Crossing the street: How pedestrians interact with cars

Abstract This paper analyzes crossing the street as a form of communication between pedestrians and drivers, who are participants characterized by different types of mobility, and distinct rights and obligations. Based on video recordings of couples having a stroll in an urban environment, the analyses focus on the mundane practices and the visual resources (gaze and gestures) through which pedestrians organize the sequential and temporal trajectories of crossing, and negotiate their right to cross the street. Moreover, since some of the pedestrians studied here are affected by psychosis—a condition in which urban environments are often experienced as stressful and difficult to manage—the paper points to practices that might not only differentiate pedestrians within neuro-typical populations but also within neuro-atypical populations.