I completely agree about the countdown. I first saw such pedestrian countdowns in the US. The helpful thing is the double countdown - countdown on the green man and countdown on the red man. The current generation of countdowns that can be seen springing up across London are not good enough as they don't give waiting times, only crossing times.

I believe double countdowns would encourage safer behaviour by pedestrians and reduce unnecessary injuries. As others have said, there is something psychologically helpful about seeing your goal getting closer rather than automatically thinking after 45 secs "Will these lights ever change, perhaps they aren't working, what if they never change...". We are now so used to downloads progressing with a visible indication. We need to learn from User Interaction from software and websites, and provide a visual cue for people waiting more than 20 seconds.

I did a little research and found this:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/m...ssing_wait

Does anybody have time to time this crossing? From start of the red man to start of the green man. Are we being made to wait excessive times on this crossing?