How Pedestrian

[escobert]

I don't puch the button since there's not enough traffic in my town to need to!

[blackmage_nuke]

Once is enough. There's also a light that indicates that it was pressed.

It's funny when there are 5 people waiting for the walk sign yet someone joining the waiting crowd will still come up and press the button. As if none of the original 5 waiting didn't think of that!

Sometimes one person will walk up to the button and not push it for whatever crazy reason (possibly he thinks it does nothing which is only true for some lights), then the second person will think the first guy already pushed so they wont push it, and so on and so forth until someone has the balls to step up and push it taking all the awkwardness the others couldnt handle. Note that there are no indicator lights to tell if the button has been pushed where I live.

[Mirage]

Sometimes I see a crowd of people gathered at the crossing and wonder if anyone has pushed the button.

Are you saying that you don't have light to indicate whether the button has been pressed? Where do you live, in the 70s?

[Raistlin]

I'll usually push it once, though I doubt that most of them actually do anything. They're just there so that pedestrians have something to do while waiting. Like the "close door" buttons on elevators.

Though I do remember a time in high school when some friends and I were out and about at 2:00 AM in a little New Hampshire town and a friend of mine started pushing one of those buttons repeatedly. All of a sudden this incredibly loud siren went off (like a disaster warning siren) across the whole area, which freaked us all out and we logically blamed him. So I don't push them a lot.

[Mirage]

They do something, actually. Well, some do. It's not like they can automagically change every light the moment you press them, but I believe most traffic lights have several patterns. One of the patterns might not queue up a green light for pedestrians at all, while a different pattern would give them that after X other lanes have had a green light. It's probably not a good idea for a traffic light to change from one pattern to another in the middle of the current, so sometimes you just have to wait for the current pattern to end.

After all, some crossings don't have buttons at all, while others do. If they didn't do anything, I would think that no crossings would have them.

Fun fact: With the right kind of transmitter, you can change almost any traffic lights anytime you want. Naturally, you don't want to be busted with one of those.

[Clo]

I thought only old people with walkers pushed that button.

I ninja myself into the street at the opportune moment. Like a boss.

[krissy]

you guys have lights? that tell you it's been pushed?


smurfing aristrocrats over here

[Tigmafuzz]

Buttons that tell you when it's okay to cross the street? What, are you smurfing blind? Take your face out of your phone and wait for the lights to turn red, you lazy bastards.

[fire_of_avalon]

Nobody tells me when to cross the street. Or where!

[DownDiagonalLeftA]

This is pretty much me pressing the button

[Pumpkin]

The light usually turns in my favor as soon as I press it. Then I get dirty looks from any cars pulling up. I still feel the need to press it about 4 times though. Also, late at night when one road usually gets more traffic than the other during the day there will be cars stuck waiting on the light to change even if there is no traffic so I press the button for them.

[NorthernChaosGod]

The only time I'm walking around on the streets is in downtown and they're all on timers.

[Jinx]

I usually just jaywalk if no cars are coming.

[Aulayna]

We usually jaywalk all the time in Europe because we don't really have any laws forboding it in most countries.

Except in Paris, roads are a deathtrap there.

[Slothy]

I don't push them ever since I can't think of an intersection in town that I've used where they are anything other than placebo buttons. I know for a fact that, at least during the standard work day, and probably when I'm drunk on a Saturday night, that the buttons downtown don't do anything since ever intersections lights are timed.