It is also a common phenomenon in Hungary that drivers ignore the fact that they should (should) stop at the zebra crossing – as the police stated a few months ago, “pedestrians are sometimes forced to fight almost for their lives”.


However, there is no question of a Hungarian peculiarity, ignoring pedestrian crossings seems to be a fundamental problem in other parts of the world as well. In order for this to happen as rarely as possible in the future, a very creative solution has been devised in the United States: the San Francisco police officers are trying to use figures dressed in Halloween costumes to make motorists be more careful, indicating that, according to California law, pedestrians have the right of way on zebra crossings – for this Jalopnik noticed.

The SF Gate according to his report, the costumes serve the purpose of allowing drivers to notice when someone (legally) wants to cross the road. The experience so far shows that the method works, because drivers whose eyes are not even caught by a jumping police officer in a rainbow chicken costume enough to stop.

Within an hour, approximately 30-40 drivers were cited for their failure to comply, for which they can be fined up to $400. According to the current exchange rate, this amount corresponds to approximately HUF 140,000 – for the sake of comparison, it is worth noting that the domestic “tariff” even with the tightening that came into effect in mid-August, it can be said to be mild: fines ranging from HUF 39,600 to HUF 78,000 can await those who do not stop.