Am I right in thinking that American traffic lights don’t actually stop cars for pedestrians? They just sort of give you more priority don’t they? What’s the advantage of crossing away from the lights?
I think on some intersections pressing the button will make this delay longer, but it's hard to tell from casual observation. Also, traffic light timings are set by the municipality, so it can vary by city and depending on the age of the intersection.
The most dangerous intersections I find are on the multi-lane suburban arterial roads. Pedestrians are less common (than in neighborhoods or downtown) so drivers generally aren't watching for them as much. You really have to be careful with cars turning right on a red - even if there's a walk signal - because they're looking to their left for traffic to see if it's clear for them to go, and not for people coming the right about to walk in front of them.
But why on earth would you turn the tragic light green while the walk signal is still on? Why not one at a time?
People don't always press the buttons, and not all intersections even have buttons. Even with a button press, there's no way to tell the difference between a jogger and a group of elderly people using walkers, so you have to assume the longest possible delay.
That said, there is a thing called a pedestrian scramble intersection [1] with a part of the cycle where all the traffic lights go red and all the walk signals turn on, allowing pedestrians to cross even diagonally. This is relatively rare, only being used at some of the busiest pedestrian intersections in some cities.
Plus a traffic light's sensors wouldn't even moving around in the environment, so it's got to be that much easier. And they can be positioned all over an area, on both sides of obstacles. And they can be higher up for a better view.
The downside is that every intersection is different and drawing conclusions from all that information will be harder. And the stakes are higher with a system that directs everybody else.
I’ve seen the type of light you describe (all pedestrians walk in all directions at once while all cars have a red) in the US but they’re exceedingly rare. In cities there’s always pedestrians and cars waiting in every direction so it would be too slow to be practical.
Cars turning left on green (but no arrow) often won't notice crossing pedestrians they're supposed to yield to either. They may stop, but now they're blocking oncoming traffic (often hazardous), so they're likely to try and clear the intersection if they feel there's enough room. Of course, they're probably also blocking the visibility of the person tailgaiting them, who will also go through the intersection as a result, enough room or not.
All that turning traffic accounts for 3 of the directions you have to check with a valid walk signal (everything but orthogonal traffic coming from the opposite side of the road) - the 4th comes from people running the tail end of red lights, which happens pretty frequently too. Even ignoring illegally short yellow light timings, people will try to squeeze in. Vroom vroom.
Legal right on red is contributing to the behavior of the car driving east and turning south (who hasn't noticed they now have a green light), as well as the the car driving north and turning east (who's LOS is blocked by a truck, SUV, small van with tinted windows, etc. and is pushing that far up so they can see left enough to spot a gap which they can use to turn right on red)
Every red light in this situation has a get-out clause, and no green light can be trusted.
Note that cars must stop before turning right on a red, so it’s not a total free-for-all. The stopping forces them to yield to pedestrians most of the time.
It's not uncommon to have stop lines farther back from the crosswalks for middle lanes to help improve visibility for the right lane - but even the ones that aren't worn down are often ignored by inattentive drivers. You're supposed to fully stop before the crosswalk even when turning right, but many drivers turning right don't fully stop at all - and are at best planning to stop with the crosswalk blocked. You're not supposed to speed up when you see a yellow light. All these things are ticketable offenses, in theory.
Between lax enforcement, lax punishments, lax driver education, and driving while texting, sleepy, high, or just plain drunk... well, I usually don't encounter problems from all 4 directions when crossing a street, but 1 or 2 is pretty common. I feel decently safe crossing, but only because I keep my head on a paranoid swivel. Occasionally I have to kinda hang out in the middle of the crosswalk for a few seconds while I wait for some idiots who failed to yield, and I'll throw up my hands in pantomimed exasperation...
A lot of times it is just easier to cross in the middle of a block because you have a much better buffer area where random cars can't pop out from. Obviously it depends on the particular road. If it is some 6 lane wide main thoroughfare, I'd probably opt for the cross walk.
Well that’s just bonkers.
Where I live when a pedestrian wants to cross the lights stop all cars for the duration.
Honestly I think stop lights aren't a big danger for pedestrians. Crossing at intersections with stop signs is far, far worse -- drivers have to pay attention to multiple directions of traffic as well as pedestrians.
Some buttons trigger the “walk” sign but don’t actually change the traffic signals for cars.
Some buttons are placebo, perhaps with a secondary function of emitting a loud tone to let blind people know the walk signal has turned on.
Some buttons trigger the traffic lights to stop.
Some buttons turn the traffic light to a 4 way red light.
I have encountered all these types of buttons on the east coast of the US in various states.
We need to get rid of that rule now that the justification for it no longer exists.
What changed that I was unaware of? As far as I know, it still makes traffic flow much more efficient in most situations.
Also, at least where I live, the walk light wouldn't be on at the same time as someone turning right on red that would be going into my path.
Right turn on red was mostly implemented to avoid having cars idling waiting for a timer-only light to turn.
Between modern cars with fast engine stop/start and modern sensor technology which triggers lights when there is no opposing traffic, there are a lot of good reasons to remove that rule again.
What guarantees this exactly? I'm having a hard time seeing how this is possible.