A Comparison of Interviews and Observation to Obtain Measures of Children's Exposure to Risk as Pedestrians

Abstract

A sample of children aged 5–11 years were discreetly followed home from school by female observers who recorded their behaviour at each road crossing on concealed tape recorders. The day after being followed each child was interviewed about his or her activities the previous day. Comparison was made between the children's reported exposure to traffic and the findings of our previous studies and between the children's reports and observation of their journeys. The comparisons indicate that children slightly under-report their actual exposure but confirm our earlier findings that there is a highly significant increase in exposure with age but no difference in exposure between boys and girls, over the ago range studied.