Red Light Filtering ( Driving )

How often have you stopped at traffic lights in the evening/night and waited with no other traffic around….

And Germany turns traffic lights OFF at night on non essential junctions and crossings. 😉

An excellent and for many years well established system in many other countries. Here it would never work because both parties to an accident would sue the Highways Agency or the DoT or anyone else they might choose, for it not being the drivers’ fault!!

On a similar theme – having lived and driven in Germany I always thought the practice of turning traffic lights at junctions to permanent green on the ‘priority’ road, and flashing amber (so creating a Give Way) on the joining road, after a certain time in the evening a good idea.
How often have you stopped at traffic lights in the evening/night and waited with no other traffic around….

Would you pass a medical for your PPL if you were.

Colour deficiency is not a PPL medical issue in any way other than to prevent the holding of a night rating.

As my aircraft is Day VFR only this is no factor.

Moggy

Thanks for the explanation, from the way your reply was answered, makes it sound as if you are colour blind, I hope your not, but are you?.Would you pass a medical for your PPL if you were.

Jim.
Lincoln .7

Moggy explained that he along with many others has colour vision deficiency. The term colour blindness is actually confusing and misleading. Thousands of people have varying forms of deficiency in the way they see colours, which differ from people with normal sight.

We (apparently – because there is no way for us to know what ‘normal’ people actually see) just see the colours slightly differently, and can have some issues in discriminating the adjoining bits of some parts of the spectrum.

Moggy

I too, have a colour perception defect (I was CP2 in RAF, failed the ‘coloured dots’ test every time!) that precluded my becoming aircrew – like Moggy, I have no problem in seeing traffic lights correctly, either (although it does create a problem when they are all ‘off’ for some reason :p)

In compensation, I do have a reasonable perception of variations in shades of certain colours, as does my brother who re-sprayed cars (but needed to know what the base colour was before trying to match it).

Filters (left, or ahead) have become less common in cities, however. This is down to the dreaded ‘all red’ that still happens when there are no pedestrians around – very annoying!

I find that cyclists are generally unaware of traffic lights regardless of the colour being displayed.

Thanks for the explanation, from the way your reply was answered, makes it sound as if you are colour blind, I hope your not, but are you?.Would you pass a medical for your PPL if you were.

Jim.
Lincoln .7

I have oft wondered how colour blind drivers can tell what colour the lights are

Colour blindness is much misunderstood.

Very few of us who have colour vision deficiency actually see the world in monochrome.

We (apparently – because there is no way for us to know what ‘normal’ people actually see) just see the colours slightly differently, and can have some issues in discriminating the adjoining bits of some parts of the spectrum.

Moggy

Yes

We don’t have an official left red light filtering system here. However, a lot of main roads that have left hand turns, have left handed give way lanes so that cars can safely merge to the left.

Totally agree, but that uses common sense doesn’t it? Do any other countries use this system?

I have oft wondered how colour blind drivers can tell what colour the lights are, do they just go by the light being emitted by either the top, middle, or bottom lens shining?.I too when driving in the USA found it quite a good idea to be able to turn on red at a filter light.
Jim.

Lincoln .7

I thought most drivers treat red lights as pretty decorations, anyway?