Smells like teenage two-stroke

Coming back from the flat this evening, all covered with paint and plaster, I stopped at the zebra crossing at the top of Boulevard Albert 1er. Waiting for the green man (a bit like waiting for Godot in this car-besotted land) has become a moment of reflection after hearing that a little old lady was run over by a bus on this very spot last week. The manifest unfairness of the lights sequence tempts all pedestrians to jump the lights - but as we now know, this can be dangerous.

Clearly the accident was in other people's minds, too. Several families shouted at their youngsters not to cross the road with the red man: I suspect this new order countermanded previous, universal practice amongst families, because the kids were vociferous in their labelling of parents and carers as stupid gits. This being France, though, the kids were brought to heel pretty smartish. Several ended up whimpering (expertly applied 'taloches', perhaps?).

On the rue Aristide Briand, however, the hierarchy was brutally reversed. Teenagers were on their way back home to the estates, two up on scooters. There must have been about a dozen scooters, revving away like a crowd of diminutive James Deans. Our red man was now their green light, and off they went with a sound like amplified chainsaws (there are illegal kits here, much in demand, to make the puny engines of scooters sound like Kawasakis). In a sequence worthy of a ballet, as if by some higher command, they rose at one to a wheelie and dodged cars into the distance...

Are the two situations connected?