Yellow traffic light?

[Pawelk198604]

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.

[Ignath]

Generally, Yellow lights are meant as a warning that a red light will soon appear. The general consensus of what to do when the light turns yellow is:

Slow to a STOP before the light.

If, for some reason (going too fast, light turns yellow 5 feet before you enter the intersection), you are unable to stop or slow down during the yellow light; proceed through the intersection, but only if you will make it through before the red light.

Pretty decent website on driving (specifically what to do w/a Yellow light) can be found here:

http://www.driversedguru.com/driving-articles/drivers-ed-extras/what-to-do-when-the-light-turns-yellow/

[Camacha]

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 yellow light means you have to stop, unless there is no reasonable or safe way of doing that (like when the light turns yellow just as you cross the line). If you could have stopped, but do not, you might get a ticket. This is to prevent people from being able to say that they ran a red light because it just turned red as they passed it. The yellow light is timed in such a fashion that it gives you a reasonable amount of time to stop before the light turns red.

[magnemoe]

Light is timed so you can either pass or slow down gradually before it switches.

Accelerate hard to get over before it switches might give you an ticket.

[smjjames]

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. :-(

Pfft, that is BS, I have aspergers and that doesn't affect my reflexes. I also can't drive, but that's due to something completely unrelated to aspergers, vision problems.

Unless you actually have some other problem that does affect your reflexes, I find that complete and utter BS.

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.

Uh, in the US at least, it goes green > yellow > red.

Ignath and Camacha already explained it though.

[Camacha]

Light is timed so you can either pass or slow down gradually before it switches.

Accelerate hard to get over before it switches might give you an ticket.

Passing without need might too, depending on your jurisdiction. If I interpret OP's words correctly, this is the case in Poland.

[sjwt]

The point of a yellow light ticket is supposed to be used for drivers who speed up to get through before a red light when they see a yellow one, often a police officer has to spend a specific amount of time following a car or such to 'estimate' the speed and book someone for speeding, but yellow light offences happen faster then a officer has available to do that, so instead they issue a ticket for not stopping when it was practical and preferred to do so...

So the police officer sees you increase the speed when you would otherwise have had to come to a stop, but can't legally estimate it, they can book you for running a yellow light.

[Ignath]

The point of a yellow light ticket is supposed to be used for drivers who speed up to get through before a red light when they see a yellow one, often a police officer has to spend a specific amount of time following a car or such to 'estimate' the speed and book someone for speeding, but yellow light offences happen faster then a officer has available to do that, so instead they issue a ticket for not stopping when it was practical and preferred to do so...

So the police officer sees you increase the speed when you would otherwise have had to come to a stop, but can't legally estimate it, they can book you for running a yellow light.

I don't think they can "book" you (arrest and charge you, i.e. book you into the jail) but they can certainly ticket you for failure to stop or running the light. Just semantics, but there is a big difference (at least in the US) between the two.

[sjwt]

I don't think they can "book" you (arrest and charge you, i.e. book you into the jail) but they can certainly ticket you for failure to stop or running the light. Just semantics, but there is a big difference (at least in the US) between the two.

We call getting a ticket being booked, as they write you a ticket out of the tieck book, arresting is just that.

[LordFerret]

I can't tell you how many times I'd been raked over the coals for this when I was in my teens (driver's Edu)..... but:

It's an "Amber" light, not 'Yellow'. This is defined pretty much globally by the SAE. Despite that, I'll guess 99% of the world refers to it as 'Yellow'; I've even heard police and court judges refer to it as such lol.

Previous posters are correct. The amber light is a signal of pending red (stop) light, and is allegedly timed for roadway posted speed and distance to intersection for normal breaking/stopping. Here where I live, for a while we had to deal with 'red light cameras', which would monitor and record drivers running through red lights and issue them a ticket/fine (they've since been over-ruled, for now). Anyway, some of the roadways had been marked with a narrow reflective white line (perpendicular to the road) to indicate and inform drivers if they could 'safely' pass through the amber light. There wasn't much notice made about this, and I think it was in experimental stages. What it boiled down to is: If you're doing the posted speed limit and you've crossed the line already when the light turns amber, you'll pass safely ... but if the light turns amber before you reach that line - you're not going to make it. I found it quite helpful myself. Zero tickets here.

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

[Camacha]

It's an "Amber" light, not 'Yellow'. This is defined pretty much globally by the SAE. Despite that, I'll guess 99% of the world refers to it as 'Yellow'; I've even heard police and court judges refer to it as such lol.

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.

[Deutherius]

Interesting. Here in Czech Republic (neighbouring Poland), yellow light signalizes the transition from green to red and also the other way around. As in "Warning, you should stop now" or "Warning, you will have to go soon". Or it might just be flashing, which means "it's not a rush hour now and I'm not going to needlessly stop traffic, use your eyes and common sense".

I haven't heard about anyone getting a ticket for running a yellow light, but it seems like a logical solution to people speeding up just before red light hits and potentionally causing crashes.

[KerikBalm]

Uh, in the US at least, it goes green > yellow > red.

Ahhhh, this may be getting to the issue here.

In Europe, there is a yellow light between every green and red.

A light may be red, then it will turn yellow, and then green. (And when its green, it turns yellow before turning red)

In this case, the yellow is to alert the driver that there will be a green soon.

Pretty much everyone starts to move when it turns yellow

And yet... I still often see people that somehow don't notice the light has turned green, and sit there holding up traffic until someone honks at them.

Perhaps that is what the OP is talking about

[Camacha]

In Europe, there is a yellow light between every green and red.

A light may be red, then it will turn yellow, and then green. (And when its green, it turns yellow before turning red)

In some countries the light turn yellow before green, in some it does not. It really depends on where you are within Europe.

[smjjames]

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.

Well, it's the one that's neither green or red, and is usually in between the two.

[LordFerret]

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.

"Amber is one of several technically defined colors used in automotive signal lamps. In North America, SAE standard J578 governs the colorimetry of vehicle lights,^[2] while outside North America the internationalized European ECE regulations hold force.^[3] Both standards designate a range of orange-yellow hues in the CIE color space as "amber".

In the past, the ECE amber definition was more restrictive than the SAE definition, but the current ECE definition is identical to the more permissive SAE standard. The SAE formally uses the term "yellow amber", though the color is most often referred to as "yellow". This is not the same as selective yellow, a color used in some fog lamps and headlamps.

" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_%28color%29#SAE.2FECE_amber

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

http://www.cie.co.at/index.php/Publications/index.php?i_ca_id=466

http://cie.mogi.bme.hu/cie_arch/kee/newcie/publ/abst/s004.html

[Nibb31]

Ahhhh, this may be getting to the issue here.

In Europe, there is a yellow light between every green and red.

Not everywhere in Europe. In France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland(the places I've driven), it's Green > Yellow > Red > Green.

[Vanamonde]

Yellow as it's going from red to green? What the what? Say you come around a corner and the light is yellow. How do you know whether to stop or not?

[sumghai]

Yellow as it's going from red to green? What the what? Say you come around a corner and the light is yellow. How do you know whether to stop or not?

Assume the worst-case scenario and stop anyway.

In Australia and New Zealand, amber/yellow means one must stop (unless it's unsafe to do so). If you're rounding a corner, you're presumably already slowing down anyway to do so, so stopping shouldn't be difficult.

[ZetaX]

Not everywhere in Europe. In France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland(the places I've driven), it's Green > Yellow > Red > Green.

No. In Germany it is: Green -> Yellow -> Red -> Red+Yellow -> Green.

That also answers Vanamonde's comment on how you know which one it is. But it wouldn't be a problem anyway because if you just came around a corner, the reaction on a yellow light should always be "drive there slowly/carefully".

[peadar1987]

Yellow as it's going from red to green? What the what? Say you come around a corner and the light is yellow. How do you know whether to stop or not?

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!

[jwenting]

Ahhhh, this may be getting to the issue here.

In Europe, there is a yellow light between every green and red.

A light may be red, then it will turn yellow, and then green. (And when its green, it turns yellow before turning red)

Not in all or even most of Europe. It depends on the country.

In the Netherlands there's no red-yellow-green.

Yellow is shown only (and solid) between green and red, or flashing as a warning that the lights are inoperable.

And yes, it's definitely not allowed to jump a yellow light without good reason. You're supposed to come to a safe stop if at all possible.

- - - Updated - - -

Yellow as it's going from red to green? What the what? Say you come around a corner and the light is yellow. How do you know whether to stop or not?

anywhere I've seen red-yellow-green it's either red->red+yellow->green or red->yellow+green->green to give indication that the light is going to turn green soon. In some places that's achieved instead by the green flashing together with the red for a few seconds. And in a few rare places I've seen timers places next to the lights, counting down to the next green cycle. In most places there's no indication of course.

[KerikBalm]

Not everywhere in Europe. In France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland(the places I've driven), it's Green > Yellow > Red > Green.

Umm.... I live in Geneva, and it most certainly does go from red to yellow before turning green.

I thought it was the same in nearby france, but I haven't paid much attention to it.

[Pawelk198604]

Interesting. Here in Czech Republic (neighbouring Poland), yellow light signalizes the transition from green to red and also the other way around. As in "Warning, you should stop now" or "Warning, you will have to go soon". Or it might just be flashing, which means "it's not a rush hour now and I'm not going to needlessly stop traffic, use your eyes and common sense".

I haven't heard about anyone getting a ticket for running a yellow light, but it seems like a logical solution to people speeding up just before red light hits and potentionally causing crashes.

It's sometime happen in Poland too, in my city, yellow flashing light. I wonder why turn-off normal traffic light, if there already here why not use them?

Some of traffic light that have countdown timer that show when the light turn from green to red and vice versa.

[magnemoe]

It's sometime happen in Poland too, in my city, yellow flashing light. I wonder why turn-off normal traffic light, if there already here why not use them?

Some of traffic light that have countdown timer that show when the light turn from green to red and vice versa.

Two reasons, one might be an technical fail in the control system, second is in the sensors: traffic light depend on sensors in the road to know then cars are waiting, yes they can just switch blind but in this case its usually better to turn it off.

You can often see lights switch colors depending on traffic.