The button won't press it's self

[1DAD2KIDS]

It seems to be happening more often resently. I will be waking up from a distance to a traffic light crossing and there will be people standing there. I eventually get there thinking the lights must be changing soon as the people standing there have been there for ages. Then I realise nobody has pressed the button. I press the button. Moments later green man and everyone crosses. AIBU to question why so many people won't press the button?

Errr. I meant to bold that, not turn it into a link.

Some crossings change to the green man when the people on the other side press it first, have to wait for you to press the other side, to be able to cross asap.

Some of them are genuinely placebo buttons. I love it when I get a dirty look for not pressing a button I know to be a placebo.

Not sure what's with the small crowds of immigrants standing by and not pressing the button. We have them too and I also perform a dramatic button press to help.

I've noticed this but with lifts recently.
I got in one the other day with my 1 year old, squeezed right up to let another woman in, who stood next to the button. She looked at me expectedly and then said 'floor 1, please'!! So I stretched right over the pushchair to press it even though she was stood right next to it 😂

It’s the spinning cone on the bottom of the button box that gets me. People actually believe if you twiddle it, it makes theights change quicker! No! It’s so blind people know they have the right of way. Twiddling it won’t make the lights change!!

Not quite the same scenario,but what about people at bus stops who won't stick their hand out to indicate that they want a certain bus? Not so much an issue if there is only the one bus that serves that stop,but around where I live there are bus stops that have something like 7 different buses serving them. The times I've witnessed people looking aghast as the bus sails past them because they couldn't be bothered to stick their hand out,and expected the bus driver to be telepathic!

The one we use daily on the school run turns itself off sometimes.
I don't understand why, but you can press the button so it lights up, wait a minute and there light goes off but the traffic lights don't change.
So if you haven't noticed it turn off then you look a numpty standing there waiting.

neddle
That sometimes happens with Puffin crossings if it can't 'see' you waiting. They are designed to detect people walking away without waiting for the green man and cancel the request. There's a crossing just outside Durham that used to do this to me all the time.

oh that is annoying when people dont press the button. i remember my dh telling me off for pressing the button, and stopping the cars i did point out to him that in fact we were pedestrians! silly fool

How do you presume somebody has pressed the button? Don’t you look to see if they have?

The one we use daily on the school run turns itself off sometimes.
The main improvement of puffin crossings over pelican crossings is that there are sensors. If it doesn't detect anyone, then it cancels the request to cross. If it does, it makes sure that traffic stops until everyone has crossed over.

I had thought about sensors, but we're stood right next to the button (so dd3 can press it a million times or hold the spiny thing underneath) or in the middle of the tactile paving.
It's recently been changed to a Toucan crossing as well - do they have sensors?

Happens frequently. I enjoy though throwing the look out of ‘you are all stupid and needed me to push the button, bow down before my greateness’......... I don’t think many others see the look the way I imagine it. In Edinburgh there can be 30+ people and no one has pushed it. How can you not? I’m with you. Don’t get it. There’s a button, press it. Simples.

Can one of you just ask the next crowd of goons you come across why? (Not me 'cos I'm too scared of the futile expectant crowd).

I opened this thread expecting it to be about Donald Trump and Kim Jong-in.