Most intersections I've seen in Serbia cities like Belgrade have "preferential" roads even if they are equally loaded and similarly sized: so, one direction will have either "stop" or "yield" signs, and another will not. Everyone slows down because you don't see the stop/yield sign for the orthogonal streets until you come closer to the intersection.

Perhaps we are just more used to traffic lights being off/broken (and we are, as this is, anecdotally, more like a weekly occurrence at some point during your trip to work, for instance)?