Pedestrian Gap Acceptance Training

The purpose of pedestrian gap acceptance training is to help pedestrians learn to make better road crossing decisions, which may reduce the incidence of crossing-related injuries and fatalities. This can include video-based training and feedback geared towards improving pedestrian judgment of speed or distance of oncoming traffic (Hunt et al., 2011; Dommes & Cavallo, 2012).

This countermeasure has been examined in few research studies. While there is some evidence that certain approaches may lead to limited positive outcomes, there is insufficient evaluation data available to conclude that the countermeasure is effective.

Environmental treatments such as allowing sufficient time for the pedestrian crossing in signal timing, median refuges, and careful attention to sidewalk accessibility issues are also important to older pedestrians who may have declined mobility. A pre-post study of crash data at sites with and without pedestrian countdown signals (PCS) found that PCS were found to be associated with a significant 32% reduction in all crashes and a 65% reduction in crashes involving people 65 and older (Kwigizile et al., 2016).