…I’m guessing that you live somewhere where the very existence of a pedestrian is seen as an inconvenience? I don’t dare ask how you feel about bikes.
If the road is clear, I’ll cross without pushing the button. If it’s not very clear, I’ll push the button. You can speed back up to 60MPH in your car with no more effort than a tap of your foot. You can wait 30 damn seconds.
Where I live, it’s more akin to
“There is a pedestrian crossing the street. That means I can now make my turn.”
No, it doesn’t make sense to me either.
And ever since I got hit, I’ve made sure to press the button, wait for the signal, and watch for stupid drivers.
Regarding “door close” buttons on elevators, they may or may not work for you and I. They are for firefighters, when the elevator is operating in “fire mode”. The doors stay open until the “close” button is pressed (and held), then they stay closed until the “open” button is pressed (and held).
If anything I think placebo buttons are there to erode pedestrians’ sense of agency.
At an intersection in the UK (or in Glasgow at least) some buttons are placebo and some aren’t, on the same intersection.
If the light cycle would stop traffic on a lane anyway, then the button for that bit of lane is placebo. The button fails to trigger the green-man for the entire intersection.
This includes lanes that lead to traffic islands leaving pedestrians stranded. A pedestrian can easily end up missing their place in the traffic light cycle after having pressed a button that you would think would let them get to where they are going.
Personally this injustice enrages me every day!
I never miss the oportiunity to press a button help any potential pedestrian get to where they are going, a place just as important as any driver’s.
Loathsome hostile design.
Although, i think the thread is mostly off-topic as I think the point was the post hoc fallacy…but… Definitely not the case for LA. Recently during the LA auto-show I was downtown and they had traffic control people in the intersection to help with flow. A group gathered at the light waiting for it to change and assumed either someone likely had hit the button already or that the traffic person would wave everyone through. Instead, the pedestrian light never cycled, the cars got to go again and the traffic guard yelled at the crowd, ‘No one hit the button!?!’.
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