Spotting Danger: How child and adult pedestrians assess distracted drivers in hazard perception

Child pedestrian casualties in traffic accidents remains high, particularly when they cross the street alone. One contributing factor is their limited ability to identify potential risks. While vehicle motion cues and environmental factors are known to influence hazard perception, a driver's distracted state may also signal risk. However, it remains unclear whether pedestrians, especially children, can assess danger based on a driver's distraction. This study aims to investigate the effects of driver distraction on hazard perception of child (6-10 years old) and adult pedestrians. Participants assessed the safety of crossing at a crosswalk based on videos of approaching vehicles with drivers in various states of distraction (undistracted, texting, chatting, etc.). Results from Experiment 1 show that although both children and adults perceived greater danger when drivers were distracted, children were not as sensitive to different driver states as adults. However, when participants were guided to focus more on driver cues by enlarging driver images (Experiment 2), the influence of driver's distraction on safety assessments increased significantly, particularly for children. This study reveals that even children can perceive potential hazards from driver, which highlights the significant role of driver distraction in pedestrians' safety judgments and provide valuable insights for designing training programs to enhance children's hazard perception skills.