Tue, December 7, 2004
Please Don't—6:40 PM
If you're in front of me in the left turn lane at a traffic light – particularly during rush hour, but really whenever – I would really appreciate it if you would not behave as though there's any inherent difference between these two signals.
Both of these mean "go."
I promise you, there isn't. They mean exactly the same thing. Left turn continues to yield on green. Just because there was a green arrow, then a yellow arrow, doesn't mean there's now a red arrow. (And, as to why those shouldn't even exist in the first place – another story for another time.) Inch out there, just like you're supposed to, so we'll be ready to go when it turns yellow. Don't sit there behind the line like a stupid goon. It's a green light! Use it!
While Googling for a stoplight image, I was stunned at the number of images of things that looked like stoplights. Red, yellow, and green tomatoes in a row. Kids in red, yellow, and green T-shirts. Why are people so obsessed with this?
It reminded me, though, of eating Skittles in Peter Manning's class in college, sitting in the back of the room with Arksie and the TAs. On a whim, I pulled out a red, yellow, and green Skittle and created a little stoplight on the edge of my desk before eating it. Cindy Sarver, the cute TA, the one we pretended had a crush on me although conventional wisdom was that she liked girls, leaned toward me and said, "That's cute."
I was thinking of that, and sure enough, on the next page of results: a Skittle stoplight. (Sadly, this was not a sign from Cindy, trying to reconnect with me.)
