Highlights Pedestrians have to make trade-off between road-crossing time and risk of injuries. We studied how culture influences perception of risks when crossing a street. We observed pedestrian behaviour in Japan and France when crossing the street. French pedestrians took more risks than Japanese pedestrians. Males took more risks than females, but only in Japan.

    Abstract When crossing the road, pedestrians have to make a trade-off between saving time and avoiding any risk of injuries. Here, we studied how culture influences an individual's perception of risks when crossing a street, using survival analysis. This study is the first to use this analysis to assess cognitive mechanisms and optimality of decisions underlying road crossing behaviour. We observed pedestrian behaviour in two city centres: Inuyama (Japan) and Strasbourg (France). In each city, observations were made at a safe site consisting of a crosswalk and a street light and at an unsafe site (i.e. no crosswalk or street light). At the unsafe site, we measured the time needed by a pedestrian to take a decision (T dec). During T dec, a pedestrian estimates whether he can (T safe) or cannot (T risk) cross the road. Using survival analysis, we studied the distributions of these three time variables and showed that French pedestrians took more risks than Japanese pedestrians, and that males took more risks than females, but only in Japan. More studies would considerably broaden our understanding on how culture may affect decision-making processes under risky circumstances.


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    Title :

    Different risk thresholds in pedestrian road crossing behaviour: A comparison of French and Japanese approaches


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2013-04-18


    Size :

    5 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English






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