Can we trust our eyes? Interpreting the misperception of road safety from street view images and deep learning

Road safety is a critical concern that impacts both human lives and urban development, drawing significant attention from city managers and researchers. The perception of road safety has gained increasing research interest due to its close connection with the behavior of road users. However, safety isn't always as it appears, and there is a scarcity of studies examining the association and mismatch between road traffic safety and road safety perceptions at the city scale, primarily due to the time-consuming nature of data acquisition. In this study, we applied an advanced deep learning model and street view images to predict and map human perception scores of road safety in Manhattan. We then explored the association and mismatch between these perception scores and traffic crash rates, while also interpreting the influence of the built environment on this disparity. The results showed that there was heterogeneity in the distribution of road safety perception scores. Furthermore, the study found a positive correlation between perception scores and crash rates, indicating that higher perception scores were associated with higher crash rates. In this study, we also concluded four perception patterns: “Safer than it looks”, “Safe as it looks”, “More dangerous than it looks”, and “Dangerous as it looks”. Wall view index, tree view index, building view index, distance to the nearest traffic signals, and street width were found to significantly influence these perception patterns. Notably, our findings underscored the crucial role of traffic lights in the “More dangerous than it looks” pattern. While traffic lights may enhance people's perception of safety, areas in close proximity to traffic lights were identified as potentially accident-prone regions.