Far too often, crossing signals at street intersections are being pre-set to default in favor of cars and other motor vehicles. In other words, the pedestrian or bicyclist must activate the crossing signal before it will allow them to cross at an intersection. This is totally bass ackwards! Even more confusing and unsafe is the fact that at some locations, one street has its signals pre-set to activate, while you must press a button to activate the crosswalk signalization going across the other street.

Since motor vehicles should yield to pedestrians, then crossing signals at intersections should always be active and not need to be pressed. Such a change would not apply to signalized mid-block crossings, which should be activated by those wishing to cross the street.

Taking the simple step of always having street intersection crosswalk signals activated has the following benefits:

Drivers would become accustomed to (or preconditioned to) waiting for/yielding to pedestrians and those cyclists not riding on the road to safely cross before proceeding to turn.

The would be no more second-guessing on the part of drivers, walkers, or cyclists.

All signals would be uniform and consistent from place-to-place, state-to-state, and country-to-country.

The added cost of installing push-buttons for signal activation would be eliminated at street intersections thus easing road budgets.

Am I missing anything here?