Description

...in addition to driver expectations.

At this intersectiion, as well as several others, the County seems to be testing out a flashing-yellow-left-arrow signal indication, as noted in this press release:

http://www.stpete.org/news/2012/10-25-2012_say_hello_to_st_petersburg_s_first_flashing_yellow_arrow.asp

There are two separate problems here, I'll take them one at a time:

1) That press release says, in pertinent part:

"""
At 34th St. N. and 38th Ave., a flashing yellow arrow will be visible for left-turning motorists after the solid green arrow, and before the solid yellow arrow phase, when motorists should be preparing to STOP. During the flashing yellow arrow, motorists are permitted to make a left-turn after yielding to oncoming traffic.
"""

Thankfully, whomever wrote that release was wrong, as that set of actions would result in the left turn phase off US 19 *starting protected, becoming unprotected, and then turning protected *again**, before finally turning red.

Clearly, this is so unexpected a turn of events as to cause new accidents, instead of the presumed goal of reducing them -- and it's pretty useless anyway, as it's only real impact is to allow the opposing straight ahead traffic to start a little earlier by unprotecting the last part of the turn phase.

But, there's a more important issue at hand here.

The MUTCD, 2003 edition, appears -- unless I'm misreading it -- to explicitly forbid this indication, in section 4D.11-D, where it says:

"""
If a signal face includes both circular and arrow signal lenses of the color that is to be flashed, only the circular signal indication shall be flashed.
"""

The light heads in question here are 5-face heads, with a circular red, and circular and left-arrow yellow and green lenses. Since that head includes a circular yellow, this section appears to forbid the flashing of yellow arrow.

Indeed, I can find only the barest degree of support for this indication in Chapter 4 at all, and only if one is willing to interpret against the clear prescription of 4D.06-C1b:

"""
During the permissive left-turn movement, all signal faces on the approach shall display
CIRCULAR GREEN signal indications.
"""

Section 4D.04-D3, in particular, says:

"""
Flashing RED ARROW and flashing YELLOW ARROW signal indications have the same
meaning as the corresponding flashing circular signal indication, except that they apply only to
vehicular traffic intending to make the movement indicated by the arrow.
"""

which is the only support I can find in the chapter at all for this indication.

The real underlying question, though, is this:

In displaying a flashing-yellow-arrow indication, we are overlaying a new semantic (flashing yellow, usually used to mean "this signal is not currently functioning properly") onto an old, old one: "turn arrow implies a protected turn", and the new semantic *deletes the safety critical part of the older one*, the "your turn is protected" part.

In my opinion -- and I speak as someone who keeps a copy of the MUTCD on their cellphone (my dad did signs and signals for the City of Boston for about 20 years) -- this semantic overloading is confusing at best, and at worse... is going to get people killed, when they assume that an arrow still means "protected", flashing or otherwise.

And, for what it's worth: *I FOLLOW SIGNS AND SIGNALS*, as well as 3 traffic reporters, and even though the press release in question did get play, *I stlil did not see it*.

So the odds of any given 70 year old having seen it are less than zero.

I think this is a bad idea, and I'd like to know what support the FDOT DTOE can provide for it's being done. Especially here, in the most populous county in the fourth most populous state in the country, with a markedly high percentage of older and snowbird drivers.