TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2005//
TI  - Blind and sighted pedestrians' judgments of gaps in traffic at roundabouts
JO  - Human factors
A1  - Guth, David
A1  - Ashmead, Daniel
A1  - Long, Richard
A1  - Wall, Robert
A1  - Ponchillia, Paul
SP  - 314
EP  - 331
VL  - 47
IS  - 2
N2  - This paper reports two experiments about street crossing under conditions of free flowing traffic, with a focus on modern roundabout intersections. Experiment 1 was conducted at three roundabouts varying in size and traffic volume. Six totally blind and six sighted adults judged whether gaps in traffic were long enough to permit crossing to the median (splitter) island before the next vehicle arrived. Gap distributions and measures of judgment quality are reported. Overall, blind participants were about 2.5 times less likely to make correct judgments than sighted participants, took longer to detect crossable gaps, and were more likely to miss crossable gaps altogether. However, the differences were significant only at the two higher volume roundabouts. In Experiment 2, we evaluated the response of drivers to pedestrians with and without mobility devices (i.e., long canes, dog guides). The experiment was conducted at a single-lane roundabout, a midblock crossing, and a two-way-stop-controlled intersection. Site-specific characteristics appeared to have a greater impact on drivers' yielding than did a mobility device. Actual or potential applications of this research include the development of methods for assessing pedestrian safety and driver behavior as well as identifying intersections that may require modification in order to be accessible to blind pedestrians.<p /> <p>Language: en</p> 
LA  - en
SN  - 0018-7208
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1518/0018720054679533
ID  - ref1
ER  -