Afoot in a Hazardous World

Abstract

Pedestrians are at particular risk in situations where the planning, design and intended use of facilities has concentrated on factors other than the well-being of pedestrians; situations in which architects and engineers have overlooked the need to access the facility or traverse it on foot. Hazards to pedestrians are designed into urban roads when planners overlook the advantages of walking or using a vehicle other than a standard automobile. This paper offers hypotheses based on human factors knowledge to explain how these hazards get into the system and are repeated and permitted to exist. The authors propose ways of reducing hazards and ways of obtaining implementation of the proposals.