Referring to this column, in which Cecil says that “most” vertically-oriented traffic lights have the red on top and the green on bottom. He was wise to qualify his statement, as there is one peculiar counterexample in Syracuse, New York.
What do colourblind people think of that arrangement?
It depends if they’re Irish.
Isn’t it the point that no Irish are colour-blind when it comes to green versus red in politics?
Why on earth didn’t they just hang it sideways?
I’d always wondered about the colourblind thing, since I’ve always been told that I was red-green colourblind, but as far as I can tell, that impairment is limited to my not being able to pass the vision tests (with the numbers made out of coloured dots) that, if failed, indicate red-green colourblindness.
How common is colourblindness that is so severe that one would actually need to use position to distinguish traffic lights? I would have to think it would be an order of magnitude more rare than “doesn’t pass the vision tests” colourblindness.
Or if they’re leprechauns:
Those sage “officials”!
I’m color-blind. I can discern bright red from bright green when I’m paying attention to colors, and when I have enough time to conclude that it is, indeed, the color I think it is.
When I used to drive, I would ask my passenger, “Is that light red?” I was pretty sure it was red, but I always felt more certain if someone could quickly confirm my guess.
I do a lot of guessing. Sometimes, I have to guess whether the banana is green or yellow, whether the baby’s bunting is blue or pink, whether the meat is rare or not, or whether the autumn leaves have begun to turn.
As a child I thought everyone knew crayon colors because they are written on the label. That’s why crayons without labels were useless. I didn’t know how people could tell I had been out in the sun all day. I wondered why teachers made corrections in red, because that’s such a pale color.
I don’t drive because it is visually too confusing: brake lights, turn signals, traffic lights, neon signs, street lights. It’s all too much to process. Don’t talk to me when I’m driving because it will distract me.
I was in Quebec City a couple years ago and their traffic lights were hung sideways – red on the left, green on the right.
Is that unusual for anywhere? Here in Texas, I think sideways orientation is more common than vertical:
NJ Kef, I feel for you. Your colorblindness is apparently much worse than mine. As Cecil wrote, “…it’s rare to find someone so colorblind they can’t tell bright red and bright green apart.” This is the case with me; I have no problem with traffic lights, or any primary colors. It’s blends and shades mostly that get me. Purple usually looks blue to me because the red kind of gets lost. Really dark greens, reds, and sometimes even oranges might as well all be brown.
But it’s impossible for me to know what I’m missing, so it really hasn’t affected my life significantly. The most annoying thing is when somebody learns I’m colorblind and can’t resist playing the “What color is this?” game.
Actually, Americans of Irish origin are said to have a higher incidence of R/G colorblindness than average - with native Irish being normal or lower incidence.
Supposedly, the colorblind ones had trouble distinguishing bad potatoes during the Blight, and emigrated.
Anecdotal - anyone have solid info?
There is a series of S/F books by Robert J. Sawyer involving a parallel universe where the Neandertals became the dominant hominid.
Their indicator lights use an opposite convention - red is good, the color of health and fresh meat; green is bad, the color of sickness and corruption.
So did traffic lights in China for a period during the cultural revolution.
BTW How come green is the standard for “go” and red for “stop” in the first place. I know it was borrowed from railway signals but why did they chose this? Pure chance?
I used to live a few blocks from there. I can answer this question.
Because it would keep breaking for some mysterious reason, and all the Irish cops would say “nope, nothing happened on my shift”.
So they did try hanging it sideways and that didn’t stop the vandalism? They weren’t satisfied with the “Irish” green on equal level with the “Brit” red? Idiots. :rolleyes:
No, they never did try hanging it sideways, but it’s pretty common knowledge on the west side of Syracuse that if they did, that’s what would happen. Essentially, anything besides “leave it the way it is” is right out as far as the local residents are concerned.
Horizontal lights are more expensive, because they have to be hung out on cantilevered booms. They used to be a good deal less common than they are now. The light in Syracuse is a quadruple unit (as opposed to a four-sided unit, which is even cheaper) suspended from cables.
My father was color blind and could only easily distinguish blue from other colors. This made it quite difficult when dealing with non-standard traffic lights. My mother reports that he often had to ask her what color certain lights were.
People are stupid.