Take a look at this photo below. Do you find it confusing? Does it seem ambiguous to you? Is there any doubt in your mind as to what it could mean? Now pretend that you have never driven, never even seen a car, and you come upon this sign. Given all that, would you have trouble deciphering its meaning?
Probably not.
It seems pretty clear. Here we have a green arrow pointing left. Green is good. It is the colour of life. It means go. Left is a direction - the opposite of right. If you think this signal means "leprechauns this way" or "wholesome organic broccoli coming up," you're struggling. If you believe this sign tells you, "it's okay to go left," you'd be correct. You should also be in the majority.
So why is it that every time I'm waiting impatiently in the left lane for this precious signal to materialize the guy at the head of the line is confused when it finally appears? There is inevitably a 10- to 60-second delay during which time the entire traffic column sits immobile while this guy comes to grips with the shimmering green sphinx he finds before him.
What walks on four legs in morning, two at midday and three in the afternoon? Not us! We're not going anywhere! Because we're all stuck behind this moron as he tries to figure out the subliminal message being sent by a bright green arrow pointing left!
How can this be, I wonder, he is in the turning lane? This is the signal we can assume he has been waiting for. At some point he must have thought "Me want go left" and steered his car into the left turn lane and yet, when the green arrow pointing that direction appears, he sits frozen, like a caveman coming to grips with his first glimpse of precious fire.
When he finally makes his move, the five cars behind him also get through, the last two blatantly running the now-red light. By the time I get to the intersection, the left-hand green is long gone, replaced instead by a fiery red demon. I'm stuck. Now it's my turn to sit at the front of the line and all because some dude has trouble with modern hieroglyphics. Traffic cameras should be used to take photographs of these drivers and they should be posted in a giant gallery in Paris called the "Musee de Everyone Should Hate These Guys."
Why the delay? When you dig for a reason, you'll discover that often these folks sit transfixed when the green arrow appears because they're busy doing something important in their cars, or as they would say, "anything but driving."
They are sending illegal texts while they wait for the light to change because everyone knows that it's impossible to put off typing "C u in 5" with your woefully wasted opposable thumbs. Others are distracted by the billboards featuring scantily clad models pushing trips to Cuba and colognes called "Bang."
Meanwhile, when at long last my opportunity to turn manifests itself, I am primed and ready. The light changes and I drive into the intersection. But hold on! A pedestrian is crossing the road, despite the fact that she faces a flashing light that blinks "Don't Walk."
"That must be meant for someone else," she thinks and continues ambling along as all the other street strollers watch from the curb in disbelief.
I brake and my coveted left turn signal disappears. Now it's time for me to sit in the intersection while a stream of motorists pass by spewing obscenities, things like "What the hell are you doing?" only chock full of expletives and vitriol. As the green turns to yellow, four or five cars accelerate through the intersection. The light is now red. If I do not turn, I will effectively block all traffic. And so, with no alternative, I make a totally illegal left hand turn. Then it's off to the next light.
This fall, it looks like red is the new green.
Random thought: Last week, a truck carrying 241 pigs capsized on a highway outside Toronto. Eighty-one pigs eventually died. To me, this is fundamentally unfair. I don't know much, but I do know that probably the only upside to being a pig destined for the abattoir is the knowledge that at least you probably won't die in a car accident.
Andrew Clark