Crossing confidently: the role of walking speed and visual exploration in older adults’ street-crossing decisions

Older adults (' 65 years old) are vulnerable road users who are overrepresented in collisions with vehicles. Apart from walking speed, visual function and visual exploration factors may explain the street-crossing behaviours contributing to the increased risk. Although previous research compared street-crossing behaviour profiles between younger and older adults, no studies investigated the relative role of visual function and visual exploration of older adults in detecting hazards and identifying safe gaps. 101 older adult pedestrians (Mage = 68.83, SDage = 5.25; 60–83 years old) completed a suite of visual function and physical tasks. Hazard perception and gap acceptance tasks were administered via an established pedestrian street crossing virtual reality (VR) paradigm. Head and eye movements were measured using VR. We showed that walking speed did not predict hazard perception and gap acceptance suggesting walking speed was not factored when crossing the street, which may increase their risk. Contrast sensitivity significantly predicted hazard perception response time; whereas, visual acuity, head turn excursions, and the number of fixations predicted the number of correct responses within the hazard perception time window. For gap acceptance, the results showed that head turn frequency significantly predicted response time and the number of correct responses in the gap acceptance window. The findings show that contrast sensitivity is associated with improved hazard perception, whereas head movements is associated with safe crossing decisions in older adults. Street crossing is complex with specific visual exploration and visual function factors contributing uniquely to gap acceptance and hazard perception in older adult pedestrians.