Traffic lights

Via Kansas Cyclist comes a news story from Ft. Collins about bike-friendly traffic signals: metal-sensing devices in the pavement that can detect the smaller quantities of metal in bikes as they approach intersections, thus changing the lights more quickly.

Sort of off-topic re cycling but still having to do with traffic lights: from 1985-1987 I lived and taught English in Durango, Mexico. There, traffic signals' green lights would flash for a couple of seconds before turning yellow and then red. All other cautions about driving in Mexico notwithstanding, I (a motorist myself while I lived there) always thought that cities in the States would do well to have such a sequencing--how many of us, after all, have found ourselves approaching an intersection and been caught in that awkward place where the light turns yellow and we have to decide whether to slam on the brakes or speed through the intersection? That extra warning of the flashing green, I'd think, would make intersections safer for all concerned--cyclists, too.

All this reminds me as well of Wichita drivers' propensity to not signal lane changes or turns at intersections, but that's a whole other post.