Elderly Pedestrians and Road Safety: Findings from the Slovenian Accident Database and Measures for Improving Their Safety
DOI: 10.3390/su15021631
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Summary
This study addresses the growing safety risks faced by elderly pedestrians, a demographic group that is increasing in size due to population aging and a preference for walking over driving. Despite the known vulnerability of older adults in traffic collisions, there is limited research on the specific patterns and factors contributing to their accidents. The authors aim to analyze a decade of crash data from Slovenia to identify repetitive accident patterns, quantify the severity of these collisions, and propose targeted countermeasures to improve road safety for this group. The research utilizes data from the Slovenian national traffic accident database, managed by the Slovenian Traffic Safety Agency, covering the period from January 2012 to December 2021. The dataset includes detailed information on time, location, road conditions, and involved users for all recorded accidents. The methodology involves a statistical analysis of 13 factors influencing accidents, followed by Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Anderson–Darling tests to assess data distribution. Since the data did not follow a normal distribution, the authors developed an ordinal logistic regression model to predict crash severity levels based on identified influencing factors. The results indicate that elderly pedestrians (aged 65+) are the most frequently involved age group in pedestrian crashes, accounting for 27% of all incidents. Fatal accidents involving the elderly showed a sharp increase from 15.79% in 2012 to over 45% in subsequent years. Temporal analysis revealed two peak accident periods: mornings (8:00–11:00) and late afternoons (16:00–19:00), with fewer accidents on weekends. Most crashes occurred in urban areas (94.27%), specifically at isolated crosswalks, parking lots, and intersections. Contrary to expectations, the majority of accidents happened during daylight hours and in sunny weather. The primary causes were identified as disregard for right-of-way rules and unpredictable vehicle movements, particularly in parking areas where visibility is poor. In 87.55% of cases, elderly pedestrians were victims rather than the cause of the collision. The ordinal logistic regression model successfully highlighted these factors as significant predictors of crash severity. The study concludes that elderly pedestrian safety is compromised by specific environmental and behavioral patterns, such as reduced visibility in parking lots and driver disregard for right-of-way. The findings underscore the need for targeted technical and educational countermeasures. The authors suggest that road safety stakeholders implement measures addressing these specific high-risk scenarios, such as improving visibility at crosswalks and parking areas and enhancing driver awareness regarding elderly pedestrians' slower reaction times and visual limitations. This research provides a data-driven foundation for designing safer urban environments for aging populations.
Key finding
An ordinal logistic regression model applied to a 10-year Slovenian accident database identified that disregard for right-of-way rules and unpredictable vehicle movements are the primary causes of crashes involving elderly pedestrians, who are most frequently injured in urban areas during daylight hours.
Methodology
dataset
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via author_sweep_intake on 2026-05-28.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | author_sweep | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-28 |
| archive | success | openalex | — | — | 5 | 2026-06-06 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-28 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes