This article is classified "Fictional"
Life has no amber lights. Zip. Zero. None. The big celestial doughnut.
Nada. Now to explain this, please bear with me.
First, for those of us not familiar with traffic signals (aliens, illegal
aliens, some foreigners, and most drivers in Dallas-Fort Worth, New York and
L.A.), here's what you're missing. Imagine, if you will, a land of plenty,
crisscrossed with aging road systems, populated with a mix of older, fast,
gas guzzling cars and newer, faster, gas guzzling foreign cars. Further,
add in cities with an unbelievable population density (rats, when placed in
similar densities, develop homosexuality, cannibalism and daytime talk
shows) with hundreds of miles of crowded "surface streets" without direct
supervision!
Not one intersection has a permanent police presence nor even a camera to
record who does and does not obey the traffic laws. It is merely assumed
that you will obey the lights that adorn each intersection like
out-of-season Christmas trees [1].
Each intersection has lights facing the oncoming drivers from (usually) four
(sometimes two, three, five or even six) directions. Only three colors are
used: red, green and amber. Green means go. Red means don't go. Amber
means "maybe don't go", "don't go if it's not safe" or "go fast 'cause it's
gonna be red soon" (depending on translation).
Red and green seem to be well thought (quite above the normal thought seen
[Paul: "...seem to be well thought" what? Thought out? Thought of? This
line doesn't make sense.]
on this benighted planet), but this amber thing has puzzled many. When
dealing with mostly non-happy things like half-ton to multi-ton vehicles,
brain dead pedestrians, and variables like the sobriety of the drivers, the
willingness to pay for adequate maintenance, what kind of sandwich the
drivers ate, whether or not the driver has sex lately and finally, whether
or not the driver was armed (and with what), you kinda want to take the
chance out of the process. Or carry plenty of health insurance (a solution
mandated, believe it or not, by the government).
What in the name of all that's froody were they thinking of? An amber light
is a worthless warning, in so much as it prevents nothing! Say you are
speeding down the road, anxious to make it to a date. The intersection
ahead glows brightly green. No! Wait! Now it's amber! What do you
do? Speed up, to make it before red. What happens at red? The other
traffic goes immediately green [2]! No pause, to let traffic clear, no
timely wait to let out of breath pedestrians finish crossing, or anything.
Just amberamberamberred and the other light goes green and traffic
smashes you into a small painful puddle of bodily fluid mixed
indiscriminately with gas, oil and steering fluid.
It would be far better to put the amber on both sides. Put both ambers on
three seconds; after the green goes amber and red, the red goes amber then
green. This would allow sanity to return to the streets and cut down on
happy go-froody people getting cut down. In addition, it is recommended
that an auto-tracking, 30 mm auto-cannon be posted at each intersection,
with radar, infrared and optical tracking sensors to blow offenders into
smithereens, will cut down on the number of traffic citations [3].
[Paul: This last line also needs some revamping. What is being recommended?
What will cut down the number of citations? The subject/predicate here is
inconclusive.]
Now, for a moment, consider the feelings of your average light. House
lights have a happy home life, street lights spend a lot of time on and are
a very satisfied sort of light. Christmas tree lights are well known as
neurotic, fast burning maniacs (with admittedly high morale) and growth
lights in pot farms are, well, highly esteemed by their peers.
But traffic lights are lights with problems. Take red, for instance. Red
is continually feeling down. All it ever does is act as an obstacle in the
road of life (or more importantly, on a road near you); always stopping
cars, trucks and buses, enduring the cursing of late drivers, being shot at
by drunks, it's just not easy being red.
Green, on the other hand, is a very happy light. "Go, go, go!" is green's
motto and it does its very best to be bright and cheerful. This happiness
has its drawbacks, and some green lights have been known to go completely
frood-happy and turn green out of turn. These serial murderers are rare,
however and easily spotted by chalk outlines in the intersection.
Amber lights are completely nuts. It is a caring, liberal of a light,
wanting to warn and protect those approaching a dangerous area. This,
coupled with the number of utter fools that get killed (and kill others)
while trying to "beat the light", will usually cause a complete mental
breakdown in the poor amber light. It suffers the utter humiliation of a
prophet who knows he is right, knows he has the answer and people run by him
to kill themselves. It is very frustrating.
Currently, that brings us to this. People believe amber lights are a warning
they can ignore with impunity (no matter what the traffic analysts believe).
Traffic lights know better. There are NO AMBER LIGHTS IN LIFE.
Editor's Footnotes:
[1] Drag Racing starting lights are known as Christmas trees because they
have over seven lights for each of the two competing cars. This is
rather strange since their main function is to tell when the drivers
when to go which could be quite well catered for by a single green
light, or perhaps a man waving a flag.
[2] Britain's traffic lights already go from red, to red and amber together,
followed by green. But it doesn't stop people from jumping the lights.
[3] We got those too.