To me that aspect is a symptom not of a rule-following culture, but of the favouritism given to cars. The car lobby has a lot of influence in Germany. It is why there are no speed limits on highways, trains are in a terrible condition, and finally pedestrians are made to obey rules optimised for car traffic. The rule could be different, like in UK where the rule is that the pedestrian is allowed to jaywalk and it is not breaking any law, and you would still get a rule-following society (in that respect at least). The difference is in the expectation of whether a car is a guest in a human environment or a human is a guest in a car environment.