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Well, it just is the case that people will attempt to take the direct route no matter what obstacles you put in their place. Just look at the popularity of Parkour. Apart from these urban 'sports', it has long annoyed road-builders that they can put any kind of barriers in and some people will somehow get over them, and in many cases they will build shortcuts, cut through fences, and so on. You only have to look at every 'retail park' anywhere, and you'll see that people will have improved them for access on foot, which the planners usually just ignored.

I don't find what the guy in the video does shocking at all. He seems very calm and collected and judges his gaps well. That's not to say there isn't a risk in crossing motorways or quasi-motorways; most years, there are a couple of deaths, usually late at night, of people, normally young people, who try to cross a road like that somewhere and evidently underestimate the speed of drivers. The main culprits, though, are those who build crap roads like the one in the video.

John Adams often used a video taken at the E&C, between the two roundabouts (as were) that first showed drivers going through top to bottom and bottom to top, and then in a gap between the drivers showed people rushing across the street and climbing and vaulting over the railings in the centre. It was a pretty good comical effect but highlighted the problem that you just can't obstruct people like that and not invite that kind of behaviour.