Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

I suppose it depends on what you've been around for so long. I've been in California and Arizona so long with the red arrows at nearly 80% of all left turn intersections, and the 4 and 5 light assist arrows for so long, that those flashing yellow signals just seem to foreign to me.

When a red light is showing in front of me, despite whether the left turn arrow in front of me is green or yellow, I'd suspect that the traffic in front of me is stopped for the same red light. When a light changes to red, I'd probably try to get out of the intersection as fast as I can, and not knowing that the light on the other side is green, will cost me every cent I own as well as 8 worthless points on a license.

This side of the pond, the incandescent signals were being replaced with fading LEDs and non-fading ball LEDs, but new installations have gone back to smaller incandescents! Also, pelican crossings that look like this -

are being replaced with puffin crossings -

The differences are:

The red and green man (our equivalent to walk and don't walk) are above the push button next to the pedestrian.

The lights don't turn green for cars until the crossing is clear.

If someone pushes the button and walks away, then the crossing automatically cancels the activation.

This is the original incandescent, slowly being replaced -

Original LEDs -

I couldn't find pictures of the other two types, but in what was East Germany, there is something interesting - The pedestrian signals have a hat!

I wish our crosswalk signals would self-cancel here. I hate it when somebody pushes the button with no intent of crossing or doesn't bother to wait and then I'm stuck there at a red light for 30 seconds for no reason.

I also like the red/amber phase you guys have before the green. I would love to have that when I'm driving one of my friends' manual transmission cars. Most cars here in the US are automatics so the red/amber doesn't have much merit, unfortunately.

I don't know if this happens elsewhere, but here, even though there are pushbuttons to activate the walk signals... they program the walk signals to change anyway on every cycle. For some signals it happens only during the daytime hours, but there are a few where the walk lights will change 24x7.

One of the 24 hour one's is right in front of our local Wal-Mart. It really irks me that you sit sometimes for 3 minutes waiting for a green light, when there is hardly any traffic around.

Those particular signals have those detector camera's installed all the way around. It defeats that purpose totally.

Here is the intersection I am talking about. Look at the line of cars waiting to turn left. It is like that almost all the time!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 2,,0,15.06

They do that here in Arizona. The wait is about 60-90 seconds, but for state highways and other busy streets, the walk symbol lights up every time the light changes to green. Opposing traffic gets stuck and waits a long time.

Heres West Virginia's Traffic Signals

These unfortantly got replaced from 2 regular incandesant signals into 2 regular + 1 5 lighted Dialight L.E.D. Ball Signals this year

Shown below is After shot of Mackorkle Ave (Route 60) and Rock Lake St.

Check out this oddity in Dayton, Ohio. A pedestrian signal hung by a large pole from a span wire. Since SV has been twitching out lately and the link might not work, the address is 6 Hamilton Ave. Dayton, OH.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 21,,0,0.59

I saw it. It looks weird...

Ugh, two things that drive me up the wall about ODOT stuff. The span-wire traffic signals... and if you follow that line, no bells at almost EVERY signalized crossing. Although if you do go far enough (sorry this is off topic, but in the spirit of things) here's a crossing signal that looks as though it was converted from a wig-wag.
1388 W. 1st St, Dayton, OH

Sorry, but the only time I've seen one of those span-wire jobs here in central Iowa, is when it's a temporary setup to control traffic around construction projects.

That ped signal is odd. What happens when it gets windy? Does it swing around all over the place?