“CALWALKS - CALIFORNIA WALKS OLDER ADULT PEDESTRIAN SAFETY TRAINING” PROGRAM

Program Description

Cal WALKS provides senior pedestrian safety workshops based on a program offered by the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center.

The course is called “Watch Out for Us! Skills for Safe Walking,” and can be found online with accompanying how to videos. Course topic areas include:

Walking and Older Adults - the benefits of walking, especially for older pedestrians, and some of the barriers that make it difficult to walk.
Watching Out for Us!- traffic situations that increase the chances of an older pedestrian being hit by a vehicle and what a pedestrian can do to better control these situations.
The Walking Environment -how the physical environment such as sidewalks, crosswalks, etc., can make walking safer and more comfortable.
Completing the Picture -understanding how educating drivers and community members can contribute to safer conditions for walking and how both education and law enforcement methods can improve behavior and how to encourage walking where appropriate.
Taking an Observational Walk- how to prepare for and take a walk to observe pedestrian and driver behavior and look at the physical environment.
Discussion and Next Steps –implement observations from the walk by considering how to help a community take action to make streets safer for seniors.

California WALKS aims to increase awareness and advance senior pedestrian safety through creating a Pedestrian Bill of Rights. Safe streets for seniors are an important form of alternate senior transportation for seniors who can no longer drive or take public transit.

The organization advocates for simple changes to make the streets safer for seniors such as: moving the stop line back behind the crosswalks so turning cars don’t dodge through pedestrians,  and increasing crosswalk time so that seniors have a more reasonable time to cross the street.

Cal WALKS also works with the STEPS project by engaging intergenerational cooperation and advocacy to create a change in pedestrian safety. Youth and older adults are the two most vulnerable pedestrian populations and use the streets the most often.
source: californiawalks.org

WATCH VIDEO ON SENIOR PEDESTRIAN SAFETY

Find out more about the “California WALKS Older Adult Pedestrian Safety Training” Program