"The Walk Light" (Art by Sylvia Odhner)

I press the button even if I don't intend to cross just to force it to cycle. Fuck em

This depicts very precisely how I feel crossing roads in the US and Canada.

Compare and contrast with what happened in my town in SW France:

• Council installed one of those super secure crossings that take forever to let people cross the street. Twice if you want to cross diagonally
• Some old people don't give a shit because they must be thinking that life is too short for this, and they yolo it
• Most drivers stop but some are unattentive
• A couple of accidents happen
• The old people lobby give some shit to the mayor
• A different crossing is installed that stops the drivers all the time
• Most drivers are OK, the shitty ones are angry
• Everybody nice profits, another victory for the old gits who cross when and where they want. They'll do it again

This looks like exclusive phasing and it's despicable when it's at every damn intersection.

I like exclusive phasing when there's a high volume of pedestrians crossing in all directions. However it's horrible on stroads because it's done under the pretense of pedestrian security while being mainly to maintain a heavy flow of cars in as much directions as possible. And it makes waiting longer.

It's one of my pet peeve when I visit Quebec city. All of their fucking pedestrian crossings are exclusive phasing, and I loathe it. It's nice and useful in the the old town, but it becomes so annoying as soon as you walk outside of the walls.

This is one of the reasons I prefer roundabouts over signalized four-way crossings. No waiting, just walk - the cars are forced to slow down to navigate the roundabout, so the chances of them actually stopping when legally required is higher.