[flukus]

If the pedestrian was about to get green (or blue) but a car was detected and the pedestrian was forced to wait then that's not fair is it?

We already prioritize cars enough, pedestrians usually have to press a button to trigger the crossing so they're always waiting but cars don't get punished for getting to the lights a second after the sequence starts.

[ankka]

Excactly.

Close to where I live there are a couple of funny examples:

In one place the lights are red by default for everyone. Cars are detected from 100m or so away, so they barely need to slow down. Pedestrians need to press a button and usually wait for a while.

At another crossing the lights are green by default for the bigger road. A sideroad has car-detection that is ofter rather quick. Pedestrians and cyclists need to press a button and usually wait for a long time.

Just because you don't sit in a car it's ok to wait that much longer.

[jessriedel]

A random pedestrian is just as likely to be helped by a light change as hurt by it. You provide an excellent example of motivated zero-sum reasoning though!