Pedestrian Crossing Buttons

[punyXpress]

Well, most of us are pedestrians some of the time, but do the buttons actually DO anything?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23869955

[Fallout]

Interesting. Makes perfect sense to have them sometimes effective and sometimes not. I very rarely use them personally, because I'm capable of crossing in traffic, and prefer not to make people wait for me.

A more interesting investigation maybe which proportion of people who do press the buttons are overly cautious, who are simply conditioned sheep, and who are inconsiderate gits? :)

[dizzyblonde]

If you are blind and press the button, in most cases it activates a spinning knob under the unit. Which depresses back into the unit when the green man appears and is safe to cross.

So.....imo..... It works.

[daveyrach]

If you are blind and press the button, in most cases it activates a spinning knob under the unit. Which depresses back into the unit when the green man appears and is safe to cross.

So.....imo..... It works.


But if the green man comes on every 105 seconds at that junction in London doesn't logic say that the spinning knob will always be on and spinning until the green man appears, so every 105 seconds?

If it ineffective for a seeing person to press it would be ineffective for a blind person too surely?

[dizzyblonde]

But if the green man comes on every 105 seconds at that junction in London doesn't logic say that the spinning knob will always be on and spinning until the green man appears, so every 105 seconds?

If it ineffective for a seeing person to press it would be ineffective for a blind person too surely?

I see your point, but if the bulbs on the red and green man aren't working, the spinning knob still works.
I'm not going to stand and count to 105, just incase I get run over when I step out. ;)

Regardless of being timed by circuit, that spinning knob is still effective for a blind person.

[Spank86]

if the traffic lights are phased then it stands to reason the crossing ones must be also. Sometimes pressing the button includes the crossing in the phase where it might not be otherwise, other times enough people cross (especially in london) and the systems are integrated so the lights always come on.

Other times when the crossings are alone the buttons work as you'd expect.

[daveyrach]

I'm not going to stand and count to 105, just incase I get run over when I step out. ;)

Regardless of being timed by circuit, that spinning knob is still effective for a blind person.


I wouldn't either as that 105 seconds applies to that one crossing used in the report so you would likely get squished.

I completely agree with the spinning knob though, very effective for a blind person, not so much their dog though ;)

[ClunkintheUK]

Of course some pedestrian crossings are only timed, and the button is just for show. The light timings particularly in London are all timed against each other, based on how fast the traffic is expected to go, that'y why you get teh red light at the same stops each time on your commute. A pedestrian crossing in the middle of that going off randomly would completely mess up the flow of traffic. Its also why when there is an incident on one of the more major roads everything snarls up really fast, the rest of the traffic is not flowing the way its designed.

[chezvegas85]

never bother pressing them for the reason mentioned by fallout.

There was one on my previous route to work - back when i could walk and not drive to work - that i'm sure only changed once i was already crossing the thing, regardless of how long i waited for it, 1 second or a minute, once i started to cross as the road was empty it would instantly change over to green man red light. *

I lost what little faith i had in them at this point

*on a one way road just before a fairly busy 'mini' roundabout

[Spank86]

I completely agree with the spinning knob though, very effective for a blind person, not so much their dog though ;)
maybe it should be a spinning gravy bone

[PyroUK]

Meh.

There is a large-ish junction on my way home, 2 main roads cross and the lights for pedestrians are automated. It's nice as I know the sequence so can plan my approach depending on what the traffic ahead has done.

It also means I can get ahead of the cars as I know when the lights go green.

It also means that the pedestrians know when to cross, although it annoys me when they cross diagonally really slowly!

I find it a bit stupid that anyone can be getting annoyed by the whole thing. It makes sense that some are automated and some aren't.

Aside from the new version of the boxes that I have seen in London, the rest across the country are the same. Would we really want our council spending even more money on different boxes for each set of lights? Or be happy with the fact that costs are reduced by the fact they only need to buy one single thing that has the button?

The little spinny thing is not on all of them though, it's up to individual councils to invest the extra cash despite all the boxes being ready for them.

There is a group campaigning to have them mandatory to help the blind. But it's a long way off happening.

[Littlepeahead]

If I am with Chris8886 he gets really angry if you press the button then cross before the man goes green even if there's no traffic, so now I deliberately press the button then dash across before it changes and can be about 1/4 mile away before he finally crosses the road so he has to jog to catch me up.

We have a Pegasus crossing near our park, but I always worry what would happen if you got a colourblind horse.

http://www.ride-uk.org.uk/standard/peglights.jpg

[nikon70]

in america there was a button press to make the light change colour automatically instead of waiting for the lights to change according to what ever algorithm is set.

[TheRuffellator]

Anyone else notice the highly attractive females featured in the video :D That interested me more I must say


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