Child pedestrian casualties in England: the effect of area deprivation

This paper analyses child pedestrian casualties in England, focusing on the influence of socio-economic deprivation. It develops an area-based model and presents estimates of the model at the level of the 8414 wards. The results detect an association between increased deprivation and higher numbers of pedestrian casualties across England. The deprivation effect is strong both for all child casualties and for children killed or seriously injured. Estimates for adult casualties also reveal a positive and significant association with increasing deprivation, but the magnitude of the effect is smaller than for children. The strength of the relationship increases as the level of deprivation increases and it is particularly large in London. Separate effects are established for each of the six components that constitute the Index of Multiple Deprivation. The use of measures of deprivation in targeting area-based policies towards pedestrian accident reduction is discussed. The techniques are applied in an illustrative analysis of the efficacy of the location of 20 mph zones in several local authorities.