Luxury car drivers unlikely to stop for pedestrians

DRIVERS of expensive cars like the BMW and Audi are least likely to stop for crossing pedestrians, according to a new study.

Published in the Journal of Transport and Health, the study from the University of Nevada,

Las Vegas (UNLV), found that people who drive fancier vehicles are less likely to share the road with other users and empathise less with pedestrians.

Drivers on a whole aren’t all that great at stopping for pedestrians waiting at crosswalks: for 461 cars that researchers examined, only 28% yielded, the researchers said.

But the cost of the car was a significant predictor of driver yielding, with the odds that they’ll stop decreasing by 3% per $1 000

(15 000) increase in the car’s value, they added.

“It says that pedestrians are facing some challenges when it comes to safety, and it’s really concerning,” said study lead author Courtney Coughenour, professor at UNLV.

“Drivers need to be made aware that they legally have to yield. It’s hard to say whether they’re not yielding because they don’t know the laws or because they don’t want to yield, further study is needed to examine that. Until then, the bigger thing is driver education.” The study, which analysed video data from an earlier UNLV study, also found that motorists overall yielded less frequently for men and people of colour waiting at midblock crosswalks than for women and whites.

It is also consistent with findings from similar studies on the topics of driver yielding behaviours associated with social class, race, and gender.

According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in the US, the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed of 16mph (25km), 25% at 23mph, 50% at 31mph, 75% at 39mph, and 90% at 46mph.

The research team said their findings were important to public health, given that pedestrian injury and survivability are low even when struck at low speeds.