The flashing red-man

This is a traffic-light trivia. In Singapore, when the green-man of the traffic light for the pedestrians flashes, it means that pedestrians who have yet to cross the road should not cross the road, but should wait for the next green-man to appear before crossing. Once the red-man appears, one should have reached the other side of the road, and that's the time for vehicles to have their way.

Interestingly, I noticed during my short vacation in Sydney that Sydney uses a different system for its traffic lights for the pedestrians. The same system was also observed when I was in Melbourne for slightly more than 24 hours. Maybe this system is used throughout Australia?

Instead of a flashing green-man, the flashing red-man is used to signal to pedestrians who have yet to cross the road that they are not to cross the road. These pedestrians should wait for the next green-man to appear before crossing.

I did not realise that the traffic lights for the pedestrians operated differently in Sydney initially. As such, the first few times I crossed the roads in Sydney, I had wondered why the pedestrians seem to have such a short a time to cross the road. Why did the traffic lights turn red so quickly? That was because I thought that I have to be on the other side of the road by the time that the red-man appear. I was wrong, I was simply in a country with a different traffic light system.

Maybe I was too conditioned to the traffic light system in Singapore. I found it a little hard to determine when the vehicles would have their turn to have the right of the way with a blinking red-man system. It was just too hard for me to differentiate if the red-man was blinking or not.

RL would probably be amused that yours truly had actually stood near a traffic light just to do a video recording of the flashing red-man in action. Anyway, please sit back and be amused. Some entertainment with a trivia like this can be educational and interesting.

Here's the link to the YouTube video of the flashing red-man that I have uploaded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhyrYNXat1w. Please look carefully to find the traffic lights for the pedestrians.