This is, by and large, totally different in different countries... or localities.
In Finland, it could be 4am, with not a soul in sight, yet the little red man who says "Don't Walk" holds sway over the mortal men within it's range. He will reap revenge upon all those who dare to question His authority. In Turkey, for example, a red light is deemed to be merely advisory and not particularly reliable, or at least it's viewed as such. Bumper-to-bumper (fender-to-fender?) is also the preferred distance between cars.
Going around the different countries in Europe and living there, it's damned interesting to see the answers to these sorts of questions that people come up with in their everyday existence, en masse. From those judgements to take an idea of how process driven they are, whether they're biased toward societal concerns or fierce individuality... etc, etc.
Being pretty typically British, It depends on how active I'm feeling. If I want to pay particular attention and take risks in an environment that i'm very confident is consequence-free, then I might run the red light(not entirely Turkish), or cross when the little red man threatens to sexually abuse my children if i disobey. If I'm feeling a little less adventurous, or there are things I just can't judge, then I'd prefer to hide in the system, but not trust it entirely(not entirely Finnish).
I think, from what I saw of it, the Dutch have the blend pretty much right to my mind. Bloody Calvinists.
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"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--
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