I tried my experiment again today. I don't know about overseas but in the UK at crossings we have a green man and a red man - you walk at the green man. Now, I had believed it was commonly known that the green man doesn't appear unless you press the little button at the crossing which activates the 'wait' sign - which then triggers the crossing to change to green. Apparently this is not common knowledge (not in Edinburgh at least). Today I tried my experiment (I had a little time to spare :-)) when I arrived at the crossing, it was at red with about 20 people standing waiting to cross - but no-one had pressed the little button...so I waited...another 20 or so people joined over the next 6 minutes or so...still no-one pressed the button...I waited...a total of 10 minutes had passed and about 50 people were waiting to cross...I pushed the button, 15 seconds later, the green man appeared. Now I have never claimed to be some godlike genius but really, come on how dumb do you have to be not to realise that not pressing the button leads to the crossing not activating? (note this excludes IR sensor based crossings - of which there are a very few)