You're definitely correct that yield signs make it harder to be a pedestrian–most American cities are awful for pedestrians to begin with, outside of a small co

You're definitely correct that yield signs make it harder to be a pedestrian–most American cities are awful for pedestrians to begin with, outside of a small core downtown area. Even intersections with proper crosswalks and lights are often massively wide with no middle refuge, have traffic crossing the crosswalk from multiple directions/lanes and poor sight lines, require multiple long waits at lights to cross all the various lanes etc. There seems to be a growing use of traffic circles (with yield signs) in the US, which are very much like playing real life Frogger as a pedestrian: cars coming quickly around the circle, often not 100% comfortable with how it works, watching for cars around them instead of paying attention to people crossing at the exits. In a busy intersection you sort of have to step out and try to get someone to stop for you or dash across a gap in traffic–a firm stop required for cars makes for a much more pleasant crossing.