I sell traffic lights. What you consider a “green” light in the USA is actually called “blue green”. I believe the reason for this is increased visibility for older drivers.
Why Japan has blue traffic lights instead of green
221–230 of 268 posts
Re: Why Japan has blue traffic lights instead of green
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Greek said the sea was green, for example; so did the Romans. The Romans did have a word for blue, but it only applied to the sky.
> The Greek said the sea was green, for example; so did the Romans. This isn't exactly a surprise; they were both heavily involved with the sea. English speakers talk about the sea being blue, but that's not because it is blue by the standards of English speakers. It's because most people don't bother to give any thought to the things they say. If you go look at the sea, it is obviously green.
Which sea?
Re: Why Japan has blue traffic lights instead of green
#223To this day I insist that American traffic lights are red, orange and green. I know what yellow looks like and that is not yellow, it is orange. As a child, I couldn't understand the concept of calling it yellow despite it emitting orange light. Now, I understand the concept of colloquially referring to things by incorrect names, but I still hate it.
The concept of "red = stop" and "yellow = slow" existed prior to electricity and artificial light: in rail transportation, a yellow flag meant proceed with caution.
When traffic lights were first created, they simply didn't have the technology to create a great pure yellow, so amber was used instead, and people understood the color they were aiming for.
Re: Why Japan has blue traffic lights instead of green
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, on average women can perceive more colors than men [1] Anecdotally, in high school we all took this test for a class [2] and the girls did a lot better than us. Although some guys were able to score pretty well on it. I don’t remember if this was the exact test but it’s very similar. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21675035/ [2] https://www.xrite.com/hue-test
A lot of that is learned.. However, there are people who are tetrachromats, have cones most sensitive to a fourth frequency of light in their eyes, and those people are also overwhelmingly women.
> those people are also overwhelmingly women.
As far as I understand it takes having two X chromosomes with different versions of the gene that encodes the receptors for green, so only women can be tetrachromats.
Re: Why Japan has blue traffic lights instead of green
#225Just a data point that I want to put out there. I have long heard that Japan has blue traffic lights. Earlier this year I visited Japan. Because I had heard about the blue traffic light situation, I paid special attention to the traffic lights. They all appeared green to me. In both Tokyo and Osaka. Okay maybe a tinge of blue if you look at it and wonder 'is this blue?' , but the only reason I wondered was because I…
A lot of traffic lights in the US are actually "not just green".
The traffic lights have an abnormally high amount of blue light for being an overall green light, to help people with red-green colorblindness to tell the difference between the red and "green" light.
If you take a look at the green light on a dash cam, you might see that the color is abnormally bluer than what you might see in real life.
Re: Why Japan has blue traffic lights instead of green
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you come, that they had no distinction between blue and green? The Greek had no word for blue, which is the reason Homer described the sky with different words. But I never heard that the sky was green-isch. While on the other side the Greek had more similarities between green and yellow.
The Greek said the sea was green, for example; so did the Romans. The Romans did have a word for blue, but it only applied to the sky.
Although Homer speaks of the "wine-dark sea" which is an odd visual picture for us.
Re: Why Japan has blue traffic lights instead of green
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
And orange juice is actually yellow. Which really blows some people's minds. "Well it's a little bit orange." No it's not, not your regular American bottled or fresh OJ. Straight-up yellow. (Not denying there are varieties that produce more orange-color juice, like tangerines. But that's not what's on 99% of Americans' breakfast tables.)
> Which really blows some people's minds. "Well it's a little bit orange." No it's not, not your regular American bottled or fresh OJ. Straight-up yellow. Well, it wouldn't be that weird if you were right because we name fruit juices after the fruit, not the juice color, but I’ve never seen orange juice that wasn't distinctly on the orange side of yellow, even if its more yellow than orange, including fresh and bottl…
> but I’ve never seen orange juice that wasn't distinctly on the orange side of yellow
wait what? I never seen orange juice that was not yellow (in Canada and Brazil)
Re: Why Japan has blue traffic lights instead of green
#228Color blindness compatible design is, IMO, a very neglected part of the equality debate, in many other fields. This disability has a very skewed gender ratio due to how it works genetically.
Traffic lights are still fine for colour-blind people aren't they? The order of the lights doesn't change.
> The order of the lights doesn't change.
That argument has two issues: First, not all US traffic lights have order, as single-light ones replace stop signs in some (mostly suburban/rural) areas. Second, light position is still hard to discern at night.
My personal take: the red and yellow hues in traffic lights are often indistinguishable for those of us with red-green colorblindness.
Re: Why Japan has blue traffic lights instead of green
#229To this day I insist that American traffic lights are red, orange and green. I know what yellow looks like and that is not yellow, it is orange. As a child, I couldn't understand the concept of calling it yellow despite it emitting orange light. Now, I understand the concept of colloquially referring to things by incorrect names, but I still hate it.
The concept of "red = stop" and "yellow = slow" existed prior to electricity and artificial light: in rail transportation, a yellow flag meant proceed with caution. When traffic lights were first created, they simply didn't have the technology to create a great pure yellow, so amber was used instead, and people understood the color they were aiming for.
Makes sense, since Yield signs and similar warning signs are all yellow as well. But being born into a world where everyone calls an orange light yellow is confusing nonetheless!
Re: Why Japan has blue traffic lights instead of green
#230Just a data point that I want to put out there. I have long heard that Japan has blue traffic lights. Earlier this year I visited Japan. Because I had heard about the blue traffic light situation, I paid special attention to the traffic lights. They all appeared green to me. In both Tokyo and Osaka. Okay maybe a tinge of blue if you look at it and wonder 'is this blue?' , but the only reason I wondered was because I…
Japan has green traffic lights, there are no two ways around it. I’ve lived in Japan for 3 years in all the major cities. They are green, just like everywhere else. They just call them blue.
Why they do that is something you can argue about and I’ve heard Japanese try and come up with all sorts of explanations:
“The character for blue is easier to learn than the one for green, so it’s better to say blue with children.”
“They used to be blue, so we still just call it that”
“Green isn’t an original Japanese color. Before foreigners arrived we didn’t call anything green”
“They are blue!” - usually these are people who will call traffic lights in Europe and smarties blue even when speaking English.
It’s just a quirk. I think Japan places the border between blue and green different from most western cultures and that gives.