Stepping off the Curb to Increase Drivers’ Yielding Behavior at Mid-block Crosswalks

摘要

Interaction between pedestrians and drivers can be witnessed everywhere in the roadnetwork, particularly at intersections and mid-block crossings. At unsignalized midblockcrosswalks, drivers typically don’t expect pedestrians, and as a result, pedestriansafety may be compromised. The yielding behavior is affected by various aspects of theroadway and driving environment, including vehicle dynamics, pedestrian’s behavior,roadway function and design.Traditional roadway design indicates that if a driver has adequate sight distance tothe crosswalk, then he or she should stop for the pedestrian. This paper focuses on twodiscrete crossing behaviors - pedestrians standing on the curb; and the other was thatpedestrians had stepped off the curb. The data were collected in Boston, MA during theAM and PM peak on a typical weekday. The results show that fewer drivers yielded topedestrians who were standing on the curb, versus those that were standing in thecrosswalk (8.5% of the drivers yielded to pedestrians on the curb and 21.7% yieldedwhen pedestrians had stepped off the curb). Regardless of pedestrian location, moredrivers yielded the right of way during the AM peak as compared to the PM peak.