The researchers from the London University have found, after testing 100 pupils, that children aged in between 6 and 11 (who attend primary schools) have a hard time correctly assessing the speed of the vehicles. More precisely, their perceptual acuity gets unreliable when the speed of the approaching vehicle is of above 20 mph (32 km/h) and provided the car is five seconds away. For adults, the speed that can be correctly interpreted is of around 50 mph (80 km/h).
As John Wann, a professor from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway says, this does not mean that children have some sort of problem when it comes to paying attention, but rather the result of a “low-level visual detection mechanisms.”
“Even when children are paying very close attention they may fail to detect a fast approaching vehicle,” the professor said according to rhul.ac.uk.
“These findings provide strong evidence that children may make risky crossing judgements when vehicles are travelling at 30 or 40mph and in addition the vehicles that they are more likely to step in front of are the faster vehicles that are more likely to result in a fatality,” added Wann.
“Travelling one mile through a residential area at 20mph versus 30mph will only add 60 seconds to your journey time - we encourage drivers to take a minute and save a child’s life”.
The study released this week is part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) ran project intended to get a better understanding of the perceptual factors behind pedestrian accidents.
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