Obstacles and Problems Related to Elderly Pedestrians: A Qualitative Study

Elderly pedestrians are one of the vulnerable road users in road traffic injureis. Elderly pedestrians are different from other road users because of special problems such as weakness of physical ability and specific, social and mental psychosocial conditions. Therefore, special attention should be taken in to account. There are need to pay more attention to this group of road users. The present study aimed to explore the obstacles relating to the elderly pedestrians using a qualitative study approach.
This is a qualitative study that was conducted on male and female elderly pedestrians age equal or more than 60 years old participated to obtain depth understanding about obstacles of road safety among elderly pedestrians. Considering the cultural background and convenience of the participants in order to have comfort interviews, interviews were conducted by male and female interviewee based on participant gender. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and then analyzed employing content analysis as an interpretation method after data collection.
Analysis of the interview data yielded three main themes, emerged in interpreting the interviews including the problems related to associated with the environment (e.g., such as; traffic lights, pedestrians bridges, and streets), social respect to elderly people, and physical health.
According to findings of our study, special physical and social conditions of the elderly citizens as vulnerable road users should be considered and there is need to pay more attention to urban designs and distribution of safer traffic facilities considering elderly people as a vulnerable road users. Construction of traffic safety equipment in cities (such as using escalators instead of bridges and correction of defects in streets and roads tailored to the needs of the elderly) old people can could positively affect the safety of elderly pedestrians. Furthermore, promoting the culture of respecting the elderly and helping them in streets could largely improve their safety as vulnerable pedestrians can improve pedestrian safety of elderly road users.