In other words, the more people respect "zebra crossings", the less drivers have to worry about driving 15 bloody mph in some residential area cause the folks there see no problem in just jumping across the street.
What the German example shows us is that: if we all abide by the rules -- with no exceptions -- we can all have nice things.
(like driving your Porsche @150mph on the freeway cause we are actually adults)
Some might call that an environment for progress and innovation :)
regardless, it's an example that I saw and thought represented the general mindset, and reflected what I saw and heard from Germans themselves about the state of the startup ecosystem.
Of course jaywalking does happen (at least here in Frankfurt, and I'd guess it's the same for Berlin), but it's discouraged (Think of the Children[tm] [1]), and personally I see no harm in waiting the additional minute if I'm not in a hurry.
[1] http://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/Stadtverwaltung/Kreisverwaltu...
I know Germany has very strict driving laws. I think you can't use your horn for no good reason, can't give other drivers the finger, etc, or you'll be fined. And I think fines are proportional to the value of the car.
I am not sure how much of this strict and high fine system extends to walking on the street rather than driving. But I suspect this type of system instills respect for the law.
And Germans are rumored to be among the best drivers in Europe.
In contrast Belgians, and most Southern Europeans are rumored to be bad drivers. Usually this is then blamed on culture. However, I think it's simply laws and regulations.
The country I am from does not set fines based on the value of the car, does not fine "trivial" things like honking without reason, and actually the system to collect ticket fines is so broken that most of the time you don't have to bother. Shockingly we are known as bad drivers.
And crossing a street when there's no light and no zebra crossing is not jaywalking - that's just crossing the street, and it's the legal way to do it as typically there is no light or a crossing around. And of course many people jaywalk all the time. I don't even but the think of the children argument -- if a kid is responsible enough to walk around in public traffic, they ought to be responsible enough to judge whether crossing a red light is safe, otherwise how would they deal with cases where there is no light? But I might be kidding myself there, and I usually don't jaywalk when there's kids around out of politeness if nothing else.
For the typical pedestrian commute through Berlin you don't even have to cross a significant number of lights, if any at all, when traveling by means of U&S-Bahn and know which side of the station you have to exit on.