Data relevant to ROW violation

As discussed in Section 2.6, pedestrian right-of-way violations, or jaywalking, commonly refer to a pedestrian crossing from one side of the road to another, in unauthorised areas or in violation of pedestrian laws. Different jurisdictions treat jaywalking in different ways. North American countries such as the US and Canada have laws that make jaywalking illegal, as does Australia. The UK, however, does not have anti-jaywalking laws, leaving pedestrians to exercise prudence when crossing roads and to act for their own safety.

In the UK, according to the Highway Code, pedestrians should use pedestrian crossing facilities when they cross roads and obey the instructions at each facility. Pedestrians are advised to cross the road wherever there are pedestrian crossing facilities, and if there are no facilities they should only cross with great care. Furthermore, pedestrians are permitted to cross the carriageway elsewhere, but should exercise care and take the distance and speed of any approaching vehicle into account. In general, the definition of pedestrian crossing regulations is the same as that in the Vienna Convention of 1968. Investigation of Right-Of-Way violation (ROW) using the available data (e.g. STATS19 database) is not very straight forward. This is because such databases do not include direct information or variables which indicate who, whether the drivers or the pedestrians, actually has priority at a junction. However, it can be argued that priority or consideration in the street is always given to the pedestrian. This is obviously an area

64 where there is a huge lack of research.

The ROW depends greatly on the specific instance under examination and on the specific national laws in operation. As stated previously different authorities are responsible for the drafting of regulations in given countries and the application of these rules will vary greatly, as they are dependent on the public’s willingness to adhere to them in conjunction with their knowledge of the given regulations in question.

In the United Kingdom the laws pertaining to pedestrian rights are set out in a number of legislative documents (Department of Transport, 1997; Department of Transport, 1991), which are summarised in a concise easy to read manual ‘The Highway Code’. As the Highway Code is not a legislative document in itself special care is taken in its production to ensure that all relevant legislation is quoted correctly and as a result this code “may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts” (Department of Transport, 2012). In this document specific attention is paid to the rights and codes to which the pedestrian must adhere. It can be seen that a major emphasis is placed on this information as it is the first section in the manual which insures that it is taken into account by all road users. In total there are 35 codes outlined, and these also reflect the responsibilities of pedestrians towards other road users in combination with the responsibilities of other road users to pedestrians. For the purpose of this document we shall be taking specific interest in rules: 7, 8, and 18-30 (Department of Transport, 2012). Rule 8 is of particular interest to us in this investigation as it states –

“At a junction. When crossing the road, look out for traffic turning into the road, especially from behind you. If you have started crossing and traffic wants to turn into the road, you have priority and they should give way”

This rule is of particular interest as it clearly indicates to us that a priority should be set for pedestrians crossing a roadway which does not have a specific pedestrian crossing in place. However this does not allow for the free unobstructed crossing of a road by pedestrians, as is clearly demonstrated prior to this rule in rule 7, which states: “Do not cross until there is a safe gap in the traffic and you are certain that there is plenty of time”. The issues which can arise from this situation are the varying perceptions of what constitutes a ‘safe gap in the traffic’ and how far it can be proved at a later date that adequate time to cross has been provided. This therefore put the onus on the pedestrian, to ensure that they are capable of crossing the road without causing delays to other road users. Rules 204-210 (Department of Transport, 2012) place further emphasis on the importance of pedestrians to vehicle users, and their responsibility to beware of the presence of such individuals. It is clear from all of these measures that the pedestrians

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have right-of-way over vehicle users; however, this is not clearly stated in any area and can lead to a certain level of ambiguity. Although common sense should allow drivers to be capable of realising that should they injure a pedestrian to such an extent to which death results they are likely to face legal proceedings, further research and considerations of this issue are greatly needed.

In this research, pedestrian ROW violations as the case of a pedestrian accident at pedestrian crossing, will be defined as “any pedestrian accident that occurs on pedestrian crossing areas or within ten metres of pedestrian crossing areas”. In that case it is assumed that the pedestrian has right-of-way, and that there has been a violation to that right. On the other hand, any pedestrian accident that occurs outside the ten metre limit is called a non-pedestrian ROW (or driver ROW). In this case the pedestrian will be violating the right-of-way of the driver. Table 3.3 provides the description pertaining to ROW violation.

Table 3. 3: Description of pedestrian ROW violation

Variable Description Pedestrian

ROW

Pedestrian accidents occurring on pedestrian crossing areas, zigzag lines and when pedestrians were crossing elsewhere within 10metres on both sides of the crossing or when pedestrians are walking along the side way walk.

Driver ROW

Pedestrian accidents occurring outside the pedestrian ROW area (pedestrian accidents occurring away) within 50 meters from the crossing line in both directions.

It is very important to note that the accidents which were selected for analysis in this research were those that had occurred on pedestrian crossing areas and up to 50 metres from the crossing line in both directions.