There is a column for common sense.
Let's say there's slow moving traffic passing a crossing.
Now we do have some uncivilised drivers who will block it, not considering people/cyclists crossing. The vehicles do have right of way, but they're not going anywhere, so of course some will stop completely to give that gap. But we're talking bumper-to-bumper level. You know when that concept kicks in.
I'm trying not to be ignorant to how things are done elsewhere. But having such a varied array of systems wouldn't work here.
See, only 2/3 of people in England are English. Kids, anyway. I know that from schooling stats. We have so many foreigners here that everything has to be black and white. Otherwise it's like Africa, Poland, India and Iran all on one street. And assure you, someone's getting run over.
So this new town, which has so many answers to old town problems, and is an amazing place for cyclists, pedestrians and motorists, does have a rather simple uniform system in place.
We don't cycle on the roads. We're not London. We don't fill the Advocacy of Safety forum with dead cyclists because it just doesn't happen here. We don't have traffic jams. We can wait for a car before crossing because there's a gap behind it. Because we have no skyscrapers. Were not over-built. Traffic isn't gridlocked. We have parkland and wide open space all over town. All heavy traffic is on a separate bypass grid which we negotiate only via underpasses and bridges.
We don't have your problems, we don't use your flawed solutions to those problems. Ironically, the world can learn from us. I say ironically, because the town was built with America's grid town concept in mind. Plus the fact that America are not very switched-on to the rest of the world, are widely considered to consider themselves above us, and take little influence from the 95.7 percent of humans who, you should know, live outside the United States.
Me, I'm interested in how you do things there. But the idea of having a vast array of technicalities regarding the crossing of roads isn't doing it for me.