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The only situation where Germans would generally scold someone for crossing at a red light is when a small child is present. There is a widespread norm not to c
by phreeza 4y ago
The only situation where Germans would generally scold someone for crossing at a red light is when a small child is present. There is a widespread norm not to cross in that case, because children are considered less capable of making the judgement call and should rely on the lights, so it's bad to act as an example to the contrary. This makes sense to me. In other situations, it is considered mostly acceptable in my experience.
- boc 4y agoWhat you said would make sense, but normally it was just me and a bunch of adults. I’d be the only person crossing while they stared at me. This was a few years back so maybe things have changed recently?
- guizzy 4y agoNot 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.
- danuker 4y agoI 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.