Abstract
In 1999 there were 450 fatalities due to road crashes in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, of which 130 were pedestrians. Hence, every fifth person killed on the roads is a pedestrian. The aim of this study is to investigate pedestrian-vehicle crashes in this fast-growing city with the following objective in mind: to analyze pedestrian collisions with regard to their causes, characteristics, and most common patterns, Data from 638 pedestrian-vehicle crashes reported by police were used. The analysis showed that the pedestrian fatality rate per 105 population is 2.8 (2.1 in the USA). The analysis revealed that 77.1 percent of pedestrians were probably struck while crossing a roadway either not in a crosswalk or where no crosswalk existed. The paper also includes some international comparisons, in particular with the USA and UK.