The protective effect of pedestrian reflective devices: A combined micro- and macro-level study

From 2003 to 2022 pedestrian use of reflective devices in darkness on lit roads in urban areas in Norway increased from 11% to 43%. This paper reports a study evaluating: (a) the protective effect of reflective devices for each pedestrian and (b) the effect on the number of injured pedestrians of an increase in the use of reflective devices.

To evaluate the protective effect of reflective devices for each pedestrian a case-control study was made, using injured pedestrians as cases, and pedestrians observed in traffic as controls. To evaluate the effects of increased use of reflective devices, ARIMA time series models and Poisson regression models for panel data were applied.

Use of reflective devices was associated with a reduction of 84% (odds ratio 0.16) of the chance of getting injured on lit roads in urban areas. The estimated effect is large, but not inconsistent with estimates of the increased safety margin as indicated by the increase in recognition distance to pedestrians using reflective devices. ARIMA time series models and Poisson regression models for panel data consistently indicated that increased use of reflective devices was associated with a reduction of the number of injured pedestrians. The negative sign was consistent, but the values of the coefficient varied substantially between models and was in most cases not statistically significant. A conservative estimate is that the increased use of reflective devices may have reduced the number of pedestrians injured in darkness on lit roads in urban areas by about 10-15%.

Use of reflective devices in darkness is likely to protect pedestrians from traffic injury.

Reflective devices are a cheap and effective method of reducing pedestrian injury in darkness which remains underutilized. Measures promoting the use of reflective devices are likely to be very cost-effective.