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Yellow traffic light?


Pawelk198604

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In the UK it's: Green -> Orange -> Red -> Red and Orange -> Green

Red and orange at the same time gives you a wee bit to get the clutch set up and ready to drive off.

Edit: Ninjad because I took 4 minutes to look out the window at the traffic lights before posting and make sure I remembered how they worked!

Also at pedestrian crossings, the amber light will flash (along with the green man) for several seconds, to give pedestrians adequate time to cross before the traffic lights turn green. The cycle-to-red is the same as above though.

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Yeah, these things vary depending on jurisdiction. Britain has a good one I feel with the two distinct intermediate signals. At pedestrian crossings you get flashing amber after red, which means you can go once any pedestrians have completely cleared the crossing. (Mind you, over here pedestrians can and will cross anywhere they like anyway)

Likewise, whether it's legal to pass through an amber light will vary, and I admit to not knowing the law on this in Britain. But it's definitely bad driving to try and beat the amber light.

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...Of course the old joke is: Green light means 'Go', Amber light means 'Go Faster'. ;)

Some places I've been, the drivers seem to think it goes:

Green light means 'Go',

Amber light means 'Go Faster',

Red light means 'Two More Cars'.

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.00.It might be referred to as "yellow", but by standards definition it is "amber"... my point.

It is not. That was my point. The local law defines what the color is and that often defines it as yellow or orange. This could be derived from some international standard known as amber, but when that definition is not actually carried and formalized in local law as such, it means the definition is different. If the law would say the color is purple, the definition would be purple, not amber. Insisting it should actually be amber is factually wrong.

If the law speaks of yellow, the definition is yellow. Not referred to. Per definition, by law.

Edited by Camacha
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The amber referred to in English-speaking motoring law is very strictly defined, and named as "amber". Best you read up on the wikipedia article, where the definition is given.

That's irrelevant. I am not even sure if it is actually called amber throughout all of the former commonwealth, but that would also be irrelevant.

It is _not_ called amber in several european countries. Here, have the german one: https://dejure.org/gesetze/StVO/37.html. In case you don't speak german: they call it "gelb", which is simply yellow.

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I wonder why turn-off normal traffic light, if there already here why not use them?

Dunno about all of them, but you will be expecting two modes on some of the main intersections - rush hours, when there will be a lot of cars, and they will need proper guidance, and not-rush hours, when there might be, say, 2 cars per minute - it doesn't make sense to hold that one car up for half a minute when there are no other cars around.

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The amber referred to in English-speaking motoring law is very strictly defined, and named as "amber".

Correct. In most other countries it is equally strictly defined as yellow, yellow-orange or orange (depending on what and where exactly). As I posted before, I looked at the actual laws in several countries and how those define the colours. Depending on where you are either yellow or orange and sometimes amber is correct, though yellow and/or orange seem a lot more prevalent than the incidentally occurring amber.

Besides some English speaking nations, none actually use the term amber.

Edited by Camacha
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  • 1 year later...
On 6/28/2015 at 9:22 AM, Pawelk198604 said:

I have Asperger's, but still do not have a driving license, my boss says that he doubted that any doctor sign me permission, he believes that my reflexes would be a very bad driver. :-(

I began to get acquainted with the road code, it seems that here in Poland, a police officer may give a penalty ticket, if driver drive through the intersection when the light turned yellow, I do not understand, after the yellow light is not red ones.

A little history can clear this up.

While the thread has become a debate about amber and yellow, I'm going to return to the original topic and simply refer to it as yellow. :)

Traffic lights at one time were only red and green and had no warning a red indication was coming.

Some areas developed to yellow while others simply had the red and green on at the same time briefly.

The yellow technically and legally has the same meaning as a green. You are allowed to enter the intersection during a yellow indication. However, with the addition of a yellow light to warn of the imminent red, you rarely have a valid excuse if you enter on red.

And if you have to speed up to make it you either were going too fast in the first place or were playing Pokémon and not paying attention.

And additionally, you officially enter the intersection when the front of your vehicle crosses the stop bar painted on the road.

So, the yellow is just and extension of the green that warns your right-of-way to pass the stop bar is ending.

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3 hours ago, Wisecrac99 said:

The yellow technically and legally has the same meaning as a green. You are allowed to enter the intersection during a yellow indication. However, with the addition of a yellow light to warn of the imminent red, you rarely have a valid excuse if you enter on red.

I think that depends on jurisdiction, here the law is this:

 (6)  Where a yellow or amber light alone is shown at an intersection by a traffic-control signal following a green light

             (a)  the driver of a vehicle approaching the intersection and facing the yellow or amber light shall stop the vehicle at a clearly marked stop line or, if none, then immediately before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection or, where there is no crosswalk, then immediately before entering the intersection, unless a stop cannot be made in safety; and

The rule here is that you have to stop for a yellow unless you cannot do so safely. Gunning it to make the yellow is not permitted, and traffic officers here can and do give tickets for running a yellow light.

* * *

Moved this over to the Lounge, it's not really a Kerbal Network thread.

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Now that I've actually been driving for just over a year, I know the rules in the UK. And indeed, amber means stop behind the marked stop line unless you're so close to the line that stopping would be physically impossible or likely to cause an accident. In practice when I'm driving and see the light ahead turn amber I have to make a quick decision whether to stop or go. Red means stop, period. And both mean stop behind the line - even being a foot over it counts as running the red light in the eyes of the law. I know one or two junctions where the stop line is set far back and overshooting it might seem like no big deal, until there's a big truck turning the other way and you realise why the stop line was set back! Oh and red and amber means stop too, it's just telling you the light's about to go green.

Of course I think almost every driver technically runs ambers, and many will misjudge and accidentally run the red from time to time.

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20 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I think that depends on jurisdiction, here the law is this:

 (6)  Where a yellow or amber light alone is shown at an intersection by a traffic-control signal following a green light

             (a)  the driver of a vehicle approaching the intersection and facing the yellow or amber light shall stop the vehicle at a clearly marked stop line or, if none, then immediately before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection or, where there is no crosswalk, then immediately before entering the intersection, unless a stop cannot be made in safety; and

The rule here is that you have to stop for a yellow unless you cannot do so safely. Gunning it to make the yellow is not permitted, and traffic officers here can and do give tickets for running a yellow light.

* * *

Moved this over to the Lounge, it's not really a Kerbal Network thread.

Stopping safely in this setting is braking comfortable, An car with abs is safe even if braked at maximum all the way to standstill, it would not be nice to the car behind you either. 
The light is timed so it goes yellow for so long time cars can either pass or stop before it turn red. 
Think people abuses the yellow light more if its a lot of queue, worst case is then you get cars standing in the crossover as the queue continues to the next crossover. 

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2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

An car with abs is safe even if braked at maximum all the way to standstill, it would not be nice to the car behind you either. 

Well if the car behind you doesn't have as good brakes, it's gonna crash into you. I always assume that's what would be meant by stopping unsafely.

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On Sunday, June 28, 2015 at 6:20 PM, Camacha said:

Oh dear, that is opening a whole can of shaky definitions. Amber is a spectrum and yellow is an even wider spectrum, so saying that is the only correct definition will only lead to a whole heap of trouble. If the whole world uses one term and some organisation another, even if that organisation strives for standardisation, it would be reasonable to say the whole world is correct.

Edit: your statements seem to be untrue. I checked the legal definitions of a number of countries and those speak of yellow or yellow to orange lights. Only English speaking countries tend to use the term amber. As the law defines what constitutes a traffic light, it seems that yellow, orange and amber all are correct terms, depending on what jurisdiction you are in.

Of course only English speaking countries use amber, it's an English word! But really only in traffic light standards or when talking about petrified tree sap!

Where I am from the law *specifically* states that yellow (or amber) traffic light means you must stop unless it is unsafe to do so. So If a policeman sees you passing a yellow and judges that it was in fact safe to stop, they could potentially give you a fine for disobeying a traffic light.

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6 hours ago, cantab said:

Well if the car behind you doesn't have as good brakes, it's gonna crash into you. I always assume that's what would be meant by stopping unsafely.

Yes, however the car behind should stay so far behind he can stop if you do an emergency brake. If he hit you its his fail. If your motorbike get rear ended by an truck its nice to know.
An comfortable braking is one your mother don't complain about if it was acceleration or centrifugal force. 
This fails if your mother do motor sport. 

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While it's true that you should not follow the car in front so closely that you cannot stop if they do, it's also true in Britain at least that if you brake hard without a good reason and it causes an accident, the insurers and the police are likely to take a dim view of your actions.

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I checked my local rules, and I'd love to see exactly how the law describes it, but yellow is indeed taken to mean stop. Running the yellow is a bigger issue for intersections that rely on the yellow to facilitate most or all of the left turns during heavy traffic. People running yellows can mean that only one car can make it through the left turn, instead of the 2 or 3 common to larger intersections during the light change.\

We have no transition back to green in Canada, but we also put traffic lights on the far side of the intersection, so anyone at the front can just look at the lights for another direction (or the pedestrian lights) and see what is happening.

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6 hours ago, cantab said:

Unverified reports state that the driver of that blue Peugeot got jail time for the above incident.

I hope so. I wish more irresponsible drivers would get jail time... For some reason we seem to give drivers a free pass when their negligence leads to an injury or death, while the same lack of regard for other's safety and well-being with a weapon would certainly land a person in jail. Taking a run at a pedestrian or cyclist because he's in the way, driving at ludicrous speed, or stopping at random on the motorway in an effort to "teach another driver a lesson about driving slow in the fast lane" (among other things) should also be regarded as criminal behavior.

Edited by PakledHostage
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20 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

I hope so. I wish more irresponsible drivers would get jail time... For some reason we seem to give drivers a free pass when their negligence leads to an injury or death

This was not negligence. This was intent. The law treats them very differently.

 

On 15/12/2016 at 5:36 AM, PakledHostage said:

Like this [redacted]?

[video]

It should be noted that even though the driver filming this prevented the first accident, he was following the blue car much too closely, both practically and legally. As a rule of thumb, the next vehicle should pass the same marker/sign two seconds or later after the first. This is not even half a second. If the blue car slammed the brakes due to an emergency, there would have been nowhere to go.

Some comments note that this was not actually a scam, but an ill-fated attempt to show the lorry driver he was following too close.

Edited by Camacha
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You can actually get a ticket for running a green light, generally for anticipating a green and either cruising through without stopping or trying to jump the light, as if drag racing. The thing is that you have to ensure cross traffic has in fact stopped before proceeding on a green light, or you could be ticketed. 

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