Shared Space & Risk Compensation

Shared space is an urban design approach which seeks to minimize demarcations between vehicle traffic and pedestrians, often by removing features such as curbs, road surface markings, traffic signs, and regulations. Schemes are often motivated by a desire to reduce the dominance of vehicles, vehicle speeds, and road casualty rates by creating a greater sense of uncertainty and making it unclear who had right of way, drivers reduce their speed, and everyone reduces their level of risk compensation.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space

Risk compensation is a theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to the perceived level of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_homeostasis