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Original article
The impact of pedestrian countdown signals on pedestrian–motor vehicle collisions: a quasi-experimental study
  1. Andi Camden1,2,
  2. Ron Buliung3,
  3. Linda Rothman1,4,
  4. Colin Macarthur1,5,
  5. Andrew Howard1,6,7,8
  1. 1Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada
  2. 2Division of Epidemiology, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  3. 3Department of Geography, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  4. 4Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  5. 5Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  6. 6Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada
  7. 7Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  8. 8Department of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Dr Andrew Howard, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, Room S-107, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; andrew.howard{at}sickkids.ca

Abstract

Objective To determine whether pedestrian countdown signals (PCS) reduce pedestrian–motor vehicle collisions in the city of Toronto, Canada.

Methods A quasi-experimental study design was used to evaluate the effect of PCS on the number of pedestrian–motor vehicle collisions in the city of Toronto, from January 2000 to December 2009. Each intersection acted as its own control. We compared the number of pedestrian–motor vehicle collisions per intersection-month before and after the intervention. Stratified models were used to evaluate effect modification by pedestrian age, injury severity and location (urban vs inner suburbs). Poisson regression analysis with repeated measures (generalised estimating equations) was used to estimate the RR and 95% CI.

Results The analysis included 9262 pedestrian–motor vehicle collisions at 1965 intersections. The RR of collisions after PCS installation was 1.014 (95% CI 0.958 to 1.073), indicating no statistically significant effect of PCS on collisions. There was no evidence to suggest effect modification between PCS and collisions by age, injury severity or location.

Conclusion The installation of PCS at 1965 signalised intersections in Toronto did not reduce the number of pedestrian–motor vehicle collisions at these intersections.

  • Accidents
  • bicycle
  • Canada
  • child
  • database
  • epidemiology
  • evaluation
  • MVTC
  • occupational
  • pedestrians
  • playground
  • public health
  • restraint
  • safety
  • surveillance
  • traffic/prevention and control
  • training

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode.

https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2011-040173

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    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None.

    • Ethics approval Ethics approval for the study was provided by the ethics review board of the Hospital for Sick Children.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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    • Correction
      Correction
      BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
      Injury Prevention 2014; 20 40-40 Published Online First: 17 Jan 2014. doi: 10.1136/injuryprev-2011-040173corr1