Effects of pedestrian prompts on motorist yielding at crosswalks.

Researchers watched one crosswalk on a busy two-lane road. They counted how many drivers stopped when a pedestrian stepped into the stripes.

Next, they taught the pedestrian to raise a hand or extend an arm toward traffic. They filmed 30 more crossings and counted stops again.

The raised-hand cue made yielding jump from a large share to a large share. The extended-arm cue pushed it to a large share.

Both prompts worked right away and kept working across days. No extra training or gadgets were needed.

Lowe et al. (1974) also used a simple hand cue, but for greeting staff inside a facility. Their wave generalized to 20 new adults without extra teaching. Ferreri et al. (2011) shows the same brief topography works on strangers outside—drivers instead of staff.

Aznar et al. (2005) found that repeating a prompt three times beats giving it once. The crosswalk study did not test repetitions, so you might try raising the hand twice for drivers who keep rolling.

Chang et al. (2016) and Fine et al. (2005) used reinforcement to increase walking steps. Ferreri et al. (2011) skips reinforcement and lets the natural consequence—safe crossing—do the work. Together they show you can either prompt the walker or reinforce the walking; both raise street safety.

If you teach street-crossing skills, build in the raised-hand prompt. One five-second demonstration can triple driver stops. Practice it during community outings, then fade yourself out. The cue is free, portable, and works for any age or diagnosis.