Age, sex, sensation-seeking, and road-crossing: How does risk context impact children's street-crossing?

Child pedestrian injuries are a significant public health problem, largely because children have underdeveloped cognitive-perceptual capacity to judge traffic unsupervised. This study used a virtual reality (VR) environment to examine the impact of children's age, as well as sex and sensation-seeking personality, on pedestrian behavior in different risk contexts.

405 Norwegian children (7-10-year-olds) engaged in street-crossing scenarios within a VR environment. Children crossed a bicycle path and urban roadway six times, each with increasing density and complexity of traffic. Hits and near hits were recorded. Self-reported sensation-seeking personality was assessed.

Children were more likely to experience crashes in the tasks that offered higher probability risk. Overall, 106 children crossed safely in all tasks. Dangerous crossings were associated with male sex, higher thrill and intensity seeking personality, and denser traffic. Age was not related to any traffic safety outcomes.

As expected, children were struck by vehicles more often in complex traffic contexts than in less complex ones. The results support previous findings and suggest that boys and sensation seekers have elevated risk of pedestrian injury, and that individual differences in children, rather than age alone, must be considered when determining if children are capable of safely negotiating traffic unsupervised.