I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

Hawking’s quip targets the practical inconsistency of hard determinism. Even if someone professes that all events are fixed and human choice is powerless, everyday behavior still assumes agency, prediction, and responsibility: you look both ways because you believe your action can affect whether you live or die. The joke also underscores a scientific attitude toward causality: even in a law-governed universe, outcomes depend on conditions, information, and interventions. In that sense, “predestined” is rhetorically deflated by ordinary risk management—our lived experience treats deliberation as meaningful, whatever one’s metaphysics.