That may well be it (though from the other things you’re saying about her, she may well not be typical of anything - but then, who is?). Certainly red/green pedestrian crossing signals are all over the place in Germany - and they generally obey them. You can always tell the Brits in Germany - they sail across the road if there’s no traffic, while the Germans wait for the signal to change.
There was quite a to-do in Berlin about proposals to change the East German “Ampelmann” (a jaunty figure of a striding man in a hat) to the West German equivalent.
And if it wasn’t for us, you’d all be speaking French.