Colonial Pedestrian Signals?

I've just made a startling discovery: the pedestrian signals in the United States appear to be relics of - or at the very least echo - the country's colonial past*.

Let's start with the "stop" sign, known locally as the "don't walk" signal. In most places on this increasingly standardised planet, this depicts a standing man in red. Here in the New World, although the universal danger or warning colour is retained, the man is replaced by a hand clearly making the classic Red Indian "how!" greeting sign normally used in western culture to indicate an order to stop.

The "go" sign, by contrast, features the globally typical "walking man", though here too there is a twist: he's not green, as is common elsewhere, but white.

Combine the two and you have what could be interpreted as: "Palefaces: You are free to move about as you please. Redskins: Hello. Stay where you are".

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* This does not apply to traffic lights, which conform to the usual red-green pattern.

When Red Means "Go"

In Michigan, and presumably many other states, there are a couple of very clever traffic regulations that really help to avoid jams and keep cars moving.

One of these is the rule that says that you are allowed to turn right at a red light (provided there is no-one hurtling towards you, that is). At certain junctions this also applies if you are turning left. This reduces the number of cars standing at the lights, and speeds up the flow of traffic when the light is green.

Another smart idea is what is known as the "Michigan U" or "Michigan left". Again to keep traffic flowing smoothly, you are not allowed to turn left at major crossings, but rather must turn right (i.e. into the near lane rather than potentially blocking the intersection). A few hundred yards further on, you then get an extra "u-turn" feeder lane on the left which helps get you in the opposite direction.


Last, but by no means least, there's the middle lane that you find on larger - though not major - roads. This is intended for those who wish to turn into driveways on the left, and again prevents the kind of bottlenecks you get in Europe as you stop and wait for a break in the oncoming traffic. The centre lane is also handy when you turn left into a busy road from a drive or side street, since you can already face in the right direction ready to feed into the "proper" lane when there's a gap.

Practical as it undoubtedly is, this last traffic solution is also by far the most dangerous of the three described, and one that should be used with utmost care because the middle lane is at the disposal of cars moving in either direction. I haven't seen any centre-lane head-on collisions yet, but I suspect they're probably relatively common.