Traffic Signals

I walked up to a traffic light the other day, I looked in all directions and found the streets to be clear except for the people waiting to cross.  This was a pretty narrow street and since it was all clear I crossed the street.  I continued down the road for a bit and turned back to see the people still waiting there... waiting for the light.  At some point some of us stop thinking about what they're doing and just wait for the traffic signals.  I think that the people could possibly have a few things:
a) long lives,
b) boring lives,
c) missed opportunities.
Ignoring the possibility that they're having an off day, I feel like sitting there during an obvious jay-walk free card is a symptom of something greater.  I'm extrapolating for the sake of interesting posts here.  They come up the traffic light, see it says stop, or see it's flashing (maybe with a counter with the number 3 still on it), basically they can cross but they say to themselves, there's always another light change just ahead.  This is, of course, absolutely the case, but maybe getting into the habit of catching those jay-walk opportunities is good practice for when greater opportunities come and you're tempted to say to yourself, "there's probably another, safer opportunity just ahead" so you don't properly assess the "safe" qualities of the current opportunity, you're waiting for a "sign"