Are flashing yellow lights as good as a traffic signal?
Nov 4, 2015, 3:07 PM | Updated: 3:17 pm
Seattle has retimed its downtown traffic lights with the aim of moving traffic along quicker. (Clay Junnel, Flickr)
(Clay Junnel, Flickr)
According to the city of Bellevue, a flashing yellow light is just as safe as a normal traffic signal.
A new Bellevue study says, while left turn collisions at intersections with traffic lights have increased overall, the average number of accidents at intersections with both flashing yellow lights and solid green lights have actually dropped.
The flashing yellow light doesn’t always make everyone comfortable because you have to rely on the driver paying attention and obeying the law. Critics claim that the current yellow flashing lights allow already distracted drivers to be more reckless.
“I was also almost run over twice by these ‘flashing yellow’ lights because cars making left hand turns are not focusing on pedestrians in a cross walk,” Douglas Rosenberg told the Bellevue Reporter.
In September, a toddler died following an accident at a flashing yellow intersection on 140th Ave. The city turned the flashing yellow light off following the tragic accident.
