I can tell you’ve never driven in Rhode Island.
From the unofficial RI driver’s manual:
Green = Stop for the people running the red
Yellow = Go faster than so you can beat the red
Red = Go
You get used to it after a while, but every so often, someone catches you by surprise.
On a side note some traffic lights in the U.K. have sensors attached to them that detect the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle and will change in order to let the emergency vehicle through. The upshot of this is that if you are sat at a red light at a junction and no traffic is passing through the green lights you can flash your car headlights and the lights will change for you. I can’t find a definitive online cite for this but my source is the father of one of my friends who has been in the police force for a very long time and used the technique when driving an unmarked car.
Couple of months back, there was a collision between a Portland Fire Dept. Truck and
a light rail train, seems that both were equipped to change the traffic signal and that
contributed to the accident. I haven’t heard a follow-up on the specific problem. I think
they use transponder technology, rather than headlights.
An Opticom? Sweet. Does your ambulance turn into a robot?
Seriously, I have actually pulled over to the left to clear a path in the past. Many, many roads in Albuquerque are two or three lanes each way with physical medians with cutouts for left-hand turns in the middle of the street. I heard the sirens, saw that my path to the right was blocked by traffic, and got into one of the cutouts to wait for the ambulance to come past.
Nah, only the ones with the Opticom Prime turn into robots.
mittu- Cite? I don’t believe it. I’ve heard tons of people say they could trigger the Opticom by flashing their lights, but it’s not possible to both flash your lights fast enough and match the encoded flash pattern.