Illusion of safety? Safety-related perceptions of pedestrians and car drivers around 3D crosswalks.

• 3D crosswalks use optical illusions to provoke the perception of a three-dimensional crosswalk from a car driver perspective. • While several 3D crosswalks have been painted worldwide, their impact on perceived road safety has not been investigated. • We investigated perceived safety of car drivers and pedestrians around a 3D crosswalk in Myanmar in a questionnaire survey. • Surveyed road users compare the 3D crosswalk favorably to traditional crosswalks. • Many road users talk to friends and family about the crosswalk, underlining its potential as a road safety marketing tool. Facilitating safe pedestrian road crossings is a major prerequisite for safe urban environments. In multiple cities around the world, 3D crosswalks have been painted, which provoke an optical illusion, of e.g., a crosswalk floating above the road, in car drivers who approach the crosswalk. However, to date, no detailed study of road users' safety related perceptions on 3D crosswalks has been conducted. Hence, we investigated car drivers' and pedestrians' perceptions of a 3D crosswalk, and how they rate its safety in comparison to traditional (non-3D illusion) crosswalks. In an on-site questionnaire survey, we interviewed 201 pedestrians and 102 car drivers in the direct vicinity of a newly painted 3D crosswalk located in Yangon, Myanmar. Our results show that only 53.9 % of the car drivers report to have consciously perceived the 3D effect of the crosswalk. Nonetheless, both, pedestrians and car drivers rate the 3D crosswalk as safer for road crossing than a traditional crosswalk. A high share of pedestrians (43.3 %) report taking a detour to use the 3D crosswalk for road crossing. Approximately one third (31.3 %) of pedestrians and 48.0 % of car drivers interviewed have talked to their friends about the 3D crosswalk, indicating a high potential for using 3D crosswalks as a marketing tool for road safety actors to generate attention for pedestrian safety. Unrelated to our main research question, we found that pedestrians prefer to cross in groups, as it increases the perceived likelihood of cars yielding to them. Overall, the data points to significant increases in the perceived safety of drivers as well pedestrians around the 3D crosswalk. Future studies need to investigate how these perceptions translate to actual safety related behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]