrian accidents in Hong Kong has revealed that certain widely used features of crossing design frequently generate hazardous conditions for pedestrians. Usually these features give excess time and space to vehicle use. Surplus highway capacity is one of the most dangerous contributory causes to pedestrian accidents at pedestrian crossings. Removing the excess capacity has been found to substantially reduce pedestrian accidents without loss of highway capacity. (A)