A pedestrian crossing is where one meets a small slice of humanity briefly. Strangers all, shoulder to shoulder, waiting for a green light to wink its permission. Research indicates that pedestrian crossings have been around for 2,000 years. Pictures taken of the ruins of Pompeii show large stone blocks laid (raised) across the road, like stepping stones, with gaps between them for the horse-hauled carriages to pass.

It is doubtful whether any statistics exist of accidents that may have occurred at pedestrian crossings of that time. Though, that said, there surely must have been a fair few, especially when the Caesars swept into town on surprise/unannounced visits in a cavalcade of carriages. However, it is believed that the first pedestrian crossing signal didn’t come about until another 1,800 years had passed — in 1868, to be precise. The place — not Rome, but Bridge Street in Westminster, Middlesex.

The man who helped bring this about was a railway engineer named Knight. The signal consisted of a semaphore arm mechanically raised and lowered by a policeman. It was a grand idea although its tenure was brief because one day, or night rather, the gas used to light the signal leaked and caused an explosion.

The idea was abandoned for another half century and only picked up traction once more when readers to the newspapers began writing in, complaining about the incredibly high speeds of motor vehicles, coupled with the callous driving habits of their owners, in 1911! ‘High speeds’, of course, being a relative term. Relative, that is, to the speeds at which vehicles travel today. Some friends of mine, used to a leisurely stroll across marked pedestrian zones in Sydney, on their return from a trip overseas — to a country that must remain anonymous — told me that the pedestrian marked zones there were anything but safe. In fact, it was where the average pedestrian got in his sprinting exercise for the day. You stood on the side of the road, sucked in a big one and sprinted as fast as your legs could carry you to the other side before the next car whooshed by.

In Sydney, there are marked zones not governed by a traffic light, which motorists have to be mindful of. And, of course, the ones at traffic junctions controlled by a regular sequence of lights.

It is at one such junction that I am standing and covering my ears (discreetly). Why, one might well ask, cover the ears at a pedestrian crossing? It is to shield them from the woman standing not even next to me but a few shoulders away. Still, I can hear her. She is screaming. Not at a fellow-pedestrian, but into her hand which holds a phone. She is using every unprintable term in the four-letter-word directory. And she is fluent. Her complexion, which on a normal day must resemble porcelain, is now a purplish puce. She is in a strange place. That is, she is a part of us (pedestrians-waiting-for-a-light) and yet she is not. Her mind is definitely elsewhere. Some of the other pedestrians find time — a microsecond is all it takes — to roll their eyes. The woman’s open display of fierce anger is something everybody could do without. Not many of us want to be a part of someone else’s story — certainly not at a pedestrian crossing. Still, she raves on. For myself, in a strange way I don’t find myself angry or embarrassed at the woman. Her actions and over-reactions are not exactly welcome or normal. What really interests me is this: Who can it be on the other end of the line? What type of person does it take to make one human being react so boisterously, completely losing her sense of mental stability in public, and not caring a hoot about it? Is it a child?

No, I discover, just before the light turns green. It is a lover. And he isn’t exactly waiting with open arms for her return.

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.