Chimpanzees look both ways before crossing the street, researchers find

Human pedestrians could learn a thing or two about road safety from chimpanzees in Uganda, a new study suggests.

Almost all chimpanzees crossing the street in Kibale National Park look both ways before stepping onto the roadway and while they're crossing, French and Ugandan researchers report.

When crossing in a group, many chimps watchedand waited for other members of their party before continuing over to the other side, reported the study led by Marie Cibot of the Musum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris,

Some of those precautionscan be seen in video footage of the chimpsshot by the researchers and posted online by New Scientist.

Cibot and her colleagues observed 122 chimpanzees over 29 months crossing a road in a part of the park where about 89 vehicles zoom by each hour. They observed a number of street-smart practices among the chimps:

• More than 90 per cent looked both left and right before and during crossing.
• Individuals crossed more quickly when travelling in a larger group.
• More than 20 per cent checked on other members of their group or waited for them while crossing.
• Those that might have more trouble crossing, such as mothers with babies and injured chimps, tended to avoid crossing the street.
• Those that crossed the road most often healthy males led groups across the road more often than they led groups in other situations.

Despite the chimpanzees' skill at crossing, the researchers suggested that the road still has impacts. At the study site, members of six other primate species were run over in one year. The road could also have an impact onhow chimpanzees spread out and use different territories, the researchers said.

The study was published online in the American Journal of Primatology earlier this month.