I don’t remember ever seeing “combined lights” with single red or yellow lamps and multiple greens. Level crossings often have only red and yellow lights, missing green.
Traffic lights are positioned at the entrances to intersections, not the exits. They also come with backup signs (stop sign, yield sign, etc.) for when the lights are disabled or defective. Working traffic lights override these signs.
Solid green also means an unprotected left turn that must yield to oncoming traffic.
A green arrow traffic light can override a solid red to give you a protected turn. A green right arrow on a sign gives you an unprotected right turn on a red. Without this, you cannot turn right on a red.
Flashing yellow means ‘caution’ in general and is usually used on auxiliary lights to warn about crossing pedestrians after a turn, who have right of way. When the main traffic lights are flashing yellow, they’re disabled or defective.
I remember that the city I grew up in, long ago, used to disable many traffic lights at night. Their website claims that “due to the large number of visually impaired and blind citizens, the traffic lights at the most important traffic junctions are kept in operation at night”, so I guess this still continues. The village I’m living in these days has no traffic lights at all.
They also disable many lights at night here in south Florida (but I’m sure it’s common everywhere in the U.S.) to where one road gets permanent flashing yellow and the other gets flashing red (stop sign).
That’s interesting that they’re all positioned at the beginning of the intersections. That would take me some getting used to, but it’s probably safer since it forces you to stop further from the intersection to see the signal
In Germany:
I don’t remember ever seeing “combined lights” with single red or yellow lamps and multiple greens. Level crossings often have only red and yellow lights, missing green.
Traffic lights are positioned at the entrances to intersections, not the exits. They also come with backup signs (stop sign, yield sign, etc.) for when the lights are disabled or defective. Working traffic lights override these signs.
Solid green also means an unprotected left turn that must yield to oncoming traffic.
A green arrow traffic light can override a solid red to give you a protected turn. A green right arrow on a sign gives you an unprotected right turn on a red. Without this, you cannot turn right on a red.
Flashing yellow means ‘caution’ in general and is usually used on auxiliary lights to warn about crossing pedestrians after a turn, who have right of way. When the main traffic lights are flashing yellow, they’re disabled or defective.
I remember that the city I grew up in, long ago, used to disable many traffic lights at night. Their website claims that “due to the large number of visually impaired and blind citizens, the traffic lights at the most important traffic junctions are kept in operation at night”, so I guess this still continues. The village I’m living in these days has no traffic lights at all.
They also disable many lights at night here in south Florida (but I’m sure it’s common everywhere in the U.S.) to where one road gets permanent flashing yellow and the other gets flashing red (stop sign).
That’s interesting that they’re all positioned at the beginning of the intersections. That would take me some getting used to, but it’s probably safer since it forces you to stop further from the intersection to see the signal