> I don't push it during the day, but of course most people still do :-) I always push the button at pedestrian crossings, even though I'm aware it often does

> I don't push it during the day, but of course most people still do :-) I always push the button at pedestrian crossings, even though I'm aware it often does nothing. Is that because it "creates a sense of togetherness with strangers which might otherwise be absent"? Is it because "doing something is better than doing nothing"? Is it because my "attention is on the activity at hand"? No, it's because at some crossings, at some times, it has an effect; and life's too short to construct a mental record of the reverse-engineered temporal programming of traffic lights.