The effectiveness of installing a speed hump in reducing motor vehicle accidents involving pedestrians under the age of 21

Pedestrian safety is a complex and pressing public health issue. Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of pedestrian injuries and fatalities and occur disproportionately in areas lacking environmental modifications. An increased number of pediatric trauma cases were treated at a children's hospital resulting from pedestrian-involved vehicle collisions near a middle school. Finding a lack of traffic calming measures and heavy pedestrian and vehicle traffic surrounding the middle school, the hospital championed an intervention to educate the school community on pedestrian safety and implement a speed hump adjacent to the school. Incident data from a statewide database were collected to examine the number of collisions involving vehicles and child and adolescent pedestrians occurring 2.5 years before and 2.5 years after the installation of the speed hump. A 37.5% reduction in collisions was observed. The reduced incidence of vehicle collisions with pediatric-aged pedestrians provides evidence in support of the preventive potential of speed humps. The hospital's success with this intervention exemplifies the academic-community partnership that hospitals should consider taking to align with the nationwide shift towards preventive medicine.