Do you mean the yellow coming on a few seconds before the red-to-green change? I grew up when that was the norm.
Traffic lights with four colors and a new white light are coming, and they will change the way we drive forever
- Thread starter TonyR
- Start date
bigredfish
Known around here
I thought it was the other way around?
Red with yellow meant " floor it its about to go full Red"
Red with yellow meant " floor it its about to go full Red"
Wow, just think of the Money and time that will be spent converting one intersection, Three guys leaning on shovels while 1 guy on a bucket lift carries up a white light with a vise grips and electrical tape and a 1 mile backup for the lane closures. multiplied by 40,000 = All the money we need for something else.
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Where's that at? I haven't heard of it. (It DOES sound stupid).
They are all over... Search for HAWK signal and you'll find a lot.
OK...we had similar signals mid-block on busy streets in front of fire stations to stop traffic to help get the fire trucks out of the stations more safely and more quickly. The two signal heads were just 3 section R-Y-G but the display and sequencing were almost the same (no flashing red during pedestrian clearance interval as pedestrians were not allowed to cross in front of a fire station).
But what is stupid (IMO) about these HAWK signals is this....why does the yielding vehicle driver need to see flashing reds during the pedestrian clearance interval? That's equal to a stop sign and they WILL take off and go while someone is still walking in the roadway. If the crossing was so dangerous for the pedestrians that they felt like the HAWK would mitigate that they will find out that the same type of motorists that were NOT yielding to pedestrians in the roadway BEFORE the HAWK was installed will still be encroaching on pedestrians in the roadway AFTER the HAWK is installed.
Unnecessary, IMO.
Just an FYI regarding some signals in flash at late night... until about the mid 1960's traffic signals were electro-mechanical and most of those were pre-timed and not traffic-actuated, meaning they had a synchronous clock motor making a camshaft rotate on a fixed timed cycle, opening and closing relay contacts to turn off and on the 120VAC red, yellow and green traffic lamps. They would be physically running whether there were cars or not and this caused lots of needless wear and tear on the components....motors, gears, relays, contacts, etc. It consumed electricity needlessly and accelerated burn-outs of the lamps.
The answer was to have a time clock place the signals into flashing operation during the night when most places of employment, stores, schools, churches, etc. were closed and vehicular and pedestrian traffic was very light. This cut down on maintenance and energy expenses exponentially. The arterial (main) street would see a flashing yellow for caution and the side (minor) street a flashing red for stop and proceed when clear.
It was actually designed so that the entry into AND the exit from this flashing operation would occur as the arterial would go into the yellow caution interval (the ending of the regular R-Y-G operation).