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The secret button at pedestrian crossings
- simias 13y agoIn France there's a button at the same location that activates a (very annoying and very loud) bell sound when it's safe to cross. Needless to say I've seen it mostly used by curious/bored non-blind people.
- xyzzy123 13y agoIn NZ there's a vibrating nubbin thing plus a "safe to cross" noise. The most evil thing in the world would be to play the "it's safe to cross" noise continuously on your car stereo :/
- xlevus 13y agoDepends where you are, and how old the crossing is. (from memory) The older type has a small needle on the bottom that vibrates/jabs you. But the newer crossing have the larger larger buttons. Which have an electrical(?) panel on the direction arrow. like: http://www.sunlive.co.nz/assets/images/site/110520-crossing-death.jpg http://www.sunlive.co.nz/assets/images/site/110520-crossing-...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- megablast 13y agoIn some cities in Australia, the box beeps. It beeps when you should wait, and then a different beep when you can walk. As a person that can see, you get so used to this that you really miss it. It is great for so many reasons, I have caught people before just about to walk into traffic because they thought it was ok to go.
- whatusername 13y agoThe beeping while you wait is likely so you can find the box itself. It also has a small tactile strip -- which vibrates as it beeps -- and which will always point in the direction of the crossing -- just to help orient you.
- tome 13y agoThat's not a button.
- drostie 13y agoYou're right. We should stop calling anything a button which is not used to fasten cloth via a buttonhole, even if the entire English-speaking world uses the term euphemistically to refer to round things.
- protitap 13y agoIt's more like a spinning toothpaste lid. I wouldn't call that a button, even if it is round. And I can think of a lot of other round things which make no sense being called a button.
- Avshalom 13y agoWhich English speaking world are you from? Because fasteners and 'things you push' yeah. Round things in general though? no. Knob maybe... maybe.
- scott_s 13y agoMy understanding of British English is that they would not call something a "knob" in polite company. Americans (and I am one) think nothing of it. So, there are a decent amount of words with slightly different meanings throughout the English speaking world.
- votingprawn 13y agoPlenty of British English speakers would use the word "knob", for example I have no idea what I would call the knobs on the cooker other than knobs. Or the knobs on amplifiers, or door knobs - well I suppose door handle works but door knobs are distinctly different from handles in my mind.
- polshaw 13y ago
- shanelja 13y agoI was hoping it would be a button to instantly change the lights in your favour, now there is a button I would use.
- sn0v 13y agoI'd hoped for the same! :D
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jerf 13y agoAh, that would be something different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_signal_preemption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_signal_preemption Some of the systems have been hackable/hacked by non-authorized users. There's been stories every so often here on HN.
- triplesec 13y agoThat's what the headline subeditors are paid for
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoWhat I've always wanted - and what might be more mutually beneficial - is a button to cancel the crossing request. E.g. for all those times you press the button, then realise there's enough time to safely cross without the lights changing.
- saraid216 13y agoThis is actually one of the reasons I never hit the crossing signal in walkable zones: I feel it's rude when I could simply pay a little more attention and cross quickly without taking up others' time. However, there are lights that do not ever open up to pedestrian crossing unless you hit the button, which irritates me.
- bmslieght 13y agoA Puffin - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffin_crossing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffin_crossing may have a near-side detector, that will cancel the demand if you move way from the crossing. i.e. have crossed in the gap.
- keiferski 13y agoI've always wondered why elevated pedestrian walkways aren't more common. Too expensive, no doubt, but the savings in travel time and lives from accidents seems worth it.
- jaibot 13y agoTwo cases: Dense urban areas and sparse lightly-trafficked areas. In lightly-trafficked areas, you're absolutely right about the cost limitation. In the dense urban case, where "elevated pedestrian walkway" means "getting people away from cars", it means decimating foot traffic to stores and restaurants, ceding the area to automobiles. Generally regarded as horrible for dense urban environments.You see this more in urban planning a few decades back, and it tended to not help the surrounding area. If you look at the places where people want to live and travel to, you don't see elevated walkways. So it's fallen out of favor, with more emphasis on getting speeding cars away from dense areas. The exceptions are things like the NYC Skyline, which is basically a pedestrian freeway between and through areas already dominated by pedestrian foot traffic and relatively light and slow vehicular traffic.
- bernardom 13y agoOther exception: really cold cities. See the Calgary +15: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2B15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2B15 They get around the foot-traffic problem by basically bringing the commerce up as well- it's like a giant indoor mall on the second floor of interconnected buildings.
- sp332 13y agoYou don't need the whole sidewalk elevated, just the crossings. Las Vegas is known for this. http://ywwg.com/images/photos/060426-0/P4261565%20crosswalk.800x600.jpg http://ywwg.com/images/photos/060426-0/P4261565%20crosswalk....
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoI was going to comment on elevated crossings and walking up stairs, but then I saw the picture and remembered there are no regular stairs in the US, :+). Reminds me of a picture of a (rather short, ten foot) escalator going up to a gym.
- davefp 13y ago"Hugh Huddy is blind and works for visual impairment charities' umbrella group Vision 2020. He says he is always pleased to see a cone on a crossing"
- micampe 13y agoBlind people I know use the verb themselves — and joke about it.
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoWe had a presentation by a pair of UI design consultants, both blind, showing us how they used a computer. Their use of phrases related to seeing (that we take for granted) managed to catch the attention a lot more - and they cracked puns at it all the time.
- mixmax 13y agoA good friend of mine had an amazing experience showing what blind people are capable of. He overheard a middle aged man who had obviously been blind for a long time schooling a young girl who had recently gone blind on how to get around. They were standing on one side of the road in a quiet neighborhood, and the man was teaching the girl how to assess the distance across the road. The way he did this was absolutely incredible: tap the cane on the curb, and you can hear the echo from the curb and buildings across the road. With experience you can hear how far it is.
- micampe 13y agoAwesome related article that made the rounds a while ago http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/the-blind-man-who-taught-himself-to-see-20120504 http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/the-blind-man-who-taught...
- jgrahamc 13y agoRight after college I volunteered at a social centre in the UK for blind and partially sighted people. One elderly completely blind man used to like to play darts. He was pretty good at it after a little initial steering and feedback.
- gadders 13y agoHe could have cleaned up on The Golden Shot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Shot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Shot
- driverdan 13y agoIt's a skill most people can learn. With enough practice you can judge distances based on sound. When I was young my parents had a smooth railing with posts that stuck up above it. I used to slide my head on my arms along it with my eyes closed. I could hear when the post would get close and stop. I don't know the maximum distance humans can detect by sound but it's pretty easy for short distances.
- toki5 13y agoThere is (or was, at least) a group of blind mountain bikers who used echolocation to estimate obstacles in their path. I was floored when I read the article[1] about them; that ability always sounded like a superpower to me. [1]: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sensory-superpowers/200907/mountain-biking-the-blind http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sensory-superpowers/2009...
- thezach 13y agoHere in Kalamazoo, MI we don't have these... but all of our crosswalks beep and talk. For example it will tell you "Water, Walk sign is on across water" and then count down when you get 15 seconds away from the point when you can no longer walk. I do wish it would say "Walk on water like Jesus did"
- tokenadult 13y agoI'll look for those here in Minnesota, but I don't think those have been installed yet. The intersection near my home that I reach on walking trips to shop, a busy intersection between a state highway and a county highway, had all of the pedestrian crossings upgraded in the last two years. The traffic light poles include pressable buttons that activate a spoken word warning to walk or not walk, with the spoken phrases about which street to cross making clear which direction has the pedestrian right of way. This is out in the outer ring suburbs. The intersection is, I think, in the top ten statewide for largest number of traffic accidents each year (motor vehicle to motor vehicle, mostly, but some involving pedestrians too I think). In the downtown of Minneapolis, weather has suggested a different solution since the 1960s. Minneapolis has an extensive network of "skyways," covered bridges at second-story level between buildings, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Skyway_System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Skyway_System http://www.skywaymyway.com/ http://www.skywaymyway.com/ and those are so used now that many businesses think a skyway-level location inside a building is more valuable than a street-level location. There is no issue of a pedestrian running into car traffic at skyway level, and no issue of slipping on snow or ice, which was the original reason for the skyway system.
- callahad 13y ago> The traffic light poles include pressable buttons that activate a spoken word warning to walk or not walk, with the spoken phrases about which street to cross making clear which direction has the pedestrian right of way. That same button vibrates when it becomes safe to walk.
- brazzy 13y ago> I'll look for those here in Minnesota, but I don't think those have been installed yet. Given that they were invented in UK, are made by a UK company and recommended by a UK government agency, this is not much of a surprise.
- ohwp 13y agoIn The Netherlands we have a ticking sound in the pole called "rateltikkers" (rattle ticker). When red the tick is about once per second. When green it is ticking very fast.
- kall 13y agoWe have a similar vibrating button in Germany that also indicates in which direction this light actually points with a tactile arrow.
- patrickg 13y agoNot only that, it also tells you if there is an "island" in the middle of the road where you should step over. The arrow has a bar through it (looks a bit like a cross sign)
- dayjah 13y agoIn San Francisco the button you press vibrates aggressive when it is time to cross. I just discovered this yesterday and thought it amazing. Consider my surprise to read this today!
- nivla 13y agoWait but isn't this the purpose of the chirping sound when the crossing signal comes on? Far more effective and serves more than one person. However I realize it may not work on people who are both blind and deaf.
- oakesm9 13y agoIf there are two crossings next to each other where either can be on green while the other is red, the noise wont be there. It's to make sure that someone waiting at the red crossing does not hear the noise and cross. I think the article mentions that somewhere.
- itsybitsycoder 13y agoThe intersection crossings in my hometown and in my current city all have noise. They just use different noises for the different directions. E.g., N-S crossings might chirp while E-W crossings might beep. (I don't remember exactly what the rule is, but I'm sure a blind person would.)
- joeblossom 13y agoAt my university, they'd make the chirping noise, but it'd also state which road has the walk sign. So it'd repeatedly say "Farm Lane Walk Sign" while the sign was on.
- falcolas 13y agoAs per the article, those are not installed at every intersection. In my experience, they're rare outside of large cities.
- Fletch137 13y agoWe were told about them in school - I use them when looking at my phone with headphones in when walking around cities. Maybe telling people about them is now more relevant than it was when I was in school, for just this reason.
- bitwize 13y agoWhen I was in Brisbane, most pedestrian crossings vibrated and made a distinctive sound -- a single "chirp" followed by quick beeps -- to indicate it was safe to cross. In Boston, to disambiguate different nearby crossings, the walk signals may make different noises. It used to be a beep in one direction and a chirp in the other, but these days it could be a snare drum in one direction, and a cowbell in the other. (I guess some city planner had a fever for which there is only one prescription...?)
- kisielk 13y agoIn Burnaby, BC we have some pedestrian signals that will audibly count down how long is left to cross the road as well as providing a visual counter on the signal itself.
- Rovanion 13y agoIn Sweden the traffic lights make different ticking sounds depending on what state they are in. The traffic lights have three states: red, green and blinking green which means that it'll soon turn red again. Super handy for us seeing too since you don't have to watch the light to know when it's changed. There's a sound clip on Wikipedia in which you can hear two of the states: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/LA2_dont_walk.ogg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/LA2_dont_...
- cesarbs 13y agoHere in Bellevue, WA they have an interesting (not to say obvious) solution to having a sound play when there are pedestrian crossings in both directions. The north-south ones play a sound, while the east-west ones play a different sound. As far as I've observed, that's consistent throughout the city. Some crossings don't have sound, though. I'll check if they have the cone thing.
- losethos 13y agoGod says... 20:19 When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege: 20:20 Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued. ---- God says... I_was_just_thinking openeth gratings rebellious segway court smoke hatred termed substance thought impair confusions containing eighth tamer trust sublime foster-brother choose status obtains socalled enlightening false-named Malawi provide tending revenges nourishments narrower bosses charge how_bout_it season soughtest predicted Etext choler flowed pen execrable decayeth Hereat far-distant flights treasure-house understanding calculated during reputation seeking doubting Romania needeth actually issued pliant fence equals comprehend whither idly straightening
- antihero 13y agoAs kids we used to believe that if you manually turned the knob, it would force the lights to go green.
- JDGM 13y agoAt many of the crossings in Ise, Japan there is a button to call for assistance crossing the road. Or give more time to cross for old people. Or something like that, which I didn't quite understand. I remember going there with a friend who was absolutely furious with me for pressing the button, twice in fact. This was on one of the most sacred days of the year to visit Ise, one of the most sacred places in Japan, and it punctuated a long string of hilarious/egregiously-insensitive etiquette blunders I had made throughout the day.