pop quiz

[waider]

I've passed through this junction most weekday mornings for the last 18 months.

What you can't quite see in the photo is that the left-hand traffic signal has a green arrow indicating that you should proceed if you're turning left. Except it also has a red light, clearly not intended to convey information to people not turning left (since that's what the other visible signal is for) so what's the correct behaviour here? Note, when the lights are in this state, traffic coming from the right has a green signal for at least part of the cycle. So it can't be a carte blanche "GO", and we have a perfectly servicable flashing amber to indicate that you should proceed with caution (our local equivalent of "right turn on red", so to speak). So, WTF? WTFF?

Comments

[sambushell.livejournal.com]

Well, flashing amber means you can proceed in any direction with caution. This sounds like "turn left any time with care".

[waider.livejournal.com]

Those may be your rules! Besides, the flashing amber I refer to includes flashing amber arrows to indicate that you should turn left any time with care, hence the query remains.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Boston I recall similar traffic signals - simultaneous red dots and green arrows. Made me boggle until I got used to it.

[nothings.livejournal.com]

I assume you don't mean either of the two on the left:



which are pretty common all over the place.

I'm not sure I've ever seen the one on the right--a dual-purpose green that can light up either way. The thing is, if it's not that--if the green can only light up as an arrow--then I don't see why it wouldn't also be a red arrow, and why it would ever be on at the same time.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

That reminds me... there's a car down the street that has an IRL sticker on one side of its bumper and a Union Jack on the other side. I wonder how they deal with the internal strife.

[waider.livejournal.com]

If you look closely when it's fully occupied you'll notice that one of the four guys in it looks distinctly uncomfortable and keeps calling to other Union Jack stickered cars for assistance, support, comfort, money, etc. The other three will be ignoring him and drinking their Guinness.