Does pushing the walk button more than once change signals quicker?
Q
It makes me wiggy to see people repeatedly pushing the walk button on trafficsignal poles. Over and over and over. Does that really speed up the process? Or are people just wearing out the button mechanism? — Pam Wright
Pasadena
A
No and no.
“Only the first push of the pedestrian cross button does anything,” Nathan Abler, a Caltrans spokesman, told Honk in an email. “Additional pushes are unnecessary.”
Honk says if it reduces anxiety about trying to get across the street quicker, is just kinda fun or reduces boredom, then, please, push away.
But otherwise, one might just refrain.
“As for the durability, while we do not have any statistics, the buttons are very durable and replacement of these buttons is infrequent,” Abler said.
Q
Near my home is a traffic signal that has a yellow reflective band of tape around the edge of the signal's back plate. I have noticed these around random traffic signals here in Fullerton and in other Orange County cities and was wondering what is the purpose of this tape?
A
It is not tape, rather just the perimeter of what roadway experts call the traffic signal head — the red, yellow and green lights and the housing that holds them.
Those yellow perimeters are popping up in California and elsewhere, especially in areas where a wildfire could break out. The reflective borders are meant to be picked up by headlights if the lights in the area go down and the traffic signal isn't working. Motorists would see the signal head, know an intersection is there and treat the cross street as if there is a stop sign.
Besides simple power failures, sometimes a utility company shuts off power to a swath to lessen the chance of a wildfire breaking out. According to the state's Public Utilities Commission, this strategy is deployed when the utility determines there is a good chance that “strong winds may topple power lines or cause major vegetation-related issues leading to increased risk of wildfires.”
Many traffic signals have backup batteries, but they can get strained and drained.
HONKIN' FACT >> Air New Zealand, the national airline, is having international passengers taking off from Auckland International Airport step onto a scale before boarding through July 2. Not the kind of news most happy vacationers want to get, right? Well, the numbers are kept secret — not even the nearby agent can see the results. The weighins help the airlines get an average weight of passengers; averages are collected for cabin baggage and the crew, too. The airline uses the data so weight is properly spread about on planes. Domestic flyers took a survey in 2021. Do airline officials really think the averages for international and domestic flights would differ much? (Source: CNN).