Afraid to walk through town

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That's what you are supposed to do from the start. There is the "pedestrian right-of-way" but there is also the "rule of cautious approach" (it's actually in Polish road law, "zasada ograniczonego zaufana", not sure about other countries).
The rule saying you should expect other road users to act according to the law but be prepared to react in case they don't. Because people are able to intentionally break the law, get sick, get distracted, be stupid etc. and you, the person going according to the law might be their victim if that happens.

It's a good habit to look if the cars are really slowing down/stopping before getting on a road, even when you have green.
I always do.


You are missing 2 steps:
1. Look one way. (the one nearest traffic comes from, left or right depending on country)
2. Look the other way.
3. Look the first way again.
- Safe? Go.
4. As you are approaching the middle of the street look the other way again.

Thanks to that you have enough reaction time in case a car suddenly shows up. If that happens you can either stop on the sidewalk at point 3(and return to point 1 after the car passes) or in the middle of the street at point 4 (the cars on your way one can pass behind you and you can focus all your attention at the car on the way in front of you).

They were teaching us the method back in preschool.

It's much harder to cross the street in the UK than it is in the US (with the exception of boulevards/avenues which are near shopping malls.

Most roads seem like they are "curves" in the urbanized parts of the UK

One thing that I like to do on occasion is to watch videos on youtube of stupid drivers. One not uncommon event is for a pedestrian to be hit or nearly hit when crossing the street.

In a number of cases, the pedestrian is in a crosswalk and assumes that oncoming traffic is going to stop. Often, there is already a stopped car and a stupid driver ignores the fact that there is a stopped car as he goes blasting around it and either hits or narrowly misses the pedestrian.

While that is clearly the fault of the stupid driver, a careful pedestrian should really look before stepping out in a part of the street where there is no stopped car to see if some idiot is approaching at high speed.