Those flashing yellow lights are dangerous. In most other states it’s just blank. They have a red arrow if you can’t turn. No light means you may turn, yielding to traffic of course, if it’s safe.

But here the yellow lights can turn on while the straight light is red. That can be really confusing. Almost everyone in my family has turned left on a yellow not realizing that the oncoming traffic was about to get a green light. Another case is when they go yellow, and then blinking yellow (because oncoming cars have a turn arrow then). Maybe we’ll get used to them, but there are too many cases where they can be confusing.

Our traffic managers are trying to micromanage our behaviors into a set of systems so complex it’s hard for us to process.

Shawn Steele

Bellevue