Wyniki wyszukiwania - BazTech

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Performances and self-declared opinions on handheld mobile phone use (distraction in traffic) in Poland

Sicińska Katarzyna, Dąbrowska-Loranc Maria

Transport Problems

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2024

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T. 19, z. 1

143--155

EN

This article presents the Motor Transport Institute’s research to set out road safety indicators of behaviors and opinions on one of the increasingly important road traffic problems. Two types of studies on the unsafe use of mobile phones and others on board devices (distraction) by road users in Poland between 2014 and 2023 are presented. Safety Performance Indicators (SPI) on handheld mobile phone use from roadside observations and declared opinions on talking, reading messages, checking social media/news, and listening to headphones while driving, cycling, and walking are presented. Overall, 306,240 passenger car drivers observed on all road types all week long in Poland showed a dropping trend (1.8%) between before the study in 2014 SPI 4.1% distracted drivers to SPI 2.3% after the study in 2022. More drivers used mobile phones on single carriageways both in built-up and outside built-up areas. On motorways outside built-up areas, where vehicles are speeding, drivers of passenger cars rarely talk on their handheld mobiles. Results from the first European Union (EU) Baseline project to collect road indicators produced a Key Performance Indicator of 3.8% distracted passenger car (all types of roads, all weekdays and weekend) from 44,011 observed in Poland in 2021. Results from the EU project E-Survey on Road Users’ Attitude, third edition (ESRA3), showed declared opinions of mobile use while driving, cycling, and walking down the street in Poland in 2023 compared to 2018 (ESRA2). A positive trend is seen among car drivers who declared lower use of handheld mobile phones than in 2018 (a drop of 11.2%). The survey showed Polish cyclist used more often headphones to listen to music, checked news and messages than cyclists in Europe in 2023. More by 10.1% pedestrians in Europe than in Poland declared checking social media/news, reading messages/emailing while walking down the street in 2023. This lower rate in Poland can be explained by pedestrian’s legal prohibition of mobile phone use while crossing the street since 2021. There is strong support for policy measures forbidding all drivers of motorized vehicles to use handheld mobile phone use while driving in all of Europe. Enforcement measures are twice as strong in Europe than in Poland. As the number of accidents and fatalities on distraction is unknown, calculating SPI during roadside observations and questionnaire surveys gives in-depth knowledge of the problem. The authors of the paper represent the Motor Transport Institute’s (MTI’s) research institution, which systematically analyzes trends in road safety in Poland during its own, national, and international projects.

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Pedestrians’ safety in Poland and use of reflective materials

Sicińska Katarzyna, Zielińska Anna

Transport Problems

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2022

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T. 17, z. 1

127--139

EN

The subject of pedestrian safety is particularly important in Poland, where the risk of mortality is very high compared to other European Union (EU) countries. In Poland, 60% of all killed pedestrians lost their lives at night, mostly away from urban areas. The current article focuses on pedestrians’ compliance with the law requirements of the mandatory use of reflective elements at night in non-urban areas since its introduction in Poland in 2014 based on a data analysis and survey on pedestrians’ attitudes and behaviours. An analysis of pedestrian accidents, fatalities, and serious injuries at night five years before and five years after 2014 showed an improvement in pedestrian safety more in non-urban areas (where the law on reflective elements is obligatory) than in urban areas. This study is the first published work to present comprehensive results from an in-depth national survey about people’s attitudes and behaviours regarding the use of reflective elements. The data were obtained from 600 observed and 400 questioned pedestrians in 2018. Observations from 2018 showed that only 21% of pedestrians respected the obligation to wear reflective elements at night outside urban, even though 46% of respondents declared in questionnaires that they wore such elements. Pedestrians who used reflective devices in non-urban areas at night were mainly young people aged 40 years old or younger. They used reflective clothing (shoes, trousers, backpacks); 79% of observed pedestrians did not wear reflective elements at night according to questionnaires from 2018. More pedestrians (60%) who didn’t use any reflective wore black clothing, which made them not visible to drivers and put them at risk of being killed. A comparison of the data showed a positive change in pedestrians’ attitudes due to this obligation. In 2015 only 35% of respondents knew that the use of reflective elements was obligatory in some situations; in 2018, almost half of them (46%) did. The analysis carried out in the present study indicated that the preventive action of introducing the mandatory use of reflective elements at night by pedestrians outside urban areas has slowly improved the safety of pedestrians and decreased the numbers of accidents, serious injuries, and fatalities. Changes introduced into Polish traffic rules have improved pedestrians’ safety on roads since 2014; however, there is still an immense need to carry on social actions and campaigns promoting the use of reflective elements to educate road users to change pedestrians’ behaviours.

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Survey of pedestrians and car drivers’ attitudes at the area of pedestrian crossings over period of time

Dąbrowska-Loranc Maria, Sicińska Katarzyna

Transport Problems

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2021

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T. 16, z. 4

59--70

EN

This article presents the newest trends among pedestrians’ and car drivers’ attitudes from a survey performed at a roadside at the area of zebra crossings in Poland in 2018. Trends in road users’ attitudes and performance allow an understanding of the causes of road safety crashes to decrease deaths and injuries. Surveys of attitudes from questionnaires help gauge knowledge of road traffic laws and risky behaviours regarding road safety issues at crosswalks. Data of 800 questionnaires collected in 2018 according to the methodology first adopted in 2015 were analyzed and compared. Reliable and comparable results from 2018 published for the first time show changes in car drivers’ and pedestrians’ attitudes. Over the last three years, there have been changes in car drivers’ declared attitudes and performance towards 4 different road traffic situations at the crosswalks (when a pedestrian is approaching, waiting, entering, crossing). Before and after survey at the zebra crossings showed in 2015 according to questionnaire 88% car drivers declared giving way to pedestrians (in fact during observations on road only 20% car drivers gave way), in 2018 declared 85% car drivers and 78% already gave way to pedestrians on crosswalks. Drivers and pedestrians know the law, but do not always follow them in traffic. According to drivers’ opinions, both pedestrians and drivers display risky behaviours. 78% of pedestrians and 72% of car drivers favored more restrictive laws for car drivers to ensure that they slow down before approaching a crossing to allow pedestrians to cross. Risky pedestrian behaviour was mentioned by 76% of car drivers and pointed out as the main problem at crosswalks. n self-declared questionnaires, 90% of pedestrians stated that they must be extremely careful when crossing. The presented results influenced policy changes for implementation of more safety for pedestrians not only at zebra crossing but also when approaching it in Poland since 2021. The aim of the changes is to reduce pedestrians’ risk while crossing the road.

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Road users’ behaviour study in areas of zebra crosswalks

Dąbrowska-Loranc Maria, Sicińska Katarzyna, Zielińska Anna

Transport Problems

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2021

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T. 16, z. 3

185--198

EN

Pedestrian safety on crosswalks is extremely vital in Poland since 2015, when the first study on road users’ behaviour on driver–pedestrian encounters in areas of zebra crosswalks were conducted. The second study was carried out in 2018 and its results are published in this article for the first time. The results of the project helped lead to changes in pedestrians’ safety regulations in Poland, increasing the safety of pedestrians in areas of crossing. Since June, the 1st, 2021, drivers of oncoming cars approaching a zebra crossing are obliged to stop to allow pedestrians approaching from the sidewalk to cross the zebra crossing. Data to assess pedestrian safety presented in this article combine a new approach that is a combination of different diagnostic techniques: a surrogate safety measure (nonaccident-based indicators) and the traditional approach: statistical analysis. As a result of the study, the most frequent categories of interactions between drivers and pedestrians and pedestrians itself were characterized on crossing facilities. Videos recording pedestrians’ and drivers’ behaviours, and vehicle speed measurements at pedestrian crossings from 2018 allow to assess the safety of 7 000 pedestrians during behaviour observation in onsite fields: on all crossing facilities, except with light signalization, 55% of pedestrians had to stop and wait at the sidewalks to cross, before an oncoming car. Only 45% of drivers approaching not signalised zebra crossings gave way to pedestrians. Pedestrians aged 60+ entering the road on marked crossings without traffic light waited longer to cross than younger. In residential areas with high traffic volume more drivers stopped at non signalised crossings and gave way to pedestrians. At low speed of vehicle in urban areas pedestrians felt safer and were ready to enter the crossing; their behaviour was more predictable. Results showed dangerous pedestrian behaviours on signal-regulated crossing facilities who failed to obey the traffic lights (7% of red-light crossings). 8% of observed pedestrians crossed the street outside designated pedestrian crossings. Video-recorded speed measurements of over 32 000 vehicles on-site study fields of pedestrian crossings showed that the speed of vehicles was higher than permitted. This article presents the newest characteristics of traffic and pedestrian’ behavior at crossings together with measurements of pedestrians’ speed and loss of pedestrians’ time on different road cross sections in Poland in 2018.

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SaferWheels project: study on scene of accident with powered two-wheeler and bicycle

Sicińska Katarzyna, Krupińska Agnieszka

Transport Problems

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2019

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T. 14, z. 4

77--87

EN

The article presents results and the way of providing research project on indepth crash study on scene of accidents of 385 Powered Two-Wheelers (motorcyclists, motorists) and 116 bicycles in the European Union in 2014-2017. The main concern of an in-depth crash study at the site of a traffic accident is to collect data on vehicles, roads, and drivers, including interviews with participants. Data descriptive statistics have been used to underline the dominant factors that appear most frequently in accident scenarios with bicycles and PTW, with a special focus on causation by Driving Reliability and Error Analysis Method and injuries coded by the Abbreviated Injury Scale, conducted for these road users across Europe for the first time. Medical data, police records, and jurisdiction files about crashes of PTW and cyclist were collected and analyzed in EU to define the most common accident scenarios and other threats to this group of unprotected road users. The articles present recommendations for making safer driving of motorcyclists and bicyclists.

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Age of a passenger car and its influence on accidents with fatalities in Poland

Sicińska Katarzyna

Transport Problems

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2019

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T. 14, z. 1

105--113

EN

The article concentrates on road safety in Poland, which is one of the countries with a high number of fatalities in European Union. As the passenger cars are the mostly involved in traffic accidents with fatalities, this type of vehicles was analyzed to check relationship between age of the vehicle and its involvement in accidents with fatalities. This type of scientific analysis was made for the first time. For carrying out this research, a method of estimating passenger car fleet in motion in Poland was designed, as the official data were not updated and provided wrong information. The updated information on passenger car fleet when compared with that on the age of vehicles involved in road accidents with fatalities showed that the age of a vehicle has influence on the occurrence of road accidents in Poland. Presented data showed that the fact that people involved in accidents are at a higher risk of loss of life depends on the age of a vehicle. The data from analysis conducted between 2014 and 2015 showed that the risk of being killed increases with the age of the vehicle. Chances of the loss of life of people involved in accident participants are three times more in the case of more than 21 year old cars compared to 5 years old cars.