Motor-vehicle collisions involving child pedestrians at intersection and mid-block locations

• We use a case–control study design to estimate child pedestrian collision risk.
• Mid-block and intersection locations present different risks to child pedestrians.
• Safe route planning must consider the interaction between environment and behaviour.
• Population may be sufficient for controlling for variation in pedestrian activity.

We study motor-vehicle collisions involving child pedestrians walking to school in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada to understand and contrast collision risks at mid-block and intersection locations. We use a matched case–control study design and apply it to intersection and mid-block locations instead of people. Cases are intersections/mid-blocks where collisions occurred and controls are locations where collisions did not occur. We match cases to controls on geography, socio-economic status and year. We use conditional logistic regression to predict the log-odds of collision risk at intersections and mid-blocks as a function of various environmental measures while controlling for volume of child pedestrian activity. Our results suggest that child pedestrian injuries at intersections are associated with intersection control type, traffic volume, and land use characteristics. In contrast, mid-block child pedestrian collisions are not associated with small scale environmental features. The results of this study suggest that some factors associated with the risk of collision differ across location types. These findings may be useful in the planning of safer walking journeys to school.