I always thought that traffic signals should be trying to minimize squared anger, where anger increases linearly with time spent waiting at intersection.
one thing that drives me nuts is a left turn arrow that isn't long enough to clear all the cars waiting in the left turn lane. So often, it would only need another 5-10 seconds but it seems to have a limit that it can't exceed. This leads to frustrated drivers trying to squeeze through on the yellow light or even the red.
Also red left turn signals should not be a thing. If there's a gap in the oncoming traffic you should be allowed to turn left across it as long as the straight-ahead traffic has a green light.
The only possible second-or-third order effect of red cross-traffic arrows is to decrease the downstream traffic on the cross road. Mostly, the places where I encounter them have a low traffic cross road. IMHO, in those situations, red cross-traffic arrows are simply a failed "traffic engineering fad".
(Edited to fix a typo and generalize "red left-arrow" to "red cross-traffic arrow" to account for left-side-of-the-road driving systems.)
I'll grant that it might be safer for pedestrians, as then they only have to watch for right-turning traffic and not people turning left from the opposite side of the road. There are a lot of intersections that rarely see pedestrian traffic though.
Loren_SL · · focus · HN ↗
SoftTalker · · focus · HN ↗
Also red left turn signals should not be a thing. If there's a gap in the oncoming traffic you should be allowed to turn left across it as long as the straight-ahead traffic has a green light.
fghorow · · focus · HN ↗
The only possible second-or-third order effect of red cross-traffic arrows is to decrease the downstream traffic on the cross road. Mostly, the places where I encounter them have a low traffic cross road. IMHO, in those situations, red cross-traffic arrows are simply a failed "traffic engineering fad".
(Edited to fix a typo and generalize "red left-arrow" to "red cross-traffic arrow" to account for left-side-of-the-road driving systems.)
SoftTalker · · focus · HN ↗
fghorow · · focus · HN ↗