The Relationship between accidents occurrence among pedestrians and urban road infrastructure: A case study of crosswalks and sidewalks

Abstract

The road traffic death rate is 29 deaths per 100,000 population, which is higher than the global estimate of 18 deaths per 100,000. Pedestrians comprise the largest group of road users killed in Uganda, accounting for 40% of fatalities and 25% of serious injuries. Uganda, like many other Low middle-income countries, lags behind in road safety and there is pressure to address the problem of road traffic crashes among vulnerable road users. This is due to the limited action taken on pedestrian road safety leaving an implementation gap. As part of the resolution by the UN to reduce all traffic accidents by 50% before 2030, KCCA took up the initiative to achieve the above goal before 2030. This saw an improvement in road designs, crosswalks and sidewalks, for example, have been constructed on many of the new and existing roads. Police reports, however, still show that pedestrians are still the most killed road users despite all the implementations by KCCA. The purpose of this study was therefore to determine the relationship between the crosswalks and sidewalks and accidents occurrence among pedestrians. Data were obtained from the police for the last two years in to locate those areas prone to accidents among pedestrians. The study was focused on the roads in Kampala. Having identified the roads, interactions were carried out with the pedestrians on the nature of these facilities and obtain their perception of such facilities. Their opinions were obtained on what should be done to reduce accidents and whether crosswalks and sidewalks play a vital role in accident reduction. The methodology chapter gives more details. A geocoded map was developed and it was observed that commercialized areas like markets, malls are accident-prone areas for pedestrians. Cross tabulation and regression analysis proved that, there exists a relationship between infrastructure (crosswalks and sidewalks) and accidents among pedestrians. The risk estimates (RE) for both sidewalks and crosswalks were greater than one, 3.703 and 1.13 respectively. This implied that such facilities were risk factors and likely to lead to accidents among pedestrians.