Introduction


Pedestrian fatalities and hospitalisations involving children 8-16 is increasing in Australia (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2021). Head turn frequency (HTF) and excursion (HTE) are important to investigate, because compared to adults, children are less likely to look left or right before crossing (Lee et al., 2025). Two skills are required to cross the road safely: hazard perception (HP; identification and response to a potential hazard; Rosenbloom et al., 2015), and gap acceptance (GA; judging when a sufficient gap appears in traffic to cross safely; Cœugnet et al., 2019). We used an established virtual reality (VR) protocol (see Bennett et al., 2025) to investigate HP and GA in adults and children.


Purpose


Understand how adults and children use visual exploration in GA and HP tasks. Develop training protocols that can increase GA and HP skills in children to reduce the incidence of roadway crashes.


Methods


30 children (Mage = 9.57, SDage = 1.25; 52.3% female) and 44 adults (Mage = 23.34, SDage = 3.46; 23.3% female) were recruited. Walking speed and VR GA and HP tasks were completed. Head movements were measured using VR. Response time (RT; in seconds) was the outcome variable.


Results


Separate hierarchical regressions were computed. For GA (adults), the full model was significant (R² = .29, p < .05); HTF (β = 3.49) predicted higher RTs; it was not significant for children (R² = .35, p > .05). For HP (adults), the full model was significant (R² = .45, p < .001); HTF (β = -7.34) and HTE (β = -.17) predicted lower RTs; for children the full model was significant (R² = .50, p < .01); HTF (β = -10.59) predicted lower RTs.


Conclusion


Training protocols on HP should involve head movements because children face more risk when crossing compared to adults.