Comments on: blinking traffic lights

By: Starr

Starr — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 00:44:26 +0000

Living in south Florida post-Wilma, traffic is just frustrating. If the intersection has a light, you’re lucky. Without a traffic light, it takes forever, leading to many already agitated people. I had a debate with someone as to what blinking yellow lights mean. He said it means to stop, whereas I disagree. I was looking online to see if the rules changed since Wilma, and found this post. Florida, particularly the southeast, is no longer the retirement spot. It is a fast-paced, growing, changing, unfriendly environment, and people just don’t know how to drive. Too many young people in a hurry with too many old people who hit their brakes if a car comes within ten feet of them. I’ve yet to be in accident/gotten a ticket yet (knock on wood) but it is a rarity for someone my age (nineteen) to not have been in at least three accidents.

By: Meredith

Meredith — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 05:13:18 +0000

Hopefully someone in the web development department at UDOT will see your link to them and come check it out!

By: dan

dan — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 02:03:48 +0000

Jan: I did mean northeast. In Utah, I’ve seen the timing change quite often, even with this particular intersection. Plus, it’s new so people aren’t used to it yet.

By: Jan

Jan — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 21:30:12 +0000

Maybe you meant northeast and not east, because we only use the blinky lights in Georgia when something is wrong with the light. People just don’t know how to use them here. That might be the reason why they don’t use them in Utah. Plus, it’s never a good idea to change the way a signal light works at an intersection unless there is very good cause. Changing the timing of a light frequently causes more wrecks than leaving it alone.

By: DavidH

DavidH — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 05:23:19 +0000

It was trying to avoid a red light on a late-night return from work that I got my latest ticket, several years ago now (knock on wood). Trying to get through the yellow light, I accelerated right past the policeman, who got me for speeding, I think, nothing related to the light. Oh well. Live and learn, I guess …

By: Levi

Levi — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 17:48:11 +0000

Although traffic sensors are nice when driving a car, they’re a royal pain when using a bicycle or other low-mass vehicle. I’d prefer the blinky yellow/red intersections to an eternal red light in those situations.

By: Renee

Renee — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 04:28:12 +0000

I believe the reason you don’t see it in Utah is because the drivers to the east of Utah are more cautious.

I’ll duck now. But seriously, maybe it’s only Bountiful but I’ve had a few vacations in SLC area and rush hour leaving SLC for Bountiful is an exercise is observing psychotic kamikaze behavior including but not limited to using shoulders as their own traffic lane, cutting off drivers with mere inches to spare and reckless passing. In fact, the only time I saw people slow down a little and pay attention was all the rubber necking during accidents (of which there were many).

And for the sake of disclosure, this midwest girl must say she is extremely cautious when driving out west because the mere thought of driving on a winding interstate with MountainsThisClose on either side is intimidating.

By: Seth

Seth — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 23:16:16 +0000

There’s a light like that at an intersection to get out of a football stadium parking lot nearby, which only has cars in it for rare sports events. It turns red all the time for almost 2 MINUTES when nobody is around for miles. I took the liberty to treat it as a stop sign the other day (when I wasn’t feeling too charitable toward Utah light systems), almost hoping a police would stop me so that I could tell him to get it fixed. In retrospect, not the greatest solution.

By: Cameron

Cameron — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 20:36:00 +0000

I have my own beef with having to stop for no reason. I got a ticket out of it that cost me $132 I think.

By: scott

scott — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 18:15:27 +0000

Another option, one that I’ve seen before, is to used traffic sensing lights. Utah doesn’t seem to use these sensors too often and drivers are stuck waiting for the timed lights to cycle. It is irritating.