liz@umcp-cs.UUCP (08/11/83)
In England, a blinking green light means a controlled crosswalk. If a pedestrian pushes a button, the light will turn (after a moment) yellow and then red, and a walk sign (picture of stick man walking) comes on and a buzzer sounds (for blind pedestrians). After a little, the light turns yellow after which no pedestrian can begin crossing and cars may start moving as long as there's no one in the walk. It's fairly efficient but depends on their politeness. Another useful thing about their traffic lights is that the yellow comes on when the light's red but about to turn green. That gives everyone a chance to move their foot from the brake to the clutch. I wish we could adopt that system... -- -Liz Allen, U of Maryland, College Park MD Usenet: ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz Arpanet: liz.umcp-cs@Udel-Relay
jim@grkermit.UUCP (Jim Morton) (08/12/83)
Here around Boston, if the lights when yellow before they were about to turn green, it would mean one thing: death at every intersection.
spaf@gatech.UUCP (08/13/83)
Last time I drove in Toronto, there were some blinking green traffic
lights which meant that it was green in your direction only.
That is, after a red light, it would become flashing green and
you could make a left turn without waiting for oncoming
traffic to clear since they still had red.
Anybody out there in Toronto care to comment?
--
The soapbox of Gene Spafford
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf.GATech @ UDel-Relay
uucp: ...!{sb1,allegra,ut-ngp}!gatech!spaf ...!duke!mcnc!msdc!gatech!spafemrath@uiuccsb.UUCP (08/20/83)
#R:umcp-cs:-174000:uiuccsb:9900008:000:764 uiuccsb!emrath Aug 20 03:35:00 1983 Two comments: 1) I NEVER move a foot from the brake to the clutch, only from brake to gas. 2) I was just on vacation and did some driving in California (I'm from Illinois). Two problems: a) They have right turn on red out there, just like here, but NOBODY stops first. You get seen by a cop doing that here and its a moving violation. I came to an almost full stop and the guy behind just about re-ended me. b) All the traffic signals are on the opposite side of the intersection. Here, I'm used to pulling up to the signal. At night in Nevada, I once almost found myself sitting in the MIDDLE of an intersection waiting for a red light. Moral: Variable traffic conventions (like blinking greens and yellows before greens) are a bad idea.
bentson@csu-cs.UUCP (08/28/83)
I'd be a bit cautious about condemning variable traffic conventions ouut of hand. If all states were required to have the same rules there'd be no opportunity for experiments. Who would have supported a nation-wide change to right-turn-on-red without one state showing that it works? I'll admit that the differences can cause problems for visitors, but I don't want to be constrained to a nation-wide set of rules. In your case of the "rolling stop" for right-turn-on-red: the nation may now recognize that this is a good idea (or California may recognize it as a bad one). We're in the middle of a real "Social Experiment". Randy Bentson csu-cs!bentson Colo State U - Comp Sci