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by guizzy 1292 days ago
Not German, but I've stopped and I increasingly get angry when people cross at red lights on busy (from the pedestrian side) streets that don't have lots of car traffic. This is because I see it almost daily: someone looks, makes the determination that there's no car close and it's safe for them to cross. Then, 3 distracted people DON'T look and just see the person who started to cross, and start crossing themselves thinking it must be green or safe. And then a chain of people jaywalking WITHOUT looking starts and at some point a car approaches and it's no longer safe to cross.

So I've stopped jaywalking when somewhere where others could distractedly follow me, and I give angry glances at people who do. Sure, it's not my responsability to make sure others aren't distracted, but since I am aware of how people really are and I can avoid causing issues by just following the established signals, knowing I'm not responsible is not going to make me feel much better if someone gets run over following me.

1 comments

I get angry whenever I leave the house, because the infrastructure in my city is clearly designed for cars at the expense of the local pedestrians.