Gender and pedestrian injury risk in childhood: gender biases, crossing beliefs and behaviors.

OBJECTIVE

Pedestrian injuries are a significant cause of death for children over the age of 5 with males at greater risk than females. The current study examined whether children show gender biases when attributing risky pedestrian behavior and whether children's pedestrian safety beliefs are associated with their crossing behavior.

METHODS

Children (N = 144) in grades 2 through 4 completed three tasks: a story rating task assessing gender attributions when presented with vignettes about unsafe pedestrian behaviors, a questionnaire measuring beliefs about pedestrian behaviors, and a virtual reality street-crossing task assessing crossing behavior in a simulated traffic environment.

RESULTS

Children showed a significant bias toward attributing unsafe pedestrian behavior to boys, with this pattern consistent across gender and age. Pedestrian safety beliefs improved with age but did not differ by gender. Stronger endorsement of safe crossing beliefs was associated with fewer unsafe crossing errors in the virtual crossing task.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest that gendered expectations about risky behavior extend to pedestrian contexts in childhood. Children's beliefs about pedestrian safety related to their behavior in simulated traffic environments, highlighting the potential role of cognitive expectations and safety beliefs in pedestrian decision-making.