title: Different risk thresholds in pedestrian road crossing behaviour: a comparison of French and Japanese approaches.
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 (Tdec). During Tdec, a pedestrian estimates whether he can (Tsafe) or cannot (Trisk) 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.
authors.affiliation: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Département Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie, Strasbourg, France. cedric.sueur@iphc.cnrs.fr
authors.forename: Cédric
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sueur
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Class
authors.forename: Charlène
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hamm
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pelé
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D003469:Culture; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012737:Sex Factors; D016138:Walking / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Decision; Diffusion model; Human; Information; Risk; Traffic