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What’s the problem in flashing yellow for a longer period of time? Make a delay long enough for a driver to safely react. Otherwise why bother with flashing ye

What’s the problem in flashing yellow for a longer period of time? Make a delay long enough for a driver to safely react. Otherwise why bother with flashing yellow anyway? We have such thing in Ukraine(and probably other ex USSR) countries. There’s no surprise red light. You always know when it’s going to come and have enough time to finish a crossing.

chrisdhoover 7y ago
The best approach is to have all directions go red for a moment. Longer yellows encourage gunning it through the intersection. During the ‘90’s San Francisco had an uptick in pedestrians being run down. The all red idea was touted as a zen pause. Nothing came of it then. 20 years later the City has changed the lights, the lights go all red and the walk light goes on first.
egorfine 7y ago
And this is one of the (many) reasons why people are driving red light in Kiev like it's not even there.
tsomctl 7y ago
It's alleged that cities will reduce the length of the yellow so that people will misjudge and run a red, thus increasing the revenue. > The annual report for Suffolk County, N.Y., shows that revenue from the red-light cameras was about $28.9 million in 2017, with about $9 million of that paid to the vendor.
- mises 7y ago
  This is the issue. Yellow light lengths are also inconsistent: I don't know what to expect. Could be long, could be short. It's not always safe to suddenly stop, and we don't know which is which.
  - cher88 7y ago
    Where I come from our green lights blink five times before the light goes to yellow, then red. I've found that it's much more useful than having just a yellow light to estimate when I should accelerate at a light and when I should stop.
  - kolinko 7y ago
    In which country? Isn’t there some sort of a regulation on the yellow light duration depending on the max allowed speed on the road? Living in a country with yellow lights, I never had a situation when I could complain that it was too short or too long. I was taught that yellow means „stop if you can do so comfortably”, and the very few times I ran a red was definitely my bad call.
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      A sensible way for things to work is that traffic engineers interested in safety and flowing traffic work out a rule for how yellow lights work, and that's the rule for the entire country. Usually your goal is that the yellow lasts long enough that any vehicle which isn't speeding and has brakes at least as good as those required by law, will either pass through the junction while it's still yellow or could easily stop before it goes red. Since even though some drivers will be speeding, anyone who isn't driving a way out-of-specification heap of junk has _much_ better brakes than required by law, this gives plenty of slack. The engineers need to know speed limits on approach roads, the size of the junction (remember, pass _through_ the junction, it's no good if your fast vehicle is still in the middle of the junction when it goes red) and slopes (which affect braking) and various other factors. However the US is not, on the whole, a country where the sensible way of doing things has much sway. I'd be astonished if there's a Federal Law in the US that sets usable requirements for their whole country, and frankly it wouldn't surprise me if individual towns get to have local politicians just pick a number out of a hat for how long the yellow lasts for the one junction in that town.
    - mises 7y ago
      > In which country? America. > Isn't there some soft of a regulation on the yellow light duration depending on the max allowed speed on the road? Nope. > Living in a country with yellow lights Which? It's also possible that you have a local law. > I was taught that yellow means ,,stop if you can do so comfortably Unfortunately, red light cameras cause an issue with this. There is time after a yellow for those few times we make the bad call, because it's not always easy to judge in that short of a time. Red lights make this much harder, and may lead us to stop suddenly and unsafely (part-way into the intersection, get rear-ended, etc.).
- delfinom 7y ago
  Being in said county, they actually time and report the light timing on the traffic tickets. They actually don't undertime any of the lights from my experience. We really do have bad drivers. But what happens here is, they pick an intersection, add lights, catch people running it for 2 years, eventually it drops to 0 as everyone gets used it and then proceed to move it to another intersection as the county still pays a minimum invoice to the vendor per month. And once they move it people start running it and the cycle repeats. The shitty part is the cameras also flagging right hand red turns, you have to basically sit "3 seconds" stopped before doing so by law but it sure as shit better be "double mississipi seconds" or you get a ticket. So people just stop making right on reds at camera intersections and slow down traffic for everyone.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - HankB99 7y ago
    The flip side of that is drivers who make a right turn on red w/out stopping - slowing down only enough to maintain control of their vehicle. Some also ignore the signs that stipulate no right turn on red when pedestrians are present, even if there are pedestrians in the crosswalk. I've been nearly run over a couple times in that situation. They're looking for approaching traffic and not where they're going. As far as simply running red lights, some percentage of drivers - perhaps 1-5% do that at any given intersection. That's often enough that I have to look both ways before proceeding on green to avoid getting hit. That in spite of the 2 second delay between red and green lights. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is in the Chicago suburbs, not sure of other areas. Chicago did have a reputation for shortening the yellow when cameras were installed. I didn't notice that where I live.
stjohnswarts 7y ago
Nah, Texas did the best thing, take out the useless red light cameras. One less Big Brother operation is always a good thing.

chrisdhoover 7y ago

The best approach is to have all directions go red for a moment. Longer yellows encourage gunning it through the intersection. During the ‘90’s San Francisco had an uptick in pedestrians being run down. The all red idea was touted as a zen pause. Nothing came of it then. 20 years later the City has changed the lights, the lights go all red and the walk light goes on first.

egorfine 7y ago

And this is one of the (many) reasons why people are driving red light in Kiev like it's not even there.

tsomctl 7y ago

It's alleged that cities will reduce the length of the yellow so that people will misjudge and run a red, thus increasing the revenue. > The annual report for Suffolk County, N.Y., shows that revenue from the red-light cameras was about $28.9 million in 2017, with about $9 million of that paid to the vendor.

mises 7y ago
This is the issue. Yellow light lengths are also inconsistent: I don't know what to expect. Could be long, could be short. It's not always safe to suddenly stop, and we don't know which is which.
- cher88 7y ago
  Where I come from our green lights blink five times before the light goes to yellow, then red. I've found that it's much more useful than having just a yellow light to estimate when I should accelerate at a light and when I should stop.
- kolinko 7y ago
  In which country? Isn’t there some sort of a regulation on the yellow light duration depending on the max allowed speed on the road? Living in a country with yellow lights, I never had a situation when I could complain that it was too short or too long. I was taught that yellow means „stop if you can do so comfortably”, and the very few times I ran a red was definitely my bad call.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    A sensible way for things to work is that traffic engineers interested in safety and flowing traffic work out a rule for how yellow lights work, and that's the rule for the entire country. Usually your goal is that the yellow lasts long enough that any vehicle which isn't speeding and has brakes at least as good as those required by law, will either pass through the junction while it's still yellow or could easily stop before it goes red. Since even though some drivers will be speeding, anyone who isn't driving a way out-of-specification heap of junk has _much_ better brakes than required by law, this gives plenty of slack. The engineers need to know speed limits on approach roads, the size of the junction (remember, pass _through_ the junction, it's no good if your fast vehicle is still in the middle of the junction when it goes red) and slopes (which affect braking) and various other factors. However the US is not, on the whole, a country where the sensible way of doing things has much sway. I'd be astonished if there's a Federal Law in the US that sets usable requirements for their whole country, and frankly it wouldn't surprise me if individual towns get to have local politicians just pick a number out of a hat for how long the yellow lasts for the one junction in that town.
  - mises 7y ago
    > In which country? America. > Isn't there some soft of a regulation on the yellow light duration depending on the max allowed speed on the road? Nope. > Living in a country with yellow lights Which? It's also possible that you have a local law. > I was taught that yellow means ,,stop if you can do so comfortably Unfortunately, red light cameras cause an issue with this. There is time after a yellow for those few times we make the bad call, because it's not always easy to judge in that short of a time. Red lights make this much harder, and may lead us to stop suddenly and unsafely (part-way into the intersection, get rear-ended, etc.).
delfinom 7y ago
Being in said county, they actually time and report the light timing on the traffic tickets. They actually don't undertime any of the lights from my experience. We really do have bad drivers. But what happens here is, they pick an intersection, add lights, catch people running it for 2 years, eventually it drops to 0 as everyone gets used it and then proceed to move it to another intersection as the county still pays a minimum invoice to the vendor per month. And once they move it people start running it and the cycle repeats. The shitty part is the cameras also flagging right hand red turns, you have to basically sit "3 seconds" stopped before doing so by law but it sure as shit better be "double mississipi seconds" or you get a ticket. So people just stop making right on reds at camera intersections and slow down traffic for everyone.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- HankB99 7y ago
  The flip side of that is drivers who make a right turn on red w/out stopping - slowing down only enough to maintain control of their vehicle. Some also ignore the signs that stipulate no right turn on red when pedestrians are present, even if there are pedestrians in the crosswalk. I've been nearly run over a couple times in that situation. They're looking for approaching traffic and not where they're going. As far as simply running red lights, some percentage of drivers - perhaps 1-5% do that at any given intersection. That's often enough that I have to look both ways before proceeding on green to avoid getting hit. That in spite of the 2 second delay between red and green lights. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is in the Chicago suburbs, not sure of other areas. Chicago did have a reputation for shortening the yellow when cameras were installed. I didn't notice that where I live.

stjohnswarts 7y ago

Nah, Texas did the best thing, take out the useless red light cameras. One less Big Brother operation is always a good thing.