On a slightly more serious note: I really wonder what’s going on in your mind when you press that button and cross anyway. Is it just because “I don’t care”, or is there more to it? If so: what?
EDIT: In case it’s because you don’t care: why do you press the button then?
Having been guilty of that at least once - you press the button and then realise there is sufficient gap in the traffic that you didn’t need the assistance of the lights to cross safely. You cross with each step layering the burden of guilt until you escape line-of-sight of the crossing. Then you can continue in blissful ignorance of the two drivers that just lost 20 seconds of their day and 5p in petrol.
And in guessing the Kyoto Protocol had minimal affect as most countries continued on with the attitude ‘so anyway, growth.’
Yeah I’ve done that a few times. These days, depending on the road and how busy it is, I’ll wait a few seconds in hopes that a gap opens and press the buttoj if one doesn’t.
Last week I saw a teenage girl walk past a crossing, push the button, then carry on walking on the same side. I guess that’s some kind of rebellious spirit.
There’s only one light controlled crossing near where I live, and it’s because the crossing is either badly designed or set up.
It’s not an urban crossing with hordes of pedestrians constantly crossing - it was installed probably because of the bus stop on the other side of the road from the old people’s sheltered accomodation, and also because at school times kids cross there to get the bus.
The problem is that the crossing might not have been used for several minutes, but when you reach it and press the button, instead of instantly starting the lights changing, it makes you wait for a full minute or so before starting to change the lights…by which time, there’s been a gap in the traffic and you can cross anyway. This almost malicious design of crossing is going to make this inevitable. It is the pedestrian that is in the howling wind and pissing rain, motorists are in climate controlled 1500kg suits of armour and quite frankly can wait for 20 seconds.
I’m really just guessing but I read that there’s a bit more to it when installing these lights. Oftentimes, engineers set up a timing system so that a series of lights will turn green (to cars) in a chain, allowing traffic to get through and not idle a lot on a long, straight stretch of road. So first it’s green on one end, then assuming cruising speed the second one turns green a bit later a few hundred metres down, then the third a bit later, and so on. I’m assuming buttonless, automatic lights.
Now, I can imagine that these work the same way, only that they don’t turn green (to the pedestrian) when nobody is around, pressing buttons (making the traffic pass even faster, reducing the amount of fumes they leave). Once you press the button, maybe it still tries to maintain the same timing and it waits for its turn.
But in this instance there’s no series of lights. There is nothing to sequence. The only traffic light within literally 5 miles of this one is a traffic light that controls a single lane stretch into a piece of dead-end road, about a mile and a half away and not even on the same route. The next nearest traffic light is in a different town.
I think most people have been guilty of this at least once in their life. Sometimes you’re just walking deep in thought, approach the lights and press the button and realised you never really looked at the traffic conditions.
Something similar has happened to me as well, BUT the question arose in my head when I saw this guy walk toward the button confidently, press it without stopping and crossing immediately. Then it got me thinking.
I will confess that the other day I pressed the button, then saw a friend of mine in the distance, stopped to wave at them, and then by the time we’d waved at one another I realised that the lights had changed, the traffic had waited, and the lights had changed again… All while I’d been looking the other way like a lemon…
Many of those buttons are made to work like placebo anyways
What makes you think so? There may be a reason they don’t turn green immediately. I’ll link my guess in a sec.
Because those buttons are linked to CCTV headquarters where there needs to be a traffic agent to review every request, and assess whether there isn’t too much traffic to turn it green. there are automatic ones paired with loads of sensors. but because you can’t have as many surveillors as requests in busy cities. a great deal of them are set-up just to let you wait patiently and candidly until the count down runs out as programmed.
Alright, I looked them up because it seemed quite unlikely to me that a human person would have to constantly stare at 8 real time camera images at the same time, pressing buttons when people can pass. Apparently, it’s all automated (see Wiki), but yes, an actual human will review the footage if you cross a red light with a vehicle. I didn’t find any evidence of Mr. Baumgartner eating doughnuts, staring at a screen and laughing to himself as he refuses to press the “you can go” button while watching you wait at a traffic light. It would sound pretty inefficient and resource heavy to me.
Feel free to correct me if I read it a bit too quickly and missed a bit referring to that.
Here read about the placebo pedestrian call buttons Pedestrian call buttons
Wow, that’s cool, thanks!
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