Pedestrian Safety For Seniors

1. Always cross at a crosswalk or at the corner.
2. Look for oncoming vehicles before stepping down from sidewalk.
3. When possible, establish eye contact with drivers and continue looking left-right-left while crossing.
4. Remember that oncoming vehicles may approach quicker than anticipated.
5. Make sure you are seen: wear bright or light colored clothing and use retro-reflective materials when dark outside.

Key Driver Messages

1. Stay focused and alert for sudden pedestrian movement in your car's direction when driving.
2. Remember that pedestrians crossing multi-lane streets may be hidden from your view by a stopped car until they cross in front of you.
3. Be extra vigilant when it is dark outside as most pedestrians fatalities occur at dawn or dusk.
4. Anticipate crossing difficulties by seniors to help prevent senseless accidents.
   
    

click here for Walk Wise Hawaii flier
 

A public education program called Walk Wise Hawaii has been launched to focus on safe crossing techniques and driver awareness with regard to senior pedestrians.  This program is sponsored by the State Department of Transportation, through its “Safe Communities” program, and project partners, the City & County of Honolulu’s Department of Transportation Services and the Honolulu Police Department. 

The triple E’s of engineering, enforcement and education are recommended for effecting social change.  Where appropriate, traffic lights and traffic calming measures may be adopted and installed.  However, engineering solutions are costly and difficult to implement.  Enforcement (such as ticketing jaywalkers) has not proven useful in reducing pedestrian deaths among seniors.

Public education is considered paramount in the quest to decrease elderly pedestrian fatalities.  Through the Walk Wise Hawaii program, DOT and its partners will step up education efforts focusing on both drivers and senior pedestrians.

Walk Wise Hawaii will rely on presentations to senior citizens, a media campaign, website and special “multi-level” speakers’ forum, called “A Senior Moment,” to get the word out to drivers.  The speakers’ forum calls upon business and community associations to join in the effort to educate drivers about what they can do to decrease fatalities.

In the past, research has shown almost an adversarial attitude between pedestrians and drivers, with each group blaming the other.  The campaign will seek to remind drivers that once they step out of their car, they too are pedestrians.

Other key driver messages include staying focuses and alert for sudden pedestrian movement.  Particular caution is required at dawn and dusk (when most collisions occur) and when driving down multi-lane streets where pedestrians crossing may be hidden from view by a stopped car.

Elderly pedestrians, for their part, are reminded to use crosswalks, to look for vehicles before stepping down into the street and to establish eye contact with drivers of on-coming cars.  They are also reminded to carefully ascertain the speed of approaching cars.

The Hawaii State Department of Transportation (HDOT) is dedicated to providing a safe, efficient, accessible, and inter-modal transportation system that ensures the mobility of people and goods, and enhances and/or preserves economic prosperity and the quality of life for the people of Hawaii.  Formed shortly after statehood in 1959, the Department has three divisions, Airports, Harbors and Highways.

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