Let’s green light a trial on new colours for beach flags

RE: GCB, Friday, Nov 16 editorial ‘Decoding flags’.

At least once a year the concerns about the lack of understanding of the meaning of the red and yellow flags on our beaches raises its head. The editorial quite rightly raises concerns about our foreign visitors and they not being flag aware but I would suggest that a lot of Australians are in the same boat.

I wrote to the GCB about this about 12 months ago and it blows me away that we are looking at tackling this issue with hi tech solutions like WiFi (which can drop out /have blind spots) when I think that there is a more simple solution that is worth trialling.

No matter where you go in the world traffic lights are all the same and you don’t have to get your head around what the message is. A green light means it is safe to go and drive on and a red light means it is not , so stop.

Why cannot the same thought process apply to beach flags. Green flags – beach open/safe go swimming. Red flags – beach closed/unsafe do not swim.

To someone not sure, the current red/yellow flags are like a traffic light stuck with the stop light and caution light both on at the same time causing confusion.

I suspect that we could never get a trial up as we have to get past the “but we have always done it this way” it’s a tradition.

I am not advocating changing the surf patrol uniform of red/yellow clothes and cap. That should not change and it makes patrol members stand out on the beach .

But if we are serious about making it easier for people, both overseas and Australian domiciled visitors, to more easily understand where to swim, if the area is safe and where not to swim and the swim area is unsafe why not consider a more simple beach flag set-up trial that people from all over the world can relate to because of rote learning from traffic lights and for that matter pedestrian crossing light colours.