this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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Fuck Cars

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[–] shininghero@pawb.social 13 points 4 hours ago (4 children)

I agree...
but not in the way the Twitter OP expects.

For the majority of intersections, if you don't press the button (or more often, don't press it in time), you don't get the walk light. Doesn't matter if the parallel car traffic has a green and all cross traffic is blocked, if you didn't press it beforehand, it stays on the red hand and skips your turn.

I say the buttons should not be there to "beg" for crossing permission. They should be used to say, "Hey I'm in a wheelchair or carrying a heavy can you give me 15 extra seconds?" And it should not need to be pressed beforehand.

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 1 points 45 minutes ago

I ignore crossing signals at intersections that don't turn the walk sign on by default

I've been honked at for it. nothing worse. hasn't actually happened in a while now, but my reaction would definitely be a lot more aggressive towards drivers if they did it to me now

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

the length of the pedestrian's signal may be adjusted longer as well, especially for crossing wide multi-lane and divided roadways.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

It may be, but it isn’t.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 hours ago (2 children)
[–] Ooops@feddit.org 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

In my corner or Europe there are indeed many of those buttons that don't work and are purely cosmetically. It gives people something to focus on in the minute or so they have to wait for their light to get green which it would also do anyway when no one was there.

And it's a somewhat standardized way of putting a vibrating indicator for people with impaired sight at the pole, whether it doubles to actually request a green light or just fakes it doesn't matter.

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (3 children)

Europe's a big place. I don't have anything resembling that here in Romania. You mean like in the Netherlands?

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

France too, in cities the buttons is mostly just switching on a speaker to announce when it's green for pedestrians for the visually impaired or if you like "ding ding" sounds

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 1 points 32 minutes ago

Love ding ding sounds. I'd hit em all even if I wasn't crossing just for the ding dings. My local transit agency is probably onto this fact, because instead of ding dings ours make a sound similar to when you flick a spring-loaded doorstop, but bassier.

[–] wezzzy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 hours ago

Everyone knows that europe is js the nederlands

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 3 hours ago

Honestly fuck the button entirely, we live in the modern era, you can use human detection technology to detect people waiting to cross

There's plenty of places that have that