Pedestrian Safety and Mobile Phone Use Study

• 6,200 pedestrians were killed or had life-changing injuries on UK roads in 2019.
• The number of 11 to 14-year- old pedestrians being killed or seriously injured went up every year between 2015 and 2019, from 548 to 606.
• Different studies over a number of years have shown that phones are a growing cause of distraction for pedestrians, affecting whether they cross a road safely.
• A study by the University of Lincoln in 2019 looked at mobile phone use by schoolchildren while crossing the road. They found that nearly a third (31.37%) of road crossings were made by pupils with a phone or other device, and that they looked left and right less frequently when they had them.
• Studies in other countries such as Australia, Serbia and the US also found that pedestrians who were talking or texting on a mobile phone looked for traffic less often than others.
• Laboratory simulations have also shown that child pedestrians walked slower when talking on a mobile phone, paid less attention to traffic, allowed less time to cross when a car was coming towards them, and had more traffic hits and near misses when using a mobile phone.

This quiz explores statistics and studies related to pedestrian safety and the impact of mobile phone use on road crossings. It covers the increase in pedestrian casualties, the influence of phones on distraction, and findings from various research studies on the topic.