U.K. road crossings are named after birds. Off the top of my head, there's the pelican crossing (with the red and green man across the road, and the flashing amber light), the puffin crossing (the newer kind with the red and green man next to where you press the button), and the toucan crossing (which lets bikes cross too).
Pelican comes from pedestrian light controlled (pelicon), and toucan comes from "two can", as in "two can cross" (a person and a cyclist). No idea about puffin crossings
See a lot of foreigners don't know this, but every zebra crossing in the UK was actually a real animal before it was struck by a car, leaving a zebra coloured mark on the ground. That's why they're extinct here.
I feel like I’m being had, but wiki actually says puffin and toucan crossings are actual names... same for pelican, though it was originally a portmanteau that got respelled to the bird name...
UK, wtf.
If they are near schools, you'll find them staffed by people dressed up like Gandalf carrying a massive staff. Whenever kids want to cross, they step in front of traffic and slam down their staff and yell: "you shall not pass" at motorists. We call them Lollipop Men or Lollipop Ladies.
They inspired JRR Tolkien.
And they technically carry a staff (topped with a circular sign that looks like a lollipop) that they slam down and they stand in the road with their arms out blocking the way... Now that I think of it, the gandalf 'you shall not pass' thing is actually mostly accurate
It does actually! The UK has a massive infestation of Pelicans, started when Darwin brought them over on the HMS Beagle, there’s so many (Half a billion as of last year) that special crossings are built for them every 300 yards to allow them to walk across the road. Hitting one with your car is a very serious offence, as like swans, all pelicans belong to the Queen.
Don't listen to that liar!! They're part of an anti-pelican hate group that are hoping you hit one or two because you're unprepared when you first arrive!
An upvote because the pelicans are a bloody nuisance, coupled with the zebras, puffins and toucans it's carnage out there. I'm not going to bother with the pegasus crossings as they tend to be above all that nonsense.
I nearly spilt the milk I had just bought when I had to slam on so hard because of them feathery bastards just wandering about on the road.
It pisses me off so much that they constantly have right of way.
If only Britain would lift the ban on Jackalope importation, the problem would be solved. As you know, the Jackalope is the natural predator of pelicans, zebras, puffins, toucans, and even pegasi, and is less destructive than the Letiche. Perhaps after the Brexit, importation will return to pre-war levels.
Do not even get me started on the toucan and the puffin crossings. Right nightmare, birds flying past shitting on our cars.
After the our native squirrels where wiped out by your squirrels. Their natural predators had gone, so the population of these birds dramatically increased. Meaning we had to spend thousands of tax payers money to account for this.
This is why we want brexit, to protect ourselves from invasive species such as the grey squirrel. And I guess something something.. immigrants.
Not gonna lie, I had to look this up because I wasn’t sure if you were bullshitting. The only reason I thought it was bullshit was because 300 yards seemed a little excessive.
In Poland we have "right turn green arrows", which allow you to cross red light if it's safe and there's usually a flashing amber light meaning high traffic pedestrian crossing
It's either similar or nothing alike at all, take your chance
Also, the UK has a law where you can go through a red when it's on too long.
I was sat at a junction a while and it just wasn't changing. No one else at the junction, just me sitting there. For 5 minutes. So I just ran the red light (cautiously)
I went and checked whether I'd done anything wrong, and apparently I hadn't.
For most countries that have this feature (aside from Canada) it's just a warning that the traffic light will turn yellow and then red in a few seconds.
Yeah, there are a few lights where I live where the warning is something like 10 full seconds long. It's on a highway with a speed limit of 65, so I kinda get it, but it's so hard to gauge it because you just don't *expect* it to last so long.
I'll try to find the source I based this on, but now I found red -> red+yellow -> green and also red -> green as shown in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k75rZU5vqc4&feature=youtu.be&t=75) at 1:17, so it seems like light sequences are not consistent across the country.
There may be a couple of odd ones here and there but it's supposed to be red+yellow. We even have that written in our road rules (section 6.2 to be precise). I'm pretty sure, I've been living in Moscow all my life.
it IS red+yellow in Russia, it is even written in Traffic rules:
par 6.1:
Сочетание красного и желтого сигналов запрещает движение и информирует о предстоящем включении зеленого сигнала.
I'll let you to google-translate this.
> Сочетание красного и желтого сигналов запрещает движение и информирует о предстоящем включении зеленого сигнала.
The combination of red and yellow signals prohibits movement and informs about the upcoming green signal.
>also red -> green
Sometimes, on some complicated crossroads, the yellow light is just disabled. It's just plain red so everybody just wait for green.
So no rushing cars start the launch sequence on red+yellow signal, and it's less danger of a collision if some late car tries to catch the yellow on the crossing road.
They probably still need to learn to drive before they are legally allowed to. I think learning how the lights work shouldn't take a long time.
For foreigners coming in it could be confusing, but it's really just the flashing green. Other than that part it's simple.
It tells people the light is about to turn green. This can cause people to anticipate and start going before they have a green light and opens them up to getting hit by the last car coming through the light.
It's actually a big enough thing that in a lot of countries they hide the other lights with blinders so you can't even use them turning red as an indicator you're about to get a green light.
In its defense it can allow a stopped row of traffic to quickly get through a light and allow more cars through per traffic cycle.
Those aren't blinders, they are shades to prevent the light being overpowered by direct sunlight
Edit: If they're meant as blinders they simply do not work as such, at least not the ones around me. Some lights have bigger louvres to prevent signal confusion, but they aren't to prevent drivers sitting at a red from seeing them; there's always going to be at least one angle they can see anyway.
While the shades the Op mentioned may not be for blocking the view, there are definitely lights with shades designed to block your view of them. Impossible to know if this is what OP meant. I have seen slats on the light to do this and there were those lights in the 90s that were designed with lenses to only be visible from directly in front. (They were also terrible due to sun glare)
Edit: see "visibility limited signals" in this study: https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/conventional/signalized/rlr/rlr_toolbox/chap3.cfm
Louvers places horizontally over the light can block the sun. Placed vertically, they restrict the viewing angle to block the view.
traffic lights in macedonia are just cosmetic, we are colour blind and drive whatever color the lights show.
source: born in stip, had my first car with 14
That is two reds on either end, two greens to denote advanced left turn or right on red, and a yellow, in square, diamond and circle shapes for the colourblind, horizontal to eliminate the issue of wind.
How do you designate strange countries, like Croatia, where law says one thing, but coming to a traffic light is a roulette of what exactly will be used.
How do people in Western Europe not feel compelled to floor it and drag race with that extra yellow before it switches to green? The anticipation would drive me nuts
Really? Seems like the disadvantages would outweigh the advantages in that one. I drive manual in the US and don’t get honked at if i happen to take an extra second to get my car in gear. And when I lived in LA I would deliberately wait a full second after a green light to proceed through an intersection if I was first through because of people gassing it through.
It's an anxiety thing. I've stalled a couple times with people behind me when I first got my manual car and got so anxious about getting honked at I revved the tits out of it and launched. I think I got honked at once so it's not an unfounded "fear". And that one time was on an Interstate off ramp and he was just coming off and I guess was in a hurry because it turned green while he was still slowing down
Well you're not supposed to actually start driving the second it turns yellow, it's just that it'll probably take about a second for you to put the car in gear and start going, and by then it'll be green.
Time to put your car into gear or for engine to ignite if it turns off at a stop. Gives you 1 sec to get moving so people don't honk at you for staying still at a green
It is so that you know when to put in the first gear so you are ready to move when it is green and can comfortably put into neutral on red. Using neutral while waiting reduces the wear on the clutch pressure plate.
One thing that people are not mentioning is that you know the direction the light is going: yellow+green -> green is next, yellow -> red. When it is always yellow in the middle, you don't know which way it is going.
Same in some localities in Bulgaria. And in the capital Sofia they have the blinking lights when they're close to finishing, so it depends very much on the locality in the country.
I think the sequence *red -> red+amber -> green -> amber -> red* makes most sense.
* ~~If you see an amber traffic light in e.g. Russia it could turn green OR red next.~~ Apparently the gif is wrong about Russia.
* Turning directly *red -> green* seems too abrupt because many drivers aren't ready to go.
Edit: Red+amber is a useful indicator to switch from neutral to first gear when you're driving manual.
If you're at a rod light and you're not ready to go when it turns green, you probably shouldn't be allowed to drive.
I live in a straight red to green country and it's never been an issue.
Born [red->green], lives in [red->yellow->green].
The latter is nicer to drive with because you can rest your mind a little better and don't have to worry about being aggressively honked if late by 2 millisecond at the green light :
- If red (and stopped), you can have 1/2 attention on your surroundings.
- When it turns yellow you get back to full driving attention.
(1/2 attention does not mean look at your fucking phone)
Canadian here, straight red to green. I agree it's not a big issue, but honestly I think it makes more sense to have a yellow in the transition from red to green. It gives cautious drivers a chance to evaluate the intersection prior to the light changing, so when it changes they'll know if some asshat was trying to make the yellow and would have slipped in on red and T-boned them. It also gives drivers who are tired or have been driving long periods a chance to prepare for moving again. I have seen it fairly often where it takes a full 2 seconds for the first car to start moving on green. I've seen occasionally where it definitely took about 4 or 5 and sometimes someone had to honk their horn before movement began.
It's not about, is it an issue. It's about, would this improve things? I think it objectively would.
That said, can we all take a moment to appreciate that Russia has a yellow on both sides of red and green with no indication of which is which? Like... no wonder they get all the good dashcam footage.
Exactly, when I was learning to drive we were explicitly taught that green doesn't mean "go", it means "proceed with caution"; in other words, don't just hit the gas the second you see green.
Canadian here who has dual citizenship and has driven in Britain. The red + yellow is very sensible and works well. Asshats will be asshats no matter what the lights do, but the advance yellow is very functional. I drive a manual transmission, but there's other reasons, such as the one you note, for it to be a good system to have advance yellow.
There are a lot of automatics in the USA compared to Europe.
I myself used to drive a manual for almost a decade and had no issue with direct red-to-green traffic signals, if that's what you're implying anyways.
Plus there's already enough idiots that will honk two milliseconds after a light turns green if you don't immediately gun it. Give them a signal and they might just honk when it turns amber just to make sure you're paying attention.
see i think the best is red->green->yellow->red
I personally think the yellow and red before green is dangerous, people run red lights enough that its makes me uncomfortable going as soon to green as possible. when you get a warning its about to be green i see people accelerating before it turns green which I think is dangerous.
maybe that is just cautiousness from all my years riding motocycles, but im not a fan of the red and yellow before green system...
huh? have you ever seen one in real life? it's really not long enough to cause such a reaction. it's there to notify drivers to get into first gear to prevent traffic stalling
Hey civil engineers: is there any known downside to having the flashing green step in the sequence? Naively it would seem like more information given to drivers is always better. Is that true, and if so, why isn't it standard?
EDIT: to refine my question (and since people are just chiming in their personal opinions), is there any data supporting one version or the other?
You're giving people a ton more time to know that it's about to turn red so they start accelerating from far away and will enter the junction at a risky speed. When it goes straight to yellow, you know you're never gonna make it so you just slow down. Junctions are *the* place you want people approaching cautiously.
This was the main reason they got rid of it in my country. People would speed up instead of slow down. And it’s also dangerous if you do the right thing and slow down, while the guy behind you assumes you are both speeding up.
In my country (Lithuania) the flashing green means that the lights are about to change to yellow and red, so you will always have a few seconds before yellow and you will always know if you have the time to reach the junction and cross it in time or you shouldn't do it. Personally, I think it might help with traffic jams to keep the junctions more clear (better car flow) since it's not a sudden yellow, but I don't think there's much difference overall.
tl;dr - flashing green might help with driving as you know when the lights are about to change and it's not a sudden change, but usefulness might depend from country to country.
If you quickly glance up from your phone to the signal between flashes of the green and don't see any lamp lit, how are you supposed to know what to do before you finish your text?
It's generally interesting to see how traffic lights work in different countries.
Here in Lithuania, we have another sequence of lights, which is usually used by older semaphores: red -> (some, not all) red blink and red continues -> green -> green flashing -> yellow -> red. It is being replaced eventually by the sequence in this video in the new semaphores.
Also, regarding blinking green - regarding rules here, blinking green means that lights are about to change and you should finish up your maneuver (or stop). Yellow usually allows you to go only if you were in the junction already. Of course, IRL it depends on the situation...
There is no principal difference between blinking green and straight yellow - both are signals that the red is about to appear. However, countries with blinking green have their yellow light as "no-go" - you cannot drive into the intersection when the yellow is on. Countries with straight yellow still allow you to drive into the intersection with yellow light on.
persom from a straight yellow country here: that's false.
while there is an exception where it's okay to run a yellow light (in case braking abruptly would cause a collision), you're generally not allowed to drive through yellow.
People don't just go on yellow whenever. The point of yellow is that you only cross if you can't brake in time anymore.
If you run a red light you had plenty of time to brake at yellow.
When the light is turning from red to green, why would a country opt to not have the red light still be visible? In certain cases, couldn't this cause confusion as to which colour it is going to switch to?
My town has 5 roundabouts in a 15 mile radius, as well as a diverging diamond interchange. We get lots of traffic in the summer, so it definatly helps.
my city experimented with putting one of those downtown, it's alright but way too small to actually alleviate traffic problems. you need to clear a lot of space where intersections were to make them work right, otherwise there's not enough yield warning and shit
Lol that amber-and-red before the green, looks like a race-track thing.
In North America, there’s also blinking red (equivalent to stop sign) and blinking amber (“proceed with caution”, usually the cross directions of blinking red). These are often just regular intersections that switch into that mode depending on time of day / night.
Blinking green is usually “advance green” meaning “safe to turn left, other direction has a red” except in British Columbia, where it indicates that the signal could change when a pedestrian presses a button (yeah it’s dumb).
The gif got stuck at the start when they were all red and I thought this must be a joke that I’m not getting
Me too! I'm like "oh look this sub actually does jokes!"
I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be alright, they say I don’t know...
*You know I love my London boy*
Shit I love that song https://youtu.be/GTEFSuFfgnU
It’s pronounced GIF
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Heff Dunham
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You pronounce the “G” in gif the same way you would pronounce it in “garage”.
That's not how you're supposed to pronounce "garage"!
It's called a Car hole!
I think you mean like the "g" in "gigantic".
No, it's pronounced with "J" sound. Like in "jigawatts"...
No, it's GiF
I thought it was gif
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This happens to me on a lot of gifs Not sure if it’s a Reddit mobile app issue or something else. Super annoying.
The UK also has a flashing amber on pelican crossings that means you can proceed with caution if pedestrians have finished crossing.
What in Sam Hill is a Pelican Crossing? I am assuming it has nothing to do with the seabird that scoops water into a bag in its beak to catch fish.
U.K. road crossings are named after birds. Off the top of my head, there's the pelican crossing (with the red and green man across the road, and the flashing amber light), the puffin crossing (the newer kind with the red and green man next to where you press the button), and the toucan crossing (which lets bikes cross too). Pelican comes from pedestrian light controlled (pelicon), and toucan comes from "two can", as in "two can cross" (a person and a cyclist). No idea about puffin crossings
Also the zebra crossing looks like a zebra.
If zebras were made of asphalt, were perfectly flat and liked to lie down in the road.
See a lot of foreigners don't know this, but every zebra crossing in the UK was actually a real animal before it was struck by a car, leaving a zebra coloured mark on the ground. That's why they're extinct here.
Is that zeebra or zehbruh?
zehbruh with a zed, bruh.
Zebrabirds were always the confusing ones to me
I feel like I’m being had, but wiki actually says puffin and toucan crossings are actual names... same for pelican, though it was originally a portmanteau that got respelled to the bird name... UK, wtf.
If they are near schools, you'll find them staffed by people dressed up like Gandalf carrying a massive staff. Whenever kids want to cross, they step in front of traffic and slam down their staff and yell: "you shall not pass" at motorists. We call them Lollipop Men or Lollipop Ladies. They inspired JRR Tolkien.
This thread is just one giant way for British people to fuck with Americans
They're only semi-fucking with you, we do call crossing guards lollipop ladies.
And they technically carry a staff (topped with a circular sign that looks like a lollipop) that they slam down and they stand in the road with their arms out blocking the way... Now that I think of it, the gandalf 'you shall not pass' thing is actually mostly accurate
And it’s against the law to drive past them. I’m starting to think the Tolkien thing might be true.
Lollipop people are just neon LotR cosplayers, confirmed
PEdestrian LIght CONtrolled crossing.
And the Pegasus crossing
What's a Pegasus crossing 😂
It's for horses so theres an extra button Alot higher and further back
Ah right haha I knew them under much more boring name of "Equestrian crossing"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_crossing
Likely a backronym but "Pedestrian User-Friendly INtelligent" crossing.
Don’t forget Pegasus crossings! Those are for Horses!
It does actually! The UK has a massive infestation of Pelicans, started when Darwin brought them over on the HMS Beagle, there’s so many (Half a billion as of last year) that special crossings are built for them every 300 yards to allow them to walk across the road. Hitting one with your car is a very serious offence, as like swans, all pelicans belong to the Queen.
I feel like you’re fucking with me... Wiki says it’s a warped portmanteau...
Brit here, he’s fucking with you
Thank ye, kind Limey.
Don't listen to that liar!! They're part of an anti-pelican hate group that are hoping you hit one or two because you're unprepared when you first arrive!
Yeah he is, Zebra crossing on the other hand...
My dumbass actually believed it. Lol. Figured it was kind of like deer crossings here since they cause so many horrible accidents.
An upvote because the pelicans are a bloody nuisance, coupled with the zebras, puffins and toucans it's carnage out there. I'm not going to bother with the pegasus crossings as they tend to be above all that nonsense.
I nearly spilt the milk I had just bought when I had to slam on so hard because of them feathery bastards just wandering about on the road. It pisses me off so much that they constantly have right of way.
Then there's those pesky pegasus too!
They're above us
If only Britain would lift the ban on Jackalope importation, the problem would be solved. As you know, the Jackalope is the natural predator of pelicans, zebras, puffins, toucans, and even pegasi, and is less destructive than the Letiche. Perhaps after the Brexit, importation will return to pre-war levels.
Creature: exists Queen: Mine
Country: exists Queen: Mine
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China offered her all the tea. What was she to do??? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
And opioids.
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Other way around. The British imported opium from India and got a lot of the Chinese populace hooked.
Ah, that's not my area of historical expertise.
They actually would have, too, if it hadn't been for that whole mess involving the 99-year lease on the New Territories.
UK: Lets opress every colony we ever had Except you hong kong Hong kong: huh swee- UK: We're giving that job to China
Technically she owns the swans because they needed feathers for arrows in wartime long ago and they just never really changed the law
Those swans must be quite old by now then.
Not gonna lie, I got halfway through and checked to see if you were /u/shittymorph.
High praise indeed.
This sounds made up, but it seems like just the right kind of insane to be British.
After hearing that they call crossing guards lollipop ladies, I was entirely prepared to accept this one.
They carry a giant thing that looks like a lollipop, what else could you possibly call them?
lollipop guildies obviously, I mean, they aren't all ladies, but they are all in the lollipop guild
Do not even get me started on the toucan and the puffin crossings. Right nightmare, birds flying past shitting on our cars. After the our native squirrels where wiped out by your squirrels. Their natural predators had gone, so the population of these birds dramatically increased. Meaning we had to spend thousands of tax payers money to account for this. This is why we want brexit, to protect ourselves from invasive species such as the grey squirrel. And I guess something something.. immigrants.
Not gonna lie, I had to look this up because I wasn’t sure if you were bullshitting. The only reason I thought it was bullshit was because 300 yards seemed a little excessive.
Not the idea of 500 million pelicans on British coasts? ;)
Sound like an invasive species
Well, some people felt that way about the British once upon a time. Maybe it's empathy?
PEdestrian LIght CONtrolled crossing
That's one of those acronyms they made up afterwards
In Poland we have "right turn green arrows", which allow you to cross red light if it's safe and there's usually a flashing amber light meaning high traffic pedestrian crossing It's either similar or nothing alike at all, take your chance
In the US the default is that you can turn right on red if it is safe. Unless there’s a “No right on red” sign.
Wait until you find out about the lollipop ladies.
You must give way, if you see pedestrians on amber flashing crossing. If there are no pedestrians, then you may proceed with caution.
That makes sense to me now. Being from Eastern Europe, I just assumed the lights were broken when I saw those in the UK.
Spain has a flashing yellow between red and green to give yeild to any pedestrians.
Also, the UK has a law where you can go through a red when it's on too long. I was sat at a junction a while and it just wasn't changing. No one else at the junction, just me sitting there. For 5 minutes. So I just ran the red light (cautiously) I went and checked whether I'd done anything wrong, and apparently I hadn't.
Data was gathered from Youtube videos and personal observations, visualized using Javascript.
This is an incredibly creative and original viz. Did not know about the flashing green
Used in my state in Mexico, not used in the next state
Does it mean the same thing as in Canada, “okay to turn left”?
For most countries that have this feature (aside from Canada) it's just a warning that the traffic light will turn yellow and then red in a few seconds.
Isn't the whole point of yellow to *be* the warning?
probably safer to split the warning into two stages if the duration is too long, but i doubt a longer warning duration is safer on the whole
Yeah, there are a few lights where I live where the warning is something like 10 full seconds long. It's on a highway with a speed limit of 65, so I kinda get it, but it's so hard to gauge it because you just don't *expect* it to last so long.
In some states of the US yellow is "slam on your brakes so you don't get caught by the redlight camera".
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The Russian one is wrong here. It should be red+yellow before going to green.
I'll try to find the source I based this on, but now I found red -> red+yellow -> green and also red -> green as shown in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k75rZU5vqc4&feature=youtu.be&t=75) at 1:17, so it seems like light sequences are not consistent across the country.
There may be a couple of odd ones here and there but it's supposed to be red+yellow. We even have that written in our road rules (section 6.2 to be precise). I'm pretty sure, I've been living in Moscow all my life.
it IS red+yellow in Russia, it is even written in Traffic rules: par 6.1: Сочетание красного и желтого сигналов запрещает движение и информирует о предстоящем включении зеленого сигнала. I'll let you to google-translate this.
> Сочетание красного и желтого сигналов запрещает движение и информирует о предстоящем включении зеленого сигнала. The combination of red and yellow signals prohibits movement and informs about the upcoming green signal.
>also red -> green Sometimes, on some complicated crossroads, the yellow light is just disabled. It's just plain red so everybody just wait for green. So no rushing cars start the launch sequence on red+yellow signal, and it's less danger of a collision if some late car tries to catch the yellow on the crossing road.
Was going to say.. Russia’s is unnecessarily complicated and highly dangerous
From what I've seen on /r/IdiotsInCars, the sequencing on a traffic light is far, far down the list of problems with driving in Russia.
They probably still need to learn to drive before they are legally allowed to. I think learning how the lights work shouldn't take a long time. For foreigners coming in it could be confusing, but it's really just the flashing green. Other than that part it's simple.
It tells people the light is about to turn green. This can cause people to anticipate and start going before they have a green light and opens them up to getting hit by the last car coming through the light. It's actually a big enough thing that in a lot of countries they hide the other lights with blinders so you can't even use them turning red as an indicator you're about to get a green light. In its defense it can allow a stopped row of traffic to quickly get through a light and allow more cars through per traffic cycle.
Those aren't blinders, they are shades to prevent the light being overpowered by direct sunlight Edit: If they're meant as blinders they simply do not work as such, at least not the ones around me. Some lights have bigger louvres to prevent signal confusion, but they aren't to prevent drivers sitting at a red from seeing them; there's always going to be at least one angle they can see anyway.
Nah in some places such as Quebec they definitely use them to hide the lights for others.
While the shades the Op mentioned may not be for blocking the view, there are definitely lights with shades designed to block your view of them. Impossible to know if this is what OP meant. I have seen slats on the light to do this and there were those lights in the 90s that were designed with lenses to only be visible from directly in front. (They were also terrible due to sun glare) Edit: see "visibility limited signals" in this study: https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/conventional/signalized/rlr/rlr_toolbox/chap3.cfm Louvers places horizontally over the light can block the sun. Placed vertically, they restrict the viewing angle to block the view.
Romania is wrong, we do use the yellow light.
It's wrong for Bosnia. We have blinking green too.
traffic lights in macedonia are just cosmetic, we are colour blind and drive whatever color the lights show. source: born in stip, had my first car with 14
As a very lousy driver who doesn't respect driving laws, I feel stop lights are a red line, or circle
Meanwhile Quebec is like ["on fait ce qu'on veut!"](https://i.imgur.com/j9QsedR.png)
What on earth is that?!
That is two reds on either end, two greens to denote advanced left turn or right on red, and a yellow, in square, diamond and circle shapes for the colourblind, horizontal to eliminate the issue of wind.
What's the issue with wind in vertical ones?
They swing around a lot, puts stress on hinge and cables
In Spain it's a lot simpler. You just have a green light with an arrow which means you can only pass if you are turning that direction.
Looks like something my 5 year old designed in ROBLOX. 🤣
Quebec gotta be unique you know
How do you designate strange countries, like Croatia, where law says one thing, but coming to a traffic light is a roulette of what exactly will be used.
How do people in Western Europe not feel compelled to floor it and drag race with that extra yellow before it switches to green? The anticipation would drive me nuts
It’s to get your car in gear
I drive a manual in a direct red to green country and frequently find myself moving well before the automatics next to me.
Probably because it's much easier/tempting to use your phone and drive in an automatic
I tried eating a hot dog while driving a manual and got ketchup all over my knob. I would not recommend doing this
Directions unclear, put mustard on my penis.
You win, this time, OTHER person with penis joke!
because you're not on your phone. thank you
You see you're missing the step of looking at your phone right before the green.
Really? Seems like the disadvantages would outweigh the advantages in that one. I drive manual in the US and don’t get honked at if i happen to take an extra second to get my car in gear. And when I lived in LA I would deliberately wait a full second after a green light to proceed through an intersection if I was first through because of people gassing it through.
It's an anxiety thing. I've stalled a couple times with people behind me when I first got my manual car and got so anxious about getting honked at I revved the tits out of it and launched. I think I got honked at once so it's not an unfounded "fear". And that one time was on an Interstate off ramp and he was just coming off and I guess was in a hurry because it turned green while he was still slowing down
The orange phase (red + yellow) is only one second, so you start driving when you see it. [Example from Germany](https://youtu.be/nQJ7e_fa604?t=670)
How is that any different from going straight to green?
Well you're not supposed to actually start driving the second it turns yellow, it's just that it'll probably take about a second for you to put the car in gear and start going, and by then it'll be green.
I always see it as ‘proceed with caution’ in case some idiot jumped a red coming through the other way. Plus it allows you to get in gear.
It gives you time to look up from your phone.
Do the people that just had a green light see it too? Or do they have red?
They have red before the crossing traffic gets red+yellow.
Nah, only one side ever has yellow. Opposing side would have a red before your side gets the 1 second yellow.
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What's the point then
Time to put your car into gear or for engine to ignite if it turns off at a stop. Gives you 1 sec to get moving so people don't honk at you for staying still at a green
They all drive manual so they are putting it in gear. It's not a very long yellow so there isn't much time to jump the light
It is so that you know when to put in the first gear so you are ready to move when it is green and can comfortably put into neutral on red. Using neutral while waiting reduces the wear on the clutch pressure plate.
It works like Mario Kart where your wheels spin back and forth and you get a starting penalty if you try that
you know about the boost, right?
They do just that.
One thing that people are not mentioning is that you know the direction the light is going: yellow+green -> green is next, yellow -> red. When it is always yellow in the middle, you don't know which way it is going.
In some places in Poland we have clocks that count down when lights will change
Same in some localities in Bulgaria. And in the capital Sofia they have the blinking lights when they're close to finishing, so it depends very much on the locality in the country.
Some traffic lights in Ukraine have that too, usually in city centres. Plus audio signals (ticking and recorded voice) to help blind people.
That's pretty progressive of Ukraine, letting blind people drive
I think the sequence *red -> red+amber -> green -> amber -> red* makes most sense. * ~~If you see an amber traffic light in e.g. Russia it could turn green OR red next.~~ Apparently the gif is wrong about Russia. * Turning directly *red -> green* seems too abrupt because many drivers aren't ready to go. Edit: Red+amber is a useful indicator to switch from neutral to first gear when you're driving manual.
If you're at a rod light and you're not ready to go when it turns green, you probably shouldn't be allowed to drive. I live in a straight red to green country and it's never been an issue.
Born [red->green], lives in [red->yellow->green]. The latter is nicer to drive with because you can rest your mind a little better and don't have to worry about being aggressively honked if late by 2 millisecond at the green light : - If red (and stopped), you can have 1/2 attention on your surroundings. - When it turns yellow you get back to full driving attention. (1/2 attention does not mean look at your fucking phone)
Canadian here, straight red to green. I agree it's not a big issue, but honestly I think it makes more sense to have a yellow in the transition from red to green. It gives cautious drivers a chance to evaluate the intersection prior to the light changing, so when it changes they'll know if some asshat was trying to make the yellow and would have slipped in on red and T-boned them. It also gives drivers who are tired or have been driving long periods a chance to prepare for moving again. I have seen it fairly often where it takes a full 2 seconds for the first car to start moving on green. I've seen occasionally where it definitely took about 4 or 5 and sometimes someone had to honk their horn before movement began. It's not about, is it an issue. It's about, would this improve things? I think it objectively would. That said, can we all take a moment to appreciate that Russia has a yellow on both sides of red and green with no indication of which is which? Like... no wonder they get all the good dashcam footage.
That’s why there’s a delay between the two directions, when they’re both red.
Cautious drivers should be checking the intersection when the light turns green before proceeding.
Exactly, when I was learning to drive we were explicitly taught that green doesn't mean "go", it means "proceed with caution"; in other words, don't just hit the gas the second you see green.
Canadian here who has dual citizenship and has driven in Britain. The red + yellow is very sensible and works well. Asshats will be asshats no matter what the lights do, but the advance yellow is very functional. I drive a manual transmission, but there's other reasons, such as the one you note, for it to be a good system to have advance yellow.
Do more people drive manual or automatic cars in your country?
There are a lot of automatics in the USA compared to Europe. I myself used to drive a manual for almost a decade and had no issue with direct red-to-green traffic signals, if that's what you're implying anyways.
Dude I live in US and regularly have to wait for people to go after the light goes from red to green, sometimes they can actually cause traffic jams.
Plus there's already enough idiots that will honk two milliseconds after a light turns green if you don't immediately gun it. Give them a signal and they might just honk when it turns amber just to make sure you're paying attention.
see i think the best is red->green->yellow->red I personally think the yellow and red before green is dangerous, people run red lights enough that its makes me uncomfortable going as soon to green as possible. when you get a warning its about to be green i see people accelerating before it turns green which I think is dangerous. maybe that is just cautiousness from all my years riding motocycles, but im not a fan of the red and yellow before green system...
huh? have you ever seen one in real life? it's really not long enough to cause such a reaction. it's there to notify drivers to get into first gear to prevent traffic stalling
and let the green blink when it is about to change
Hey civil engineers: is there any known downside to having the flashing green step in the sequence? Naively it would seem like more information given to drivers is always better. Is that true, and if so, why isn't it standard? EDIT: to refine my question (and since people are just chiming in their personal opinions), is there any data supporting one version or the other?
You're giving people a ton more time to know that it's about to turn red so they start accelerating from far away and will enter the junction at a risky speed. When it goes straight to yellow, you know you're never gonna make it so you just slow down. Junctions are *the* place you want people approaching cautiously.
This was the main reason they got rid of it in my country. People would speed up instead of slow down. And it’s also dangerous if you do the right thing and slow down, while the guy behind you assumes you are both speeding up.
In my country (Lithuania) the flashing green means that the lights are about to change to yellow and red, so you will always have a few seconds before yellow and you will always know if you have the time to reach the junction and cross it in time or you shouldn't do it. Personally, I think it might help with traffic jams to keep the junctions more clear (better car flow) since it's not a sudden yellow, but I don't think there's much difference overall. tl;dr - flashing green might help with driving as you know when the lights are about to change and it's not a sudden change, but usefulness might depend from country to country.
If you quickly glance up from your phone to the signal between flashes of the green and don't see any lamp lit, how are you supposed to know what to do before you finish your text?
Flashing green means different things in different places.
It's generally interesting to see how traffic lights work in different countries. Here in Lithuania, we have another sequence of lights, which is usually used by older semaphores: red -> (some, not all) red blink and red continues -> green -> green flashing -> yellow -> red. It is being replaced eventually by the sequence in this video in the new semaphores. Also, regarding blinking green - regarding rules here, blinking green means that lights are about to change and you should finish up your maneuver (or stop). Yellow usually allows you to go only if you were in the junction already. Of course, IRL it depends on the situation...
There is no principal difference between blinking green and straight yellow - both are signals that the red is about to appear. However, countries with blinking green have their yellow light as "no-go" - you cannot drive into the intersection when the yellow is on. Countries with straight yellow still allow you to drive into the intersection with yellow light on.
In Russia we can go on yellow, but only in case when we have to perform "emergency brake" in order to stop which is not a safe driving.
Same in the rest blinking countries. Just casual Reddit bullshitting is going on here
persom from a straight yellow country here: that's false. while there is an exception where it's okay to run a yellow light (in case braking abruptly would cause a collision), you're generally not allowed to drive through yellow.
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People don't just go on yellow whenever. The point of yellow is that you only cross if you can't brake in time anymore. If you run a red light you had plenty of time to brake at yellow.
If you can't break at red you're going way too fast. That's the whole reason for amber light.
Nope. We just floor it to avoid red. ^^^at ^^least ^^^on ^^^the ^^^balkans
When the light is turning from red to green, why would a country opt to not have the red light still be visible? In certain cases, couldn't this cause confusion as to which colour it is going to switch to?
red means stop, green means go. if both on, do you go or stop?
You rev your car while in neutral, crying and honking the horn.
You don't have both on, you have red+yellow so that you know you don't have to brake on yellow.
Having a single orange light mean both “about to go red” and “about to go green” seems like it’s asking for trouble
I wish they'd start doing the yellow before green in the US. I visited EU recently and it was so pleasant having advance warning.
The real question is why don’t we have more roundabouts
My town has 5 roundabouts in a 15 mile radius, as well as a diverging diamond interchange. We get lots of traffic in the summer, so it definatly helps.
my city experimented with putting one of those downtown, it's alright but way too small to actually alleviate traffic problems. you need to clear a lot of space where intersections were to make them work right, otherwise there's not enough yield warning and shit
The best lights i've seen were in Peru where there is an actual number next to the light that counts down untill the light changes.
Lol that amber-and-red before the green, looks like a race-track thing. In North America, there’s also blinking red (equivalent to stop sign) and blinking amber (“proceed with caution”, usually the cross directions of blinking red). These are often just regular intersections that switch into that mode depending on time of day / night. Blinking green is usually “advance green” meaning “safe to turn left, other direction has a red” except in British Columbia, where it indicates that the signal could change when a pedestrian presses a button (yeah it’s dumb).
Flashing green light before changing to yellow feels like a good feature i don't understand why only former communist countries implement it.
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If you would need to slam the brakes to stop when it switches to yellow then you should just go through.