International farce

In Belgium last week, a driver honked at me as I crossed on a zebra. Why? Because junctions there, in France too, often have traffic lights and zebras, delivering absurdly contradictory messages. I was already virtually across, having seen him stop 20m for an earlier (stupidly-sited) zebra, but he couldn’t resist honking to tell me I was in the wrong. I cursed him, but of course he was merely venting his frustration at a vexatious system.