NYMTC Regional Pedestrian Safety Study - New York Metropolitan ...

• Changes to the driver education curriculum to include the responsibility of the driver
toward pedestrians and the laws that protect pedestrians.
• An increase in pedestrian safety information in the New Jersey Driver Manual with a
forceful emphasis on the responsibilities of both motorists and pedestrians.
• Incorporation of pedestrian safety laws into the New Jersey driver examination.
Educational materials: Several organizations produce educational materials for increase
awareness of pedestrian safety and instilling safe walking habits. For example:
• NHTSA has a Traffic Safety Material Catalog of educational materials (Available at:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/outreach/SafeSobr/20qp/planner/publications/page7.htm
l ).
• NHTSA also has a Traffic Safety Digest web site that describes good examples of
educational and promotional safety programs for many safety problems from around the
United States. (http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/outreach/safedige/).
• NYCDOT has developed many of their own materials in order to make them relevant to
the urban environment of the city.
• The New Jersey Bicycle and Pedestrian Resource Center, operated by the Voorhees
Transportation Center, has an On-Line Video Library of materials which includes videos
on pedestrian safety (http://www.njbikeped.org/body.php?page=videolib).
• The Kids and Cars organization puts out educational material on some particular safety
hazards, such as the hazard of children being backed over (http://www.kidsandcars.org/).
• San Francisco Department of Public Health has published a Pedestrian Safety Handbook,
which is specific to that city, but has some excellent material in it. It could serve as a
model for a local handbook. (Available at:
http://www.dph.sf.ca.us/traffic_safety/PedSafety%20handbook.pdf)
• FHWA publishes a series of brochures on safety, including pedestrian safety.
(http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/media/brochures.htm).
• The PedSafe document includes four examples of education efforts with the results at
http://www.walkinginfo.org/pedsafe/pedsafe_curb1.cfm?CM_NUM=48&GRP_NBR=8&
CM_maingroup=Other%20Measures&lngFlag1=1&X=999.
5.3.2 Introducing Pedestrian Countermeasures
The effectiveness of countermeasures may be undermined by the public’s lack of understanding
of the purpose or use of the measure. For example, the installation of the flashing in-pavement
lights at Marist College (in Poughkeepsie) led to confusion; however, in other locations they
have been considered a successful measure. An educational program to inform drivers of their
purpose and how they should respond when the lights flash could have corrected the problem.
Similarly, there is widespread misunderstanding of the flashing DON’T WALK signals; the use
of simple signs that explain the signals can help.
NYMTC Pedestrian Safety Study 90