Increasing pedestrian safety through driver behavior: Flashing yellow arrows for right turns
Pedestrian safety has become a rising issue. With increased commuting by walking combined with high vulnerability to vehicles, pedestrians have an increased risk of becoming seriously injured or killed on America’s roadways. At intersection crossings, pedestrians must face direct potential conflict with cruising vehicles. This happens often at signalized intersections, and in these locations, pedestrians commonly cross parallel to vehicles who have a circular green indication, as indicated by the red arrows on the figure below.
While the signal is green for vehicles, vehicles are permitted to make a right turn, clearly creating potential danger for crossing pedestrians.
With the success of the flashing yellow arrow for left turns at indicating yielding to oncoming traffic, this study analyzes the potential for flashing yellow arrows for right turns to generate greater driver yielding to crossing pedestrians.
Study Setup
To investigate this, a survey and driving simulator experiment were completed. This survey, completed by 200 drivers throughout the northeastern region of the United States, was comprised of image scenarios of intersections from the driver’s perspective to understand how drivers would react in given certain pedestrian presence situations and signal types.
The driving simulator experiment in the Arbella Insurance Human Performance Laboratory complemented this survey by placing 24 drivers in a realistic setting to evaluate driver performance within situations with various pedestrian presence level and the two signal designs.
Driver Reactions
Respondents of the survey indicated they’d be much more likely to yield before turning right in situations with the flashing yellow arrow than without.
Driving simulator participants spent more time looking at the flashing yellow arrow signal than the circular green, likely due to the “newness” factor of the flashing right turn arrow. This time, however, did not take away from the time spent looking at the pedestrians, indicating they were noticed by the driver.
This new signal display in the simulator did not catch driver’s off guard, even though it wasn’t something they had seen in the real world. All participants drove normally when presented with the right turning flashing yellow arrow. This shows that this new signal display does not elicit unsafe driving behavior due to lack of understanding.
Overall, drivers were found to have a strong comprehension of the meaning of the right turning flashing yellow arrow; drivers understand that the flashing yellow arrow represented yielding in their approach to an intersection.
The Takeaway
Flashing yellow arrows for right turns at intersections with parallel pedestrian crossing have the potential to increase driver yielding, creating a safer environment for pedestrians. The findings of this research support the installation and use of the flashing yellow arrow for right turns in lieu of only the circular green signal display.
Read the full paper for details:
Flashing yellow arrows for right turn applications: A driving simulator study and static evaluation analysis. Alyssa Ryan, Elizabeth Casola, Cole Fitzpatrick, Michael Knodler. Transportation Research Part F: Psychology and Behaviour (2019).