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Crosswalk Psychology

Cognitive Daily is running (until today) an interesting poll that shows a variety of situations with pedestrians in or near the crosswalks, and asks the user in which conditions they would be likely to stop. This picks up on a theme of a number of previous applied psychology experiments, which I described in the book, that reveal how we tend to comply with traffic laws rather situationally — rather than obeying them whole-cloth, in any condition (researchers have, for example, tested people who appeared to be blind, with a white cane, versus others, and found higher yielding rates; similar studies have been done with eye-contact, gender, among other variables).

Give it a try.

[p.s.: If that street is really marked for 45 mph, that's really high for a residential area with pedestrians].

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 8:44 am and is filed under Drivers, Pedestrians, Traffic Psychology, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Crosswalk Psychology”

  1. Dave Munger Says:
    December 4th, 2008 at 9:38 pm

    It’s actually 35 there (the study tests some participants at 25 mph and some at 45). But most people are going at least 40. And NO ONE stopped while we were taking the photos!

    Come back tomorrow for the results!

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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

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