Traffic Light Essay
How Traffic Light is Important to Our Lives
Traffic light is an important tool in our lives. According to Google “Traffic light is a set of automatically operated colored lights, typically red, amber, and green, for controlling traffic at road junctions and crosswalks”. This tool in our lives can be very simple but very complicated in some ways. Most people know the basic rules: red means stop, yellow means slow down, and green means go. This have kept us safe on the roads for many years but more rules were made in order to keep us even more safe. There are different traffic light rules in different provinces and different countries. Even the shape of traffic light may look different based on the province and the country.
Like I said above, there are many traffic light rules. The basic rule is to stop when red light is on, slow down when yellow light is on and go when green light is on. Turning left is a little bit different than going forward. The traffic light will look like this image on the left.
Like the previous picture when both green light and the green arrow is on, that means the driver may go forward, turn left, or turn right in the proper lane. When the driver sees a traffic light like this image on the right,
the driver may turn left but not go forward because the drivers on the other side will be also making a left turn. When a driver trying to turn left sees a traffic light like this image on the left,
the driver may turn left only when the way is clear of traffic and pedestrians. Those are some of the traffic light rules in Ontario.
There is another signals that are in our lives that also helped us a lot and that is pedestrian-signals. Pedestrian-signals have the same purpose with the traffic lights but for pedestrian. These signals looks like one of these pictures on the right
but sometimes with a timer at the bottom. Pedestrian-signals are very simple, red means stop, white means go, and flashing white means that the light will turn red soon. The signal with a timer will show how many seconds are left until the light turns red.
Every rule that I said are rules in Ontario and I said that there are different rules in different provinces and different countries. In Quebec, the look of the traffic light is different. It looks like this picture on the left:
It is leaning sideways and there are couple extra lights. Other than that, it is similar to Ontario’s rules. The first three lights from left are the same light as the top three lights in Ontario. The different between Ontario and Quebec is the turning right light. In Ontario there are no right light but in Quebec there is turning right light. The last two lights are the lights for turning right. When the red light on the right is on, the driver may not turn right. The driver may only turn right then the green right arrow is on.
Other than traffic light rules, there are also just traffic rules that are being used in our lives. I have listed some of the interesting traffic rules from around the world. In Thailand the driver have to wear a shirt while driving. In Russia, the driver may be fined when the driver is driving a dirty car. In Massachusetts you may take a gorilla for a drive but the animal has to sit in the passenger seat. In Germany you're allowed to drive in the nude, since your car is considered a private space. Like this, there are many more both strange and normal rules.
Timing of the traffic light are set in a program like groups did in ICS2O classes. The timing may be different in different provinces and different countries but one common thing they have is that when NS traffic light is green, EW traffic light has to be red or other way around. Reason for this is because when both traffic light are green, there will be car going from every direction and it would be disaster. There would be tons of car accidents. That’s why when one side is green the other side has to be red. In Ontario, the green light stays on for 35 seconds, yellow stays on for 3 seconds, and the red stays on for 2 seconds. When one light is green or yellow, the other light has to be red but red light will both stay on for 2 seconds after the yellow light turns off. After that the green light on the other side will turn on. This will repeat and this is what we put into our arduino and simulated. This is the rule in Ontario. Like I said before, it is different in different provinces and different countries.
Traffic lights are very important in our lives. It keeps us safe and makes our lives easier. Even though the rules are little bit different in different provinces and countries, the purpose and basic rules are the same. We should always feel thankful to Garrett Morgan and J. P. Knight for inventing the traffic lights.
