On Sat, 29 May 2004, John Rowland wrote:

"Jeremy Parker" wrote:

In the USA they often turnoff traffic lights at night. When off one
direction flashes yellow - that's the major road. The other direction
flashes red - flashing red means the same as a "stop" sign.

So what's the difference between a flashing yellow and a solid green?

Solid green means that non-emergency vehicles may not legally cross the
road you are on (although they can turn right/left on red).

Flashing yellow means someone might try to cross the road before you get
there (although you still have right of way), so watch out for them.

Here there are signals marked "Part time signals" that simply go dark when
they are turned off. In the U.S. they would run flashing yellow/flashing
red in the equivalent circumstance. A signal that is black in the U.S.
should be treated as a four-way stop sign.

Incidentally, since the average life span of a traffic light bulb here is
about none months, I would imagine that the life of these flashing bulbs
must be a few weeks, unless they always use LEDs in them.

In some U.S. municipalities they realized that the lower power consumption
of LEDs means that a replacement of a traffic signal bulb would pay for
itself in four years or so. So they started replacing all the bulbs even
before they burned out.
--
Michael Hoffman