For a surprising (to me) historical perspective, a video recently posted to YouTube [1] shows a remastered film taken from a car driving through midtown Manhattan in 1945. There seem to be no crosswalks or lane markings, and pedestrians cross wherever they like [2]. Market Street in San Francisco at around the same time looks similar [3]. I wonder what the pedestrian fatalities were like in those days.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br8u7u35weA