Posted on 10/07/2025 2:51:40 PM PDT by Omnivore-Dan
If you’ve ever wondered what power you really wield as a pedestrian in a busy city, read on…
City life involves a lot of waiting – in queues in the supermarket, on platforms for trains and buses, at red lights in your car or bike, or in lobbies for elevators. But as I see it, time never moves as soul-crushingly slowly as it does when you’re waiting to cross a busy road.
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For decades I’ve called those buttons placebos.
They only work if you make a fist and bash them repeatedly several times in quick succession. How do I know this? I’ve observed that people always do that.
Expensive placebos too. Every traffic light in surrounding towns have them. Never saw one work.
It doesn’t change the light the second you push it , it will give the crossing signal when the light changes for the traffic to move in a different direction just before the traffic starts to move . The ones we have are not buttons but you slam it with your fist, LOL
I think you have to curse like a drunken sailor while your beating hand turns into to a pulp also. When it finally turns green, you win!
Hahaha! I see crossing guards dutifully mashing those buttons without mercy and ask the same question.
I’ve never pushed the button. When I’ve seen others do it, it hasn’t seemed to do anything to shorten wait time; but I never thought much about it as I don’t mind waiting.
not once, obviously. but if you push it multiple times it definitely works
There’s a set of them at our beach at the Jersey shore. We’ve always called them idiot buttons
If you push it long enough, the light probably changes on it’s own programmed time.
Do you really believe they are going to disrupt the carefully calculated traffic light changes to accommodate one jogger wanting to cross the street?
Nope. Those buttons do nothing.
The problem is that very few pedestrians know HOW they’re supposed to work. They think it’s some kind of on-demand service that’s supposed to give you a “Walk” signal as soon as you press the button.
All the button does is modify the regular signal timing in a normal cycle to give slightly more green/walk time to the intersection approach where the pedestrian is trying to cross.
Let’s suppose, for example, that you’re waiting to cross a busy street where the minor street only has a 15-second green phase under normal operations. If the minimum green time needed for a pedestrian to cross the wide street is 20 seconds, then pressing the button will simply give you a 20-second green/walk phase on its next cycle instead of the usual 15 seconds.
Yes, they sometimes do—but they often don’t.
If they are working, they do not make the light change immediately. Some are programmed to reduce the time for cross traffic, making it faster for you to cross. These are typically just pedestrian crossings.
Others are programmed to give you the Walk sign and hold back turning traffic while you cross. Think Las Vegas Blvd.
But given the evidential preponderance for banging them multiple times with a fist, there are probably an overabundance of ones that don’t do anything at all.
Like I said, I’ve never seen one work, and I can imagine the chaos it could cause if it did. Some asshole just pushing the button to get his/hers jollies.
They can cause the light to change earlier and extend the time to cross the street.
I remember the time in the 1960s when Albany, NY synchronized its traffic lights.
Synchronization of traffic lights still has to get done.
The ones where I live in Redmond Oregon seem to work. However, it is a smaller town of about 36,000, so there is not this stream of constant vehicle traffic at intersections. At a couple busy intersections, the computer just runs through its regular cycle. I do like to see the walk sign though to feel safer crossing.
I bet the same guy invented the open and close door buttons on elevators...
Heck yeah, at least in Jensen Beach and Shelbyville, KY.
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