Background: Many factors are associated with pedestrian injuries and accidents. If a pedestrian is injured in an outdoor public space, we are talking about a “pedestrian fall”. Pedestrian falls are a more common cause of pedestrian injuries than traffic crashes but have received less attention and the literature on this topic is scarce. Aims and methods: The aim of this work is to describe at a general level the prevalence and consequences of pedestrian falls and injuries, to make international comparisons of pedestrian falls and to identify risk factors and not least to examine the relationships between the prevalence of falls and pedestrian risk behaviour. A total of 6,373 participants from 15 different countries were recruited to take part in this study. To collect data a questionnaire was used. To cover the risky behaviour of pedestrians we used a short version of Pedestrians Behaviour Scale (PBS). In order to identify groups of countries with a similar pedestrian transport situation, a hierarchical cluster analysis was performed. The analysis produced four groups of countries based on pedestrians’ safety level, popularity of walking and GDP. Results and conclusions: As for the results, we can conclude that young people and older people are more frequently involved in falls and that women report more frequent involvement in falls than males. However, the risk of getting injured in a fall is not higher than that of men. Frequent walking is associated with a lower risk of falling while walking. In contrast to this, physical activity increases such risk. The prevalence of falls and injuries seems to be weakly related to pedestrians’ risky behaviour, thus other factors such as safety infrastructure probably play an important role. ... Read more

Alcohol is a global risk factor for road trauma. Although drink driving has received most of the scholarly attention, there is growing evidence of the risks of alcohol-impaired walking. Alcohol-impaired pedestrians are over-represented in fatal crashes compared to non-impaired pedestrians. Additionally, empirical evidence shows that alcohol intoxication impairs road-crossing judgements. Besides some limited early research, much is unknown about the global prevalence and determinants of alcohol-impaired walking. Understanding alcohol-impaired walking will support health promotion initiatives and injury prevention. The present investigation has three aims: (1) compare the prevalence of alcohol-impaired walking across countries; (2) identify international groups of pedestrians based on psychosocial factors (i.e., Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and perceptions of risk); and (3) investigate how segments of pedestrians form their intention for alcohol-impaired walking using the extended TPB (i.e. subjective norm, attitudes, perceived control, and perceived risk). A cross-sectional design was applied. The target behaviour question was “have you been a pedestrian when your thinking or physical ability (balance/strength) is affected by alcohol?” to ensure comparability across countries. Cluster analysis based on the extended TPB was used to identify groups of countries. Finally, regressions were used to predict pedestrians’ intentions per group. A total of 6,166 respondents (Age M(SD) = 29.4 (14.2); Males = 39.2%) completed the questionnaire, ranging from 12.6% from Russia to 2.2% from Finland. The proportion of participants who reported never engaging in alcohol-impaired walking in the last three months ranged from 30.1% (Spain) to 83.1% (Turkey). Four groups of countries were identified: group-1 (Czech Republic, Spain, and Australia), group-2 (Russia and Finland), group-3 (Japan), and group-4 (final ten countries including Colombia, China, and Romania). Pedestrian intentions to engage in alcohol- impaired walking are predicted by perceptions of risk and TPB-psychosocial factors in group-1 and group-4. Favourable TPB-beliefs and low perceived risk increased alcohol-impaired walking intentions. Conversely, subjective norms were not significant in group-2 and only perceived risk predicted intention in group-3. The willingness of pedestrians to walk when alcohol-impaired differs significantly across the countries in this study. Perceived risk was the only common predictor among the 16 countries. ... Read more