Thanks Parikshit for your response. I just checked and the rule states that the vehicle must give priority to the pedestrian at the *pedestrian crossings* like zebra crossing. So, what you have said is correct. The point of my blog is Japanese people obey this rule even when there is no signal at the road intersections. (Although I am sure not everyone all the times obey this.)

Pedestrians ought to cross the road at pedestrians crossing (e.g. intersection of roads, or zebra crossings near signals) at first place which will make the vehicle drivers more inclined to give priority to pedestrians. Having better designed crossings in India, will therefore, definitely be helpful. But let me tell you it is pretty scary even for me as an Indian to cross a road in India even when it is a pedestrian crossing. Either I need to wait from few seconds to several minutes for traffic to reduce so that I can cross the road or run for my life and cross the road and things like that. This is just because I don’t trust the vehicle drivers to be kind enough to stop for me when I am crossing the road.

About the efficiency part, I agree if it were a straight road and the signal were green for the vehicle, but in other cases this point doesn’t hold much weight.