Crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing when you get 7 seconds every 70 seconds (I've just timed it) to cross the road is bad enough – we know pedestrians are second-class citizens who are supposed to tug their forelocks every time a car goes past.
But when you want to cross diagonally at a cross-roads, you are supposed to wait twice for the little green man to flash you. So a car driver on a major road has a not unreasonable chance of not having to stop at all whereas a pedestrian almost certainly has to stop and wait twice; and even if they are really lucky, they will definitely have to stop once.
Why?
Why can't the green light for pedestrians be long enough to allow us to cross diagonally? It's hardly an unreasonable request – unreasonable would be to ask for the little green man to be on for as long as the traffic light for cars was green.