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Do you prefer your traffic lights to be mounted vertically or horizontally? Why? And which way is more common in your city?
I strongly prefer vertical. Reason being, I know that red is always on top, and green is always towards the bottom (either all the way at the bottom or just above an arrow). Thus, even the briefest glance will tell me if the light is red or not. With horizontal, I never remember which way it goes; is the red the one on the right or the left? One might think it doesn't matter, but what if you're color-blind? Or what if the sun is glaring on the lights, and you can see which one is illuminated more clearly than you can see its color?
Fortunately for my preferences, almost all of the traffic lights around here are vertical. The only ones that are horizontal are ones just past overpasses, where it would be hard to see the light on top if it were mounted vertically.
Parts of Texas, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. There might be others.
I grew up in Wisconsin, and both vertical and horizontal are very common. I never even thought about it.
When I lived in Minnesota, I visited Wisconsin with a Minnesotan friend. He immediately freaked out over the horizontal traffic lights. I immediately freaked out that I had never noticed that some are vertical and some are horizontal.
On a similar note, I LOVE how in Wisconsin, traffic lights are placed both BEFORE and AFTER the intersection. Seems like everywhere else I've lived, the lights are ONLY AFTER the intersection.
As you can imagine, my first few times driving elsewhere, I entered the intersection a few times on a red light (luckily, this never caused any problems...).
Houston, TX has mostly horizontal. I can't think of another major city in the U.S. that does this, but I would guess that other Texas communities have them.
The other question is the color of the stop lights. I remember back in the 60's and 70's most in the west were painted black or rarely grey, and many in the midwest were yellow. Can't speak for the the east coast.
Now we are seeing more yellow markings on stop lights throughout the country.
I like this thread. One little thing I notice when I go to other states is how their stoplights are set up and what the street signs on the stoplight poles look like. I think vertical is more appealing, but where I'm from and where I live now, it is almost all horizontal.
Most in Michigan are yellow verticals. Very recently, a few intersections where I live have been changed to black with yellow borders and some all black and sometimes including black poles. But still all vertical.
Mainly horizontal in Wisconsin before and after the intersection with some vertical ones here and there. I am of the opinion that ALL STOPLIGHTS should be YELLOW in color, but it would appear that was more common in the past. It makes no sense. If one is driving when it is dark or lower light conditions outside, stoplights that are yellow colored backings show up better than ones that are black colored.
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