My pet peeve in Europe is the positioning of traffic lights. It drives me crazy that they not on the opposite side of the intersection, like in the US, but at the stop line. If you are in the first car at the stop line, then they are right above you and you have to crawl under the windshield to see them. Worst usability ever.
Pedestrians have the fear of being run over. I don't think cars have to worry about the same from pedestrians. Actually, that's also the reason the laws tend to favour the pedestrians in all situations, even when they are to blame.
* Some of the traffic lights in some European countries.
This is not the case in most of England, also in France there is often another set of lights lower down on the pole positioned for the driver in the car in the front of the queue.
It's confusing to have three lights for a single stop line, especially the light on the left is odd. You don't know which of the traffic lights apply to you and it makes you look for another stop line.
Here in Germany they are at least overhead and to the right on the pole, the latter easily visible from the first car. Additionally some intersections have them on the left side on a pole as well.
True, but they are not always so much easier to see if you are in the first car. Also, if you need three lights instead of one, I think that is a sure sign that the design is broken.
In the UK they are both; the back of the 'near' traffic lights for you act as the 'far' traffic lights for the opposite drivers, and vice-versa. This allows you both to see the lights at the junction, and to see them easier on approach, even if the junction is at the top of a hill/etc.
Many countries in Europe have them on both sides. Not having the one on the near side is my biggest problem when driving in the US, it has happened that I have to slam down on the brakes because I'm already 10 meters away from the intersection when I see the red light.
In any case, placing them only on the near side is often intentional, as it forces drivers to stop far away from the intersection itself. This leaves space for pedestrians, and provides drivers from the other directions with more space to look around. It also creates a buffer where cars can move into when an emergency vehicle needs to pass the queues.
Uh you shouldn't be surprised by a red light unless you're cresting a hill (and even then there will usually be a flashing sign indicating a red light up ahead). The yellow light indicates you should start slowing down.
As you said traffic lights in Europe are on the leading edge of an intersection. This may in fact be the simplest and most foundational bit of usability and user experience innovation the US could learn from Europe in intersection design.
1) Placing the signals on the leading edge means that the stop line is ~10 feet back from the intersection. If you decide to ignore the stop line, you can't see the signals. BAM instant conformance to proper road use.
2) Following on that, sitting 10 feet back from the intersection you can see everything in the intersection. You can see pedestrians crossing in front of you and to the right of you. You can see cyclists entering into the intersection and passing you far before you enter the intersection. As a ped or cyclist this makes intersections much, much safer.
3) As you approach an intersection, and the light switches to yellow and then red, there can be no doubt about the state of the light as you enter the intersection. You can't enter or pass through the intersection on a red light as you might in the US, because it will be red before you even get to the intersection. This seriously reduces running lights or flying through the intersection, making intersections much, much safter for motorists.
I don't understand the correlation between the position of the lights and the position of the stop line. You can have a stop line 10 feet away from the intersection and still have traffic lights on the other side.
Actually, in my experience, not being able to see the lights once you crossed the stop line can also be quite dangerous, and it has happened to me more than once in traffic jams.
For sure. I'm used to having them both before and after the intersection, so then you can clearly see which part it is for, and you can see it wherever you are, and you can see it well from a long distance. Some countries in Europe have some additional lights at car window level close to the intersection, this helps a lot, but still not ideal.
The street lights were the most confusing thing moving from Germany to the US. The first year or so my heart often jumped when I felt like I was running a red light after turning right on a green.
Now when I go back after driving in the US for 20 years there are a lot of things that seem weird in Germany. Not having right-on-red (and even left on red into one-ways) is a huge plus here. I also think there's too much yielding to the car coming from much smaller streets on the right.
> I also think there's too much yielding to the car coming from much smaller streets on the right.
That's a feature though, since it is usually used in residential areas to slow down traffic and force people to stop more frequently, instead of just rolling through at 30...who are we kidding, 40+ Km/h.
If you're in the US you probably don't have to go to Europe to experience this. Just go to another state. Despite federal standards there's a lot if variation in traffic signage, road markings, lane widths, and allowances.
Many regions of Michigan, for example, do not have left turn lanes. You're expected to make a right and then a U-turn.
I work in San Diego, but my employer is in Buffalo, NY. After spending a few weeks driving in Buffalo I've quickly come to appreciate how much thought has gone into SoCal's roads. The smart lights alone make me never want to leave the region.
When I first moved to Pennsylvania I was completely dumbfounded the first time I came to a stop at a stop sign and the driver behind laid on his horn - I didn't read the "fine print" below the sign: except for right turn[1]
I did, in fact, post another comment, so the literal answer to your question is "no". Answering your question in, I think, the spirit it was intended (assuming you weren't simply being facetious) I feel that pithily observing that there is a general principle at work of which the article being discussed is merely a minor example is in fact a pretty decent contribution.
> The street signs are in weird spots, or are non existent.
(Disclaimer: I haven't been to Ireland, but I do live closeby in the UK).
I find this interesting, because I found exactly the same thing true when I first went to San Francisco! It took me months to understand where to look for street signs (and I'm still fairly sure many junctions are missing them). I'm not sure if there's some pattern, but they often seemed arbitrarily placed... looking back, I also wonder if they're positioned more for drivers, whereas street signs here could be seen as more for pedestrians (whether this is true, or which is correct, is a topic for discussion).
In any case, I feel the author could expand their article by trying to think like a foreigner driving in their own country, and how that may also seem wrong! I personally think that this is perhaps a case of 'everyone has the wrong design', held together only by learnt habits.
Definitely thought some about that. Mostly the point of the article was to say that to grow as a UI/UX dev you need to shock yourself out of being numb. So in that regard, it would work with anyone driving in a country they don't live in. They are all so different. Trying to kill comfort zone.
I've driven in over 11 different countries, and I find the signage in the UK to still be the strangest but at least I'm used to it. In the denser urban areas the biggest main streets seem to have the least signs naming the street. The alley ways off it will all have signs, but the big street you are just supposed to 'know'. Also what gets me is that when there is an intersection going through a roundabout, there is a sign well before the turn, but not always actually at the turn. Most other places have a sign before and at the turn. It's something to get used to in the UK, otherwise you see some turns and wonder what the sign before the turn said because you didn't read every single big board with multiple turns on it to check if one of them is what you are after.
Whilst I know the point of this article isn't to say Ireland has terrible road systems compared to the US, I found it amusing that coming from Ireland to the US for a brief trip, I felt the systems there were absolutely crazy.
Now, clearly neither country is perfect, nor are they flawless but the interesting takehome is when put in a pressured situation, how important it is to reduce the cognitive load so you can focus on what's really important e.g. I need to stop or, do I turn here?
> The street signs are in weird spots, or are non existent. Often times they were located after an intersection. Traffic lights were conflicting, there would be a red light on top and a green arrow pointing forward on bottom. We didn’t understand any of the icons. We were always a little nervous pulling up to an intersection and we were out of our comfort zone. There were cues on what to do, but they were never clear and obvious until it was much too late. We missed turns, exits and ran a few lights along the way but we made it through.
While we were there, one Irish guy asked me if I knew why the roads were so crooked. When I asked why he told me "Because the guys that built them were all drunk". It was good for a laugh.
Having just returned from the USA, I must admit, whilst I strongly dislike like the "car culture" the street were incredibly well sign posted. A pet hate of mine here in the UK are missing signs.
There's a new philosophy of road safety in Europe based around reducing the usability of roads for drivers and increasing it for pedestrians. (You might say that it follows as a lemma from the observation that Volvo drivers have more accidents.)
E.g. if you make the boundary between "road" and "not road" less clear and remove lane markings, drivers will drive more carefully. (Amazing!) I visited some towns in Switzerland a few years ago that have taken this approach to extremes -- there are no hard boundaries between road and sidewalk, seven-way intersections (with trams) and no traffic lights -- and it works well (especially for pedestrians).
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 44.0 ms ] threadThis is not the case in most of England, also in France there is often another set of lights lower down on the pole positioned for the driver in the car in the front of the queue.
It has three lights, only two of them positioned at the stop line.
In any case, placing them only on the near side is often intentional, as it forces drivers to stop far away from the intersection itself. This leaves space for pedestrians, and provides drivers from the other directions with more space to look around. It also creates a buffer where cars can move into when an emergency vehicle needs to pass the queues.
Of course, I learned my lesson and don't expect the system to adapt to me.
As you said traffic lights in Europe are on the leading edge of an intersection. This may in fact be the simplest and most foundational bit of usability and user experience innovation the US could learn from Europe in intersection design.
1) Placing the signals on the leading edge means that the stop line is ~10 feet back from the intersection. If you decide to ignore the stop line, you can't see the signals. BAM instant conformance to proper road use.
2) Following on that, sitting 10 feet back from the intersection you can see everything in the intersection. You can see pedestrians crossing in front of you and to the right of you. You can see cyclists entering into the intersection and passing you far before you enter the intersection. As a ped or cyclist this makes intersections much, much safer.
3) As you approach an intersection, and the light switches to yellow and then red, there can be no doubt about the state of the light as you enter the intersection. You can't enter or pass through the intersection on a red light as you might in the US, because it will be red before you even get to the intersection. This seriously reduces running lights or flying through the intersection, making intersections much, much safter for motorists.
Now when I go back after driving in the US for 20 years there are a lot of things that seem weird in Germany. Not having right-on-red (and even left on red into one-ways) is a huge plus here. I also think there's too much yielding to the car coming from much smaller streets on the right.
That's a feature though, since it is usually used in residential areas to slow down traffic and force people to stop more frequently, instead of just rolling through at 30...who are we kidding, 40+ Km/h.
Many regions of Michigan, for example, do not have left turn lanes. You're expected to make a right and then a U-turn.
I work in San Diego, but my employer is in Buffalo, NY. After spending a few weeks driving in Buffalo I've quickly come to appreciate how much thought has gone into SoCal's roads. The smart lights alone make me never want to leave the region.
More about the Michigan Left: http://www.michiganhighways.org/indepth/michigan_left.html
[1]: http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/067/chapter212/s212.107.ht...
Edit: Here's a source with a photo: http://www.another-mile.com/2009/12/stop-means-stop-except-r...
(Disclaimer: I haven't been to Ireland, but I do live closeby in the UK).
I find this interesting, because I found exactly the same thing true when I first went to San Francisco! It took me months to understand where to look for street signs (and I'm still fairly sure many junctions are missing them). I'm not sure if there's some pattern, but they often seemed arbitrarily placed... looking back, I also wonder if they're positioned more for drivers, whereas street signs here could be seen as more for pedestrians (whether this is true, or which is correct, is a topic for discussion).
In any case, I feel the author could expand their article by trying to think like a foreigner driving in their own country, and how that may also seem wrong! I personally think that this is perhaps a case of 'everyone has the wrong design', held together only by learnt habits.
List of participating countries: http://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetailsIII.aspx?&src=TR...
Notable missing countries: China, USA
Now, clearly neither country is perfect, nor are they flawless but the interesting takehome is when put in a pressured situation, how important it is to reduce the cognitive load so you can focus on what's really important e.g. I need to stop or, do I turn here?
Sounds like Texas.
ftfy.
Streetview: http://goo.gl/maps/Nni7P About: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
E.g. if you make the boundary between "road" and "not road" less clear and remove lane markings, drivers will drive more carefully. (Amazing!) I visited some towns in Switzerland a few years ago that have taken this approach to extremes -- there are no hard boundaries between road and sidewalk, seven-way intersections (with trams) and no traffic lights -- and it works well (especially for pedestrians).