[walexander]

A crosswalk that is parallel to you (i.e., pedestrians traveling in the same direction across the intersection as the drivers) will have a "walk" signal that is synched with the traffic light. In this case, a green light would be analogous to "walk" and a yellow light would be analogous to "3..2..1..".

It is likely that once the cross walk reaches zero, a yellow light will appear on the traffic signal. Anyone reading the walk signal in front of them will have an early warning about the traffic light and may try to speed up to get through.

If you're a block away from the light and you see a "4", what do you do?

[jonemo]

The essential piece of information missing from the article, because it's common in the US, is that pedestrians usually get green at the same time as traffic in parallel with them. In Europe it's a more common pattern that all pedestrians walk at an interval when all traffic is stopped and this cheat would indeed not work there.

[mnw21cam]

The difference between US and UK crossings is that in the US, pedestrians and vehicles are directed to use the same bit of road at the same time. Cars turning right or left on a green light have to look to see if there are any pedestrians crossing, and give priority to them. Then the US also has that weird rule that allows you to drive straight through a red light, as long as you are turning right, which has visitors staring in disbelief.

In the UK/Europe, green means go and red means stop, without the above exceptions. In order to make this work, pedestrian crossings are often segmented, with individual signals for each section. There are a few junctions where all traffic is stopped for pedestrians, but that is pretty rare. Most junctions just allow pedestrians to cross on sections where traffic is not travelling.

UK/Europe also has a lot fewer crossroads than US. Since the cities are older, and do not as often have a grid structure, there are a lot more three-way junctions than crossroads, which actually makes crossing the road easier.

[morsch]

Not once have I seen this anywhere in Europe. I'm sure you're talking from experience and it's a thing, but it seems to vary from place to place. It sounds a bit inefficient.