Comments on: To Illustrate New Yellow-Light Regulation, TV Show Airs Traffic Accident Greatest Hits

By: Anthony Tao

Anthony Tao — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 02:31:02 +0000

While we’re on the subject: I was in a cab trying to turn left from Xindong Lu onto Gongti the other day. Note to everyone: never, ever try to turn left there. I knew this deep down — I don’t think I’ve taken that route in two years — but for whatever reason I thought there would be few enough cars for it to work. The left-turn stoplight goes green for 15 seconds, ensuring three cars get by, and then goes red for three minutes. Like watching a commercial telethon.

By: Ming

Ming — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 18:18:56 +0000

I’m a Chinese native and holds both PRC and US Driver’s licenses. The new interpretation of the law is ridiculous. You either make flashing green (or yellow for that matter) mandatory throughout the country before enforcing this, or adopt at least a remotely reasonable rule. Yellow lights in the US is a pretty good example. Yellow duration in the US is adjusted according to the speed limit, there’s usually a good 4-5 sec on a 55mph highway and 3 sec on a 30mph road, whereas in China everything is just 1 sec. It’s impossible to stop before it if you are driving anything above 15km/h. The problem mentioned in the video above can also be easily solved by, again, learning from the US system. Add a 2-4 sec delay between turning red in one way and turning green the other way. We don’t even need to debate, there are 100+ countries we can just copy from, but no, we have to make our own oh-so-ridiculous-impossible-to-flow rule. What a shame!

By: Ander

Ander — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 07:57:16 +0000

Why are people crossing on the yellow light and getting hit by cars still going through on the yellow light? Oh, right~

By: RhZ

RhZ — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 07:35:20 +0000

China’s government doesn’t understand how rules are supposed to work. You see the same thing with the jokes for new rules for party members. Those are obviously not designed to be enforceable, but here its just going to cause more problems.

Sheesh. Talk about ineffective. There is a basic rule in China, don’t hit people. None of these incidents are about yellow lights but about following the rules of the road and driving at a safe speed. Yes, people and bikes don’t follow the rules, which is why cars must.

Red light means stop! Yellow light is a timer for drivers to know when the red light is coming. Making the yellow light into a sort of stop rule is idiotic. Drivers need clear rules, thanks for trying to make traffic rules as opaque as all the other laws.