Abstract
Presently, we do not have a proper standard for evaluating a gait velocity. In the past, those based on unreliable data have been used such as ; the standard gait velocity is 15 sec. per 10 m for a physically handicapped person and 10 sec. per 10 m for healthy persons ; or in other words, that for a handicapped person is slightly longer than that for healthy persons.
Is this speed sufficient for a normal social life? There is no time limit for moving indoors, but on the street, particularly at a crosswalk, certain speed is required to cross it safely.
Therefore, in order to calculate the necessary speed for crossing crosswalks safely, we investigated the length of 130 crosswalks, the time duration of their green lights and of their blinking green lights.
According to the results, the length of the crosswalks ranged from 6.4〜38.5 m (average 16.1±6.76 m). The time duration of the green lights was 10〜91 sec. (average 38.0±19.54 sec.) and the blinking green lights 0〜5 sec. (average 4.8±0.88 sec.).
By calculating the necessary time to cross a crosswalk, it is indicated that time durations of 1.31〜0.10 m/sec. for a green light and 1.06〜0.09 m/sec. for a green and blinking green light were needed.
These results suggest that necessary gait velocity for crossing crosswalks safely is at least 1 m/sec. This should be regarded as one standard for evaluating a gait velocity in our actual rehabilitation.
