Canadian municipalities face a potentially significant disparity in pedestrian safety across school crossings, with new research commissioned by the Canadian Automobile Association finding that locations equipped with traffic controls recorded near-miss rates as much as 20 times lower than those without them.
The findings put municipal road design under scrutiny as cities determine which crossings warrant additional infrastructure and how to assess dangerous locations before collisions occur.
CAA’s study monitored 30 school crossings across 11 Canadian cities over five school days, recording 660 pedestrian-vehicle near misses. That translates to approximately 4.4 incidents per crossing per day, or one incident for every 84 pedestrian crossings observed.
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The research identifies a substantial difference between crossings with traffic signals, stop signs, or roundabouts and those lacking comparable controls.
However, the 20-fold disparity is an observational finding. It does not establish that installing any particular traffic control would independently produce an equivalent reduction in incidents.
Beyond school hours
One of the study’s more unexpected findings concerns when the incidents occurred. According to CAA, the highest number of near misses recorded during any single hour occurred between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., rather than during the typical afternoon school dismissal period.
The finding raises questions about whether municipal safety assessments focused primarily on student arrival and dismissal adequately capture pedestrian exposure throughout the day.
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The study’s conclusions also have limitations. Participating municipalities selected the monitored locations, meaning the sample cannot establish a nationwide average for Canadian school crossings.
Municipal road safety
The research adds another dataset to CAA’s efforts to identify transportation risks before injuries occur.
In June 2025, CAA disclosed a separate seven-month intersection study conducted with Miovision that recorded more than 600,000 pedestrian and cyclist traffic conflicts across 20 Canadian intersections.
That investigation examined broader intersection conditions, rather than the specific school crossings assessed in the latest research.
CAA also operates a School Zone Safety Assessment Tool that allows volunteers to document unsafe driving and pedestrian behaviour near schools.
The latest findings provide another potential basis for municipal safety assessments, particularly where collision records alone may not reveal hazardous crossing conditions.
The immediate policy question is whether cities can identify high-risk crossings through observed near misses and infrastructure characteristics before serious injuries establish the need for intervention.
