I’M JUST back from a week in Vienna – a great city, but with rather more cake shops than is good for you.

One particular thing I noticed when I was there was that no one jaywalks; no one crosses the street when the little red man is there. The road can be clear in both directions as far as the eye can see, but no one ever crosses until that green man appears.

They also have a system on the Underground, and on the trams, whereby you simply validate your ticket in a machine at the start of the week and no one asks for your ticket, or looks at it, for the next six days. You are trusted not to cheat – and the fines for cheating are huge.

The reason no one jaywalks, and no one cheats the transport system is that to do these things would be so socially frowned upon and unacceptable; people just don’t do it, so strong is that social pressure.

It made me realise how little social conformity there is around us. People will throw their litter down, drop their cigarette ends, chuck their chewing gum on the pavement, cross the road whenever they feel like it, double park on the high street, let their dog poop where it wants, stand up and block your view at a concert, talk during a performance, swear loudly in public, and stand smoking outside a hospital, right underneath the sign that says ‘No Smoking on NHS property’.

The fact the people seem able to do this with impunity says something about how little some people seem to care about the rules of good social harmony, and our responsibility towards others.

But here’s the thing: for all their social conformity, I’d still rather live here than there.