When you go to Poland they have zebra crossings all over the place, they favor them over pedestrian traffic lights. The entire country disagrees with you. But

When you go to Poland they have zebra crossings all over the place, they favor them over pedestrian traffic lights. The entire country disagrees with you. But I agree that you have to exert some care and judgement when using a zebra crossing. You must look and be prepared for the (in my experience, in Germany) occasional driver who speeds instead of stopping. I cannot entirely share your warm affections for traffic lights, for that I've had too many perilous events where entitled reckless drivers think they can drive like assholes with impunity. At least where I live pedestrians at intersections share their green phase with the cars in the same direction and the cars turning right and left, meaning you potentially have a green light but a steady stream of cars coming from left behind you (they mostly are slow having stopped anyway, but the do crawl up from behind) and left front of you (those in some intersection tend to come with a certain speed they picked up when crossing). At least in areas where people live pedestrians must always have, in principle, right of way. As my driving teacher told me, you as a driver have to look both ways and prepared; yes, a pedestrian is not allowed to cross here, but then you as a driver are not allow to run over the guy either.