3:55 or so we see a CDL driver go through the red light. As a CDL driver one of the things that is difficult about this is the short yellow period. Believe it or not, the normal yellow period is too short for many commercial vehicles, so we use other clues in addition to the light. (I spend so much time looking at crosswalk countdown signals you could be forgiven for thinking I’m walking instead of driving a 24 ton vehicle.)
I am extremely confused by the chicane gate. All black with a few reflective strips makes it difficult to see in the dark. Plus, the overall design of these specifically seem worse than 2-3 bollards.
Ask yourself, why a HAWK set up rather than a conventional Red-Yellow-Green traffic light? There is really no cost savings with a HAWK. I think because the misguided traffic engineers feared a driver of 2 tons of killer steel would be "delayed" more than absolutely "necessary". Jeeesh! A simple traffic light is understood by everyone, but could mean drivers are "delayed" a few seconds because the crossing interval is timed for pedestrians.
This is the likely answer, although the answer when it was first installed was probably that a typical signal would not meet the MUTCD warrants for installation since the crossing and trail were built at the same time. Signal warrants are less strict now and I believe a typical signal could very easily be installed (I explained some of this in my last video about my solutions for this crossing)
I can’t remember which video i seen but i think it mentioned under current standards you need at least 100 pedestrians per hour or 200 over 3 hours to even be considered for a study to put in a full traffic signal.
@@everydayengineering I worked for a state DOT Traffic Engineering group in the 1980s and we struggled with the MUTCD signal warrants. I did signal warrant analysis, along with "accident" (now "crash") analysis. We always had a way to get a signal if we really wanted to. It was mostly internal policy that stood in the way of a signal, not the standards themselves. In any event, many cities and small towns are writing the traffic engineers out of the equation as they realize the total failure standards developed in the 1960s and 70s have resulted in. (For example, a minimum number of pedestrians per hour needed to inconvenience drivers by installing a signal.) Cities and towns have been turning to architects for answers, and begrudgingly, I can't blame them.
Part of the reason HAWKs are used rather than standard light is because if standard lights go out of service for whatever reason, they are legally required to be treated as stop signs, and having every car come to a complete stop on a major road like this for no reason is going to cause real trouble. Whereas when a HAWK is faulty, drivers will proceed as normal, hopefully with caution, giving way to anyone already on the crossing. Peds will have to wait for an opportunity to cross though. It would be smarter if there were signs on approach that explain in as few words as possible what to do. That sign overhead at the crossing itself will only ever be read by drivers who have already stopped or slowed to a point where they will just yield to peds even when the beacon isn't active.
One problem is it seems to be 20 seconds from pushing the beg button until the flashing yellow starts. Cars stop, expecting the pedestrian or bicycle they see on the sidewalk to then cross, but they usually don't cross, because they have a red light telling them not to. Then the drivers, tired of waiting for nothing, start going just as the light activates. The delay also encourages pedestrians to cross without waiting for the light. Then, drivers lose respect for the light, because they so often wait for nobody. The signal would work a lot better if it started flashing yellow as soon as somebody pressed the beg button.
Its a great point, and maybe this would work more effectively if the trail was not well used, then all button actuations would result in an immediate signal. But since this trail is extremely popular, people often arrive during the 30 sec cooldown, which exists to prioritize traffic flow
@@everydayengineering The problem is the lighter traffic times. If the yellow started flashing immediately, most drivers would run the yellow, but it only lasts a few seconds and then the red would be on and the pedestrians could go. That cycle would eliminate this period where the nice drivers stop and then everybody is staring at each other waiting for the other to go. In really busy times, it would just end up functioning like an urban intersection with alternating traffic, through a pedestrian lock out for a few seconds after the pedestrian cycle. Pedestrians & bicyclists are used to waiting under that sort of circumstance. Those cycles would still have one of the current problems, with the occasional nice driver stopping and everybody staring at each other for a few seconds, but it would eliminate that situation most of the time.
In the Netherlands we have those kinds of crossings, but we use just plain normal old Red-Yellow-Green lights. from our perspective the US has some weird&confusing traffic signals.
We even use normal traffic sequences in this style of pedestrian only crossing The park by my apartment has a similar crossing, but it's got slightly worse physical infrastructure and a normal red yellow green light. It stays green until triggered red by the button, and pedestrians can cross. It might not have a compliance rate as high as other, typical stop lights, since it's beg only, but it's absolutely higher than this.
What I’ve noticed is the problem with the PHB especially is the flashing yellow phase. Drivers will try to yield for that phase and I’ve been pressured through a red bike light or orange hand because drivers see the flashing yellow as an RRFB type signal. It’s just confusing.
This also highlights the lack of continuing education for drivers. We should force retraining of drivers at regular intervals. Not a full blown road test, but we keep adding new things. (Round abouts, center turn lanes, HAWK lights.) but we never require that people be educated on these.
CT recently passed legislation that would require drivers to watch an informational video before renewing their license to get up to speed on new traffic laws and things such as how to drive around bike lanes, roundabouts, etc. However it will only be required at every other renewal, which ends up being every 16 years.
To be fair this could literally just work like a regular stoplight, triggered red only by the beg button. It's actually a great crossing otherwise, with pretty decent physical infrastructure. The physical infrastructure even communicates to drives to look for pedestrians - you see many stop even without the signal! Bollards would genuinely be the only real physical improvement to the intersection. Everyone knows green means go, yellow means press on a pedal, and red means stop, and they've likely known for longer than they've known how to drive. Just use that exact same light sequence that nearly everyone in the country knows Problem solved
The modern solution to this in the UK is to use a standard traffic light sequence that is activated when a pedestrian pressed the button. During the pedestrian clearance period, sensors detect when pedestrians have finished crossing and shorten or lengthen the red light for vehicles as needed.
These are confusing I think. Was always taught a dark signal meant treat as a stop. Now these signals are usually dark, so people ignore them. Training them to ignore all dead lights (power outage etc) Additionally no one seems to know what flashing red means on these signals. Green lights that change to red for a ped crossing are so much simpler.
the problem is people don't take the HAWK or PHB signals seriously. When they see the shape, they feel (to them) it's not a real signal. They just need to install regular traffic signals at these types of crosswalks to make people actually stop.
The HAWK is peak US traffic "engineering". How can we over complicate something just so we don't have to actually create an environment that naturally forces drivers to slow down and yield to other road users.
I grew up in the '80s going to a church that has a regular-looking stoplight activated by pushbutton at a mid-block crossing, so I find it baffling how the guidelines have pushed engineers to things like this and RRFBs. I don't know if the church generates the foot traffic on Sundays alone to officially warrant it or if the city just decided to do it despite whatever the guidelines are. These are weird signals, confusing with the railroad-like flashing. We just use regular stoplights around fire stations that need to block traffic as vehicles exit. Just pretend this crossing is for a church or fire department
This signal/setup clearly doesn't work here. That stupid sign saying motor vehicles may not stop on countdown? To me, that's like a wet floor sign and therefore a lawsuit waiting to happen... Though will anybody do that against a city or town, good question. What if they switched it out for those standard flashy beacons... Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons? No 30 sec-cool down crap, and just flashes/stop when occupied. Maybe even, put up some sensors on the path so that one doesn't even necessarily have to hit a button, just the option to hit the button if the sensors don't work/fail to recognize a PED. I did see your last video. That being said, I wonder if that would be a better option given that they already have this setup and maybe don't necessarily have a huge budget? I don't know, though, maybe it would be cheaper to reconstruct it. Either way... Them gates have gotta go, especially if they want that path to be usable. I hope I never have to deal with chicane gates like those in my riding.
Great video, thank you. In my mind a HAWK beacon would make sense in the context of a mid block crossing on a higher-speed roadway with multiple lanes in each direction. Though you could argue that kind of "stroad" environment shouldnt have been created in the first place, and you could just do a normal traffic light. This one is kind of a "victim" of the success of the ped island and traffic calming measures. If that stuff wasnt there I doubt youd have as many cars voluntarily stopping for bikes/peds at the crosswalk. Those gates are insane though!!
The chicanes and ambiguity of the HAWK beacon make this crossing dangerous for people on the trail to use and for confusing for road users. Unfortunately, I imagine fixing this intersection is a low-priority for the regional planners.
I agree completely. And sadly it will take multiple people getting hit here until the town/state decide to do something. The strange thing about this crossing is that even though it causes massive confusion for everyone, in the last 5 years there have only been 20 crashes here, none involving bikes/peds, mostly just drivers rear ending each other. So the potential safety issues are likely not on anyone’s mind
Why would anyone install a chicane when bollards and a gate that can be opened to allow trail management vehicles through do the same job but better? Why are we forcing cyclists to swerve into oncoming people by breaking the direction of travel? Bollards will still cause cyclists to slow down because it is a narrow gap and they don’t want to hit the posts.
i know theres a benefit to them, but tbh i dont think HAWK lights are really necessary, just give people signals that theyre used to. Everyone knows what flashing single red and single yellow mean, but the first time i saw a HAWK light i thought it was like a RR signal and kept waiting for it to turn off.
Raise it, make it so the median forces drivers to divert around the pedestrian median and put the signal before the crossing. This all is pretty much standard in The Netherlands and i know the US can do the same.
These are good for wide roads/multiple lanes where you can't see the pedestrians. The main road by my house has 2 or 3 of these and they're better than a traditional ped crossing with the small LED lights on the side of the road.
This whole confusion stems from that unneeded delay between pushing the button and the actual beginning of lights blinking. Remove it and case is closed.
As a British Columbian, I don't know why pedestrian controlled traffic lights with the flashing green signal aren't more common elsewhere. We don't have this problem here.
It’s an interesting point - here in the states we are not allowed to use flashing green, so it would take a change at the national level to edit the MUTCD
@@everydayengineeringoh I see very interesting. Well you could probably just use a normal traffic light as you mentioned but have it be pedestrian controlled.
We both have these and crosswalks. I thought only a few states were adopting these atrocities but seeing hawks getting deployed in WA was truly disappointing. I'm not super fond of the blinking green personally because it adds a layer of possible confusion (it could just be solid green). I understood the meaning but that was coming from jurisdictions where blinking green is used in lieu of arrows sometimes to state priority.
Should be either a signal or an RRFB. Put passive detection for the RRFB on the trail so that drivers have advance notice of bikes and runners. PA has still not permitted PHBs because of this confusion. Also, drivers are taught to stop at dark signals and alternating flashing red signals.
I like the idea of automatically actuated RRFBs - I passed through a series of crossings in Cape Cod that had them and they worked great. Plus at this crossing, drivers are already willing to yield as if the crosswalk was uncontrolled, so that behavior plus advance warning flashing lights could really make this solid
That sign doesn't mean they're forgiving drivers who don't stop. It's obviously telling the pedestrians to look out because drivers are humans and not everyone knows what the fuck that signal is! And the stop bar is like 150 ft from the actual signal... So the light was probably still yellow when those three cars passed over the stop bar... 🤦♀️
Biggest problem is just the flashing red Nobody knows what that means If the signaling worked like a regular light, just triggered to red anytime someone pressed the beg button.... you'd see a much much higher compliance rate. The actual crossing is great - paint is decent, signage is decent, and the fact there's an island is better than not only most of these signals I've seen, but better than a shit ton of stoplights It just has literally the dumbest light setup ever that nobody is ever taught in drivers Ed. Was this designed by someone from an alternate reality or something? Canada?
The only reason to implement these is to increase ticket rates because 99% of drivers are going to have no idea what that is and will most likely never see it again unless they live locally
Not surprising at all unfortunately. I will not be using this signal when I cross there as I don't see how it helps. It's dangerous to have inconsistent expectations of drivers.
Honestly I think this crossing would be better with just a RRFB rather than a HAWK. The HAWK makes people pay attention to the signal rather than each other.
Germany (with driver education) is slowly phasing out the concept of "flashing red" due to low compliance (we only used it for low-volume rail crossings anyway). The US (with no driver education) is spreading it everywhere… Find the problem.
Flashing red aren't only used for railway crossings, Vienna Convention allow flashing red at level crossing, swing bridge, airport, fire station or ferry terminal.
Everything about this crossing is designed to punish people that are not in a vehicle. I am all about innovative designs, but the Hawkeye is terrible. It seems like there is no issue with people yielding. As someone that cycles and walks frequently, I find that at least 70% of people typically yield to you. Especially if you assert yourself, the number goes up to about 95%. I don’t think the signal is effective, and it should just be removed. Maybe some flashing Amber lights that come on when you walk to the crosswalk. Also, probably just a standard traffic signal is OK. You might have to wait for 30 seconds, but it’s really not the end of the world.
Maybe if it was a traffic light!? Ive SEEN pedestrian traffic lights, like an actual traffic light. I stopped, as did everyone else. Ive never seen this before. It doesnt seem like its a legal thing if you've never seen it before. Flashing red means i can go with caution?.. like a schoolbus or railroad signal? No thats not how that works. We already HAVE SOMETHING ITS A TRAFFIC LIGHT
An RRFB crossing would make way more sense, along with the traffic calming measures you mentioned in your previous video! The chicane gates are just awful. No way they are ADA compliant!
Outside the US, this crossing would just have a flashing yellow beacon or normal traffic lights where lights only turn red when pedestrians activates the button.
“Traffic may not stop” is absolutely crazy that they even need to put that sign up
3:55 or so we see a CDL driver go through the red light.
As a CDL driver one of the things that is difficult about this is the short yellow period. Believe it or not, the normal yellow period is too short for many commercial vehicles, so we use other clues in addition to the light. (I spend so much time looking at crosswalk countdown signals you could be forgiven for thinking I’m walking instead of driving a 24 ton vehicle.)
I am extremely confused by the chicane gate. All black with a few reflective strips makes it difficult to see in the dark. Plus, the overall design of these specifically seem worse than 2-3 bollards.
Ask yourself, why a HAWK set up rather than a conventional Red-Yellow-Green traffic light? There is really no cost savings with a HAWK. I think because the misguided traffic engineers feared a driver of 2 tons of killer steel would be "delayed" more than absolutely "necessary". Jeeesh! A simple traffic light is understood by everyone, but could mean drivers are "delayed" a few seconds because the crossing interval is timed for pedestrians.
This is the likely answer, although the answer when it was first installed was probably that a typical signal would not meet the MUTCD warrants for installation since the crossing and trail were built at the same time. Signal warrants are less strict now and I believe a typical signal could very easily be installed (I explained some of this in my last video about my solutions for this crossing)
I can’t remember which video i seen but i think it mentioned under current standards you need at least 100 pedestrians per hour or 200 over 3 hours to even be considered for a study to put in a full traffic signal.
@@everydayengineering I worked for a state DOT Traffic Engineering group in the 1980s and we struggled with the MUTCD signal warrants. I did signal warrant analysis, along with "accident" (now "crash") analysis. We always had a way to get a signal if we really wanted to. It was mostly internal policy that stood in the way of a signal, not the standards themselves. In any event, many cities and small towns are writing the traffic engineers out of the equation as they realize the total failure standards developed in the 1960s and 70s have resulted in. (For example, a minimum number of pedestrians per hour needed to inconvenience drivers by installing a signal.) Cities and towns have been turning to architects for answers, and begrudgingly, I can't blame them.
Hawk save a shit ton of money when done properly
Part of the reason HAWKs are used rather than standard light is because if standard lights go out of service for whatever reason, they are legally required to be treated as stop signs, and having every car come to a complete stop on a major road like this for no reason is going to cause real trouble. Whereas when a HAWK is faulty, drivers will proceed as normal, hopefully with caution, giving way to anyone already on the crossing. Peds will have to wait for an opportunity to cross though.
It would be smarter if there were signs on approach that explain in as few words as possible what to do. That sign overhead at the crossing itself will only ever be read by drivers who have already stopped or slowed to a point where they will just yield to peds even when the beacon isn't active.
One problem is it seems to be 20 seconds from pushing the beg button until the flashing yellow starts. Cars stop, expecting the pedestrian or bicycle they see on the sidewalk to then cross, but they usually don't cross, because they have a red light telling them not to. Then the drivers, tired of waiting for nothing, start going just as the light activates.
The delay also encourages pedestrians to cross without waiting for the light. Then, drivers lose respect for the light, because they so often wait for nobody.
The signal would work a lot better if it started flashing yellow as soon as somebody pressed the beg button.
Its a great point, and maybe this would work more effectively if the trail was not well used, then all button actuations would result in an immediate signal. But since this trail is extremely popular, people often arrive during the 30 sec cooldown, which exists to prioritize traffic flow
@@everydayengineering The problem is the lighter traffic times. If the yellow started flashing immediately, most drivers would run the yellow, but it only lasts a few seconds and then the red would be on and the pedestrians could go. That cycle would eliminate this period where the nice drivers stop and then everybody is staring at each other waiting for the other to go.
In really busy times, it would just end up functioning like an urban intersection with alternating traffic, through a pedestrian lock out for a few seconds after the pedestrian cycle. Pedestrians & bicyclists are used to waiting under that sort of circumstance. Those cycles would still have one of the current problems, with the occasional nice driver stopping and everybody staring at each other for a few seconds, but it would eliminate that situation most of the time.
In the Netherlands we have those kinds of crossings, but we use just plain normal old Red-Yellow-Green lights.
from our perspective the US has some weird&confusing traffic signals.
I'm sure most European countries use normal traffic lights or beacons flashing amber
We even use normal traffic sequences in this style of pedestrian only crossing
The park by my apartment has a similar crossing, but it's got slightly worse physical infrastructure and a normal red yellow green light. It stays green until triggered red by the button, and pedestrians can cross.
It might not have a compliance rate as high as other, typical stop lights, since it's beg only, but it's absolutely higher than this.
What I’ve noticed is the problem with the PHB especially is the flashing yellow phase. Drivers will try to yield for that phase and I’ve been pressured through a red bike light or orange hand because drivers see the flashing yellow as an RRFB type signal. It’s just confusing.
This also highlights the lack of continuing education for drivers. We should force retraining of drivers at regular intervals. Not a full blown road test, but we keep adding new things. (Round abouts, center turn lanes, HAWK lights.) but we never require that people be educated on these.
CT recently passed legislation that would require drivers to watch an informational video before renewing their license to get up to speed on new traffic laws and things such as how to drive around bike lanes, roundabouts, etc. However it will only be required at every other renewal, which ends up being every 16 years.
@@everydayengineeringwell. It’s a start. Ideally it should be yearly. Not sure if it needs to be tied to renewal or maybe another enforcement method.
To be fair this could literally just work like a regular stoplight, triggered red only by the beg button. It's actually a great crossing otherwise, with pretty decent physical infrastructure. The physical infrastructure even communicates to drives to look for pedestrians - you see many stop even without the signal! Bollards would genuinely be the only real physical improvement to the intersection.
Everyone knows green means go, yellow means press on a pedal, and red means stop, and they've likely known for longer than they've known how to drive. Just use that exact same light sequence that nearly everyone in the country knows
Problem solved
The modern solution to this in the UK is to use a standard traffic light sequence that is activated when a pedestrian pressed the button. During the pedestrian clearance period, sensors detect when pedestrians have finished crossing and shorten or lengthen the red light for vehicles as needed.
These are confusing I think. Was always taught a dark signal meant treat as a stop. Now these signals are usually dark, so people ignore them. Training them to ignore all dead lights (power outage etc)
Additionally no one seems to know what flashing red means on these signals.
Green lights that change to red for a ped crossing are so much simpler.
the problem is people don't take the HAWK or PHB signals seriously. When they see the shape, they feel (to them) it's not a real signal. They just need to install regular traffic signals at these types of crosswalks to make people actually stop.
The HAWK is peak US traffic "engineering". How can we over complicate something just so we don't have to actually create an environment that naturally forces drivers to slow down and yield to other road users.
Because 95% of US drivers are dumb, that's why probably they over complicate everything.
This crossing is a very interesting experiment
Technically three cars ran the red light, the one that did not sop before the line was also in violation.
The setup isn't safe, isn't even heeded half the time and in the end the pedestrians and bikers feel guilty for even using it. Horrible in every way
I grew up in the '80s going to a church that has a regular-looking stoplight activated by pushbutton at a mid-block crossing, so I find it baffling how the guidelines have pushed engineers to things like this and RRFBs. I don't know if the church generates the foot traffic on Sundays alone to officially warrant it or if the city just decided to do it despite whatever the guidelines are.
These are weird signals, confusing with the railroad-like flashing.
We just use regular stoplights around fire stations that need to block traffic as vehicles exit. Just pretend this crossing is for a church or fire department
I like how it starts flashing while the people are in the crosswalk
We have one of these in Houston near the University of Houston-Clear Lake campus. I haven't seen any issues.
Another favorite is the signal getting around to stopping the traffic when people have already crossed.
This signal/setup clearly doesn't work here. That stupid sign saying motor vehicles may not stop on countdown? To me, that's like a wet floor sign and therefore a lawsuit waiting to happen... Though will anybody do that against a city or town, good question. What if they switched it out for those standard flashy beacons... Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons? No 30 sec-cool down crap, and just flashes/stop when occupied. Maybe even, put up some sensors on the path so that one doesn't even necessarily have to hit a button, just the option to hit the button if the sensors don't work/fail to recognize a PED. I did see your last video. That being said, I wonder if that would be a better option given that they already have this setup and maybe don't necessarily have a huge budget? I don't know, though, maybe it would be cheaper to reconstruct it. Either way... Them gates have gotta go, especially if they want that path to be usable. I hope I never have to deal with chicane gates like those in my riding.
Great video, thank you. In my mind a HAWK beacon would make sense in the context of a mid block crossing on a higher-speed roadway with multiple lanes in each direction. Though you could argue that kind of "stroad" environment shouldnt have been created in the first place, and you could just do a normal traffic light. This one is kind of a "victim" of the success of the ped island and traffic calming measures. If that stuff wasnt there I doubt youd have as many cars voluntarily stopping for bikes/peds at the crosswalk. Those gates are insane though!!
Never seen this in the US and I'd be pretty confused if I did. I really hope this doesn't spread
The chicanes and ambiguity of the HAWK beacon make this crossing dangerous for people on the trail to use and for confusing for road users. Unfortunately, I imagine fixing this intersection is a low-priority for the regional planners.
I agree completely. And sadly it will take multiple people getting hit here until the town/state decide to do something. The strange thing about this crossing is that even though it causes massive confusion for everyone, in the last 5 years there have only been 20 crashes here, none involving bikes/peds, mostly just drivers rear ending each other. So the potential safety issues are likely not on anyone’s mind
I live in Connecticut and I've literally never heard of a hawk signal...
Why would anyone install a chicane when bollards and a gate that can be opened to allow trail management vehicles through do the same job but better? Why are we forcing cyclists to swerve into oncoming people by breaking the direction of travel? Bollards will still cause cyclists to slow down because it is a narrow gap and they don’t want to hit the posts.
Because the people who make these decisions only see their town from behind a car windshield so that’s the only perspective they have
I'm going to guess that they removed ADA compliance when they installed those chicanes,, opening the door for a lawsuit.
where im from we dont have chicanes. what is their purpose?
i know theres a benefit to them, but tbh i dont think HAWK lights are really necessary, just give people signals that theyre used to. Everyone knows what flashing single red and single yellow mean, but the first time i saw a HAWK light i thought it was like a RR signal and kept waiting for it to turn off.
Raise it, make it so the median forces drivers to divert around the pedestrian median and put the signal before the crossing. This all is pretty much standard in The Netherlands and i know the US can do the same.
He made a previous video with that very suggestion, including removing the signal all together.
These are good for wide roads/multiple lanes where you can't see the pedestrians. The main road by my house has 2 or 3 of these and they're better than a traditional ped crossing with the small LED lights on the side of the road.
This whole confusion stems from that unneeded delay between pushing the button and the actual beginning of lights blinking. Remove it and case is closed.
Exactly. Here in GA, the flashing yellow begins the instant you press the button
An easy way to make this better would be to remove the 30 second buffer.
Beyond that, just install a regular traffic light.
As a British Columbian, I don't know why pedestrian controlled traffic lights with the flashing green signal aren't more common elsewhere. We don't have this problem here.
It’s an interesting point - here in the states we are not allowed to use flashing green, so it would take a change at the national level to edit the MUTCD
@@everydayengineeringoh I see very interesting. Well you could probably just use a normal traffic light as you mentioned but have it be pedestrian controlled.
We both have these and crosswalks. I thought only a few states were adopting these atrocities but seeing hawks getting deployed in WA was truly disappointing. I'm not super fond of the blinking green personally because it adds a layer of possible confusion (it could just be solid green). I understood the meaning but that was coming from jurisdictions where blinking green is used in lieu of arrows sometimes to state priority.
It should’ve been the smaller flashers
Should be either a signal or an RRFB. Put passive detection for the RRFB on the trail so that drivers have advance notice of bikes and runners. PA has still not permitted PHBs because of this confusion. Also, drivers are taught to stop at dark signals and alternating flashing red signals.
I like the idea of automatically actuated RRFBs - I passed through a series of crossings in Cape Cod that had them and they worked great. Plus at this crossing, drivers are already willing to yield as if the crosswalk was uncontrolled, so that behavior plus advance warning flashing lights could really make this solid
That sign doesn't mean they're forgiving drivers who don't stop. It's obviously telling the pedestrians to look out because drivers are humans and not everyone knows what the fuck that signal is! And the stop bar is like 150 ft from the actual signal... So the light was probably still yellow when those three cars passed over the stop bar... 🤦♀️
why do pedestrians and cyclists get a chicane but not the cars ???????????????????????
Biggest problem is just the flashing red
Nobody knows what that means
If the signaling worked like a regular light, just triggered to red anytime someone pressed the beg button.... you'd see a much much higher compliance rate.
The actual crossing is great - paint is decent, signage is decent, and the fact there's an island is better than not only most of these signals I've seen, but better than a shit ton of stoplights
It just has literally the dumbest light setup ever that nobody is ever taught in drivers Ed. Was this designed by someone from an alternate reality or something? Canada?
The only reason to implement these is to increase ticket rates because 99% of drivers are going to have no idea what that is and will most likely never see it again unless they live locally
this should just be a RRFB
Not surprising at all unfortunately. I will not be using this signal when I cross there as I don't see how it helps. It's dangerous to have inconsistent expectations of drivers.
Some traffic engineers have nothing better to do 😮
Honestly I think this crossing would be better with just a RRFB rather than a HAWK. The HAWK makes people pay attention to the signal rather than each other.
Why is there only 2 seconds of solid yellow clearance? Wow, this is dumb
especially with that giant distance between the stop line and the actual crossing.
Germany (with driver education) is slowly phasing out the concept of "flashing red" due to low compliance (we only used it for low-volume rail crossings anyway). The US (with no driver education) is spreading it everywhere… Find the problem.
Flashing red aren't only used for railway crossings, Vienna Convention allow flashing red at level crossing, swing bridge, airport, fire station or ferry terminal.
@@automation7295 in theory, yes. But on the other options steady red was always the "normal" design here in Germany.
Everything about this crossing is designed to punish people that are not in a vehicle. I am all about innovative designs, but the Hawkeye is terrible. It seems like there is no issue with people yielding. As someone that cycles and walks frequently, I find that at least 70% of people typically yield to you. Especially if you assert yourself, the number goes up to about 95%. I don’t think the signal is effective, and it should just be removed. Maybe some flashing Amber lights that come on when you walk to the crosswalk. Also, probably just a standard traffic signal is OK. You might have to wait for 30 seconds, but it’s really not the end of the world.
Maybe if it was a traffic light!? Ive SEEN pedestrian traffic lights, like an actual traffic light. I stopped, as did everyone else. Ive never seen this before. It doesnt seem like its a legal thing if you've never seen it before. Flashing red means i can go with caution?.. like a schoolbus or railroad signal? No thats not how that works. We already HAVE SOMETHING ITS A TRAFFIC LIGHT
If i lived there, I'd fix the chicane with an angle grinder...
"press the BUh In"
oof those chicane gates look awful
An RRFB crossing would make way more sense, along with the traffic calming measures you mentioned in your previous video!
The chicane gates are just awful. No way they are ADA compliant!
People blow through RRFBs just as badly since they see yellow
WTF is that?
Insane waste of money
Could have just been a yield to pedestrians sign, this is overly complex and stupid. Poor civil engineering
Outside the US, this crossing would just have a flashing yellow beacon or normal traffic lights where lights only turn red when pedestrians activates the button.
Looks lame to me. Needs some strong enforcement. Make the lights the same as an intersection. Someone will be hurt.