Confusion on the Zebra Crossing

In Singapore, neither the driver nor the pedestrians seem to know what to do at the zebra crossing. There seem to be a disagreement between motorists and pedestrians. There are several types of pedestrian.

The first type is young people between JC/Poly age. They are usually confident of their right of way. They are so confident that sometimes they don't bother to stop, look and listen, and just make an abrupt turn to cross and often never look up from their hand phone. For these, drivers really must be on the look out. Cars would stop, sometime at the nick of time with the driver cursing the pedestrian

The second type usually is an elderly, an obese person, a primary school child, or anybody who can't walk very fast. They usually will stand at the mouth of the zebra crossing, and waited for the car to stop from both direction, or waited until they don't see any car from both direction. These people do not have confidence that the cars will stop for them.

It is for these pedestrian that drivers often do not stop and here is why. Let say you are a driver, and from far away you saw a pedestrian at the mouth of a crossing. In the driver's opinion, the pedestrian could have made a save crossing even before the car reached the crossing. But this pedestrian is the type who only cross when cars from both direction already stopped or no cars can be seen. The driver in turn thought that maybe he/she did not intent to cross at all, so the driver did not stop the car. The pedestrian then thought, "Feuh ... good thing I did not risk my neck, see this driver did not stop."

Where my children are concern, I told them to never assume that cars will stop. But I also to instruct them to give a clear signal that they need to cross by raising one hand and look at the driver in the eye.