Pedestrian walk countdown...

PLau

PLau

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Does it do more harm than good?

It lets pedestrians know how long they have to cross, but just today, I've had 4 people anticipating a light change and slowing down to a stop or near stop in a 60-70 zone thinking the light is about to change. I actually had one person person in front of me hit their brakes HARD with about 10 car lengths before the intersection line because the counter hit "1" (and didn't change for like 5 secs after it hit 0). We ended up at the line when the light JUST switched to yellow (probably travelling at 20km/h when the light was still green..).

I'm sure there are a lot of people here that have experienced this on a daily basis or those who do it themselves.....

/rant
 
It's not the counters fault that a vehicle is obeying a pedestrian signal!
 
PLau said:
Does it do more harm than good?

It lets pedestrians know how long they have to cross, but just today, I've had 4 people anticipating a light change and slowing down to a stop or near stop in a 60-70 zone thinking the light is about to change. I actually had one person person in front of me hit their brakes HARD with about 10 car lengths before the intersection line because the counter hit "1" (and didn't change for like 5 secs after it hit 0). We ended up at the line when the light JUST switched to yellow (probably travelling at 20km/h when the light was still green..).

I'm sure there are a lot of people here that have experienced this on a daily basis or those who do it themselves.....

/rant
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I disagree, those things are very useful. I always keep an eye out if its counting down since it lets you know when the yellow will hit. Its nice to know ahead of time instead of being faced with a yellow and then some ****** bag pulling out in front of you.
 
I tend to agree with you. Ive noticed the same problem. And at night ita even worst when the light doeant even change and you have retards stopping. Just another reason to have to keep an eye out for dumb drivers

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I was once rear ended because I saw it at zero and it turned yellow, I stopped. slowly. got rear ended guy was like WTF it was yellow!

Cautious drivers will slow down brake, come to stop @ yellow because its safe to do so.
Aggressive drivers will stomp the gas and speed up when they see yellow light.

the two don't mix..regardless of a countdown we need a special lane for aggressive and one for non aggressive drivers.
 
hardk0re said:
I was once rear ended because I saw it at zero and it turned yellow, I stopped. slowly. got rear ended guy was like WTF it was yellow!

Cautious drivers will slow down brake, come to stop @ yellow because its safe to do so.
Aggressive drivers will stomp the gas and speed up when they see yellow light.

the two don't mix..regardless of a countdown we need a special lane for aggressive and one for non aggressive drivers.
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lol

And when these clowns that accelerate through a yellow meet with the idiot who right away starts to turn when the light turns to yellow we have a road closure for half the day as the police try to pick up the pieces
 
Paul1000RR said:
lol

And when these clowns that accelerate through a yellow meet with the idiot who right away starts to turn when the light turns to yellow we have a road closure for half the day as the police try to pick up the pieces
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I believe that it's the lack of consistency that causes more problems. Some lights will turn yellow the moment the countdown hits zero, while other lights will not turn yellow for another 10-15 seconds. No sweat if you drive the same route, and know the behavior of the particular set of lights, but when you're traveling in an unfamiliar area, the lights that delay turning yellow despite a zero-count for pedestrians become a nuisance.

Throw in the drivers that never should have made it through their road-tests... and we have a cocktail of incompetence, inconsistency, and a painful commute.

Oh wait, + the season of construction and we now have on-road meltdowns.
 
Good comment. Those are pedestrian signals, drivers should not be obeying them. You can look to give yourself an estimate of whether this light is gonna go amber anytime soon. I find them extremely useful for that. If it's nearing down the countdown and I'm far away I won't try to beat the light but I won't start to brake to stop at the light either, I'll just be at the speed limit and pay attention to the light.
 
Paul1000RR said:
I disagree, those things are very useful. I always keep an eye out if its counting down since it lets you know when the yellow will hit. Its nice to know ahead of time instead of being faced with a yellow and then some ****** bag pulling out in front of you.
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The problem arises when they start applying their brakes when they see that the counter is less than 3 secs or so while the light actually changes after 10 secs.

I've had someone go down to 40km/h in an 80 zone with traffic all around them cause of the counter and only started picking up speed when people started honking....

On top of everything else, sometimes when there isn't any cars waiting to go in the other direction, the pedestrian signal turns back to Walk... Then what happens? You get a vehicle thats practically stopped in a live lane with a green light.
 
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Those counters are useful IMO. Problem is you can't treat them as the light itself, use them as warning for how much time you have till the light changes. Makes it easier to decide whether or not you should stop or go through.
 
PLau said:
On top of everything else, sometimes when there isn't any cars waiting to go in the other direction, the pedestrian signal turns back to Walk... Then what happens? You get a vehicle thats practically stopped in a live lane with a green light.
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You realize you are supposed to leave enough distance to stop safely even if someone in front stops at a green light.
 
CafeRay said:
You realize you are supposed to leave enough distance to stop safely even if someone in front stops at a green light.
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Never said I almost crashed into them, but its essentially the same as a brake check. Hitting your brakes hard for no reason...
 
The counter is good because it lets you know a guaranteed amount of time the light will stay green. But that's all.

some of the light's will change from flashing hand to walky sign depending on if there's cars waiting.

You should never trust them.
 
dasiffy said:
The counter is good because it lets you know a guaranteed amount of time the light will stay green. But that's all.

some of the light's will change from flashing hand to walky sign depending on if there's cars waiting.

You should never trust them.
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Now tell that to all the people on the road that don't know that....
 
I hate it when pedestrians cross with a few seconds left to cross and use the 3 second yellow and 3 second red and ruin chances of turning for right turners and left turners. Really annoying down town when usually that is the only good time to turn because of the non stop pedestrians crossing during your green.
 
i guess if they used polarized lenses so the light is only visible the people on the crosswalk, that would probably make things better.
 
I found it being much easier to counter adjust your speed of travel when those countdown "clocks" started poping out to the streets. Let's agree, everyone here would rather know when the light is about to change instead of guessing it.
The idea with those countdowns is to have the traffic light switch to amber upon the countdown reaching zero, than - red. However, lately I keep coming across some intersections where the timers are obviously are out of sync. Like many have already mentioned above - the countdown is at zero, yet the traffic light remains green. It's a problem.

Now, add to that a red light camera and you will have people slowing down nearly to a full stop in anticipation of a RED LIGHT camera taking their picture. Try doing that along Hwy7 where posted speed limit is 80... No wonder why people get rear ended all the time.

Those things need to be re-calibrated badly. They are supposed to HELP, not to CONFUSE.
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