The traffic light protest
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- Опубликовано: 20 янв 2024
- Caroline Roper, Ella Hubber and Tom Lum from the podcast 'Let's Learn Everything!' face a question about a curious car conundrum.
LATERAL is a weekly podcast about interesting questions and even more interesting answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit www.lateralcast.com
GUESTS:
Caroline Roper: / carolinethebug
Ella Hubber: / ellahubber
Tom Lum: / tomlumperson
Let's Learn Everything podcast: www.letslearneverythingpod.com/
HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.
RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
EDITED BY: Julie Hassett.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com).
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
© Pad 26 Limited (www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2024. 
Развлечения
"I'm from Utica and I've never heard of an upside down traffic light!"
"Oh, not in Utica, no! It's a Syracuse landmark!"
"I see."
"May I see it?"
"mmm... no."
At this time of the 20s, in this part of Syracuse, located entirely within your traffic light?
@@WolfbloodJakeWilliams”steamed hams, never heard of them. I’m more of a Utica man myself.”
"Yes, and you call it a traffic light despite the fact that it's obviously British propaganda."
"No Mother, it's just an upside-down stop light"
As a two-time Syracuse-area resident, the moment he uttered "Tipperary Hill" I knew _exactly_ what the story was. For those raising safety concerns about the non-standard orientation, there are warning signs on all approaching roads indicating its non-standardness.
That may be the case but people still drive tall trucks into bridges with signs and flashing lights and height indicators.
@@GamePlague "people still drive tall trucks into bridges with signs and flashing lights and height indicators" Well, while we're on the subject of Syracuse area traffic devices, let me tell you about Onondaga Lake Parkway...
@@CCNYMacGuy If you didn't, I would have, ;)
Burying it in a reply so it doesn't act as a spoiler, here's a StreetView of the light:
maps.app.goo.gl/LXJUV7YvNrzJ2CKQA
It was cool seeing this here, as I sent this in as a video idea when Tom Scott made a call for things to make videos on. I have no clue if it's related to it showing up as a question in the podcast, or if he found out about the light on his own (or from whatever research team), but it's so cool to see it talked about regardless.
I knew... I wrote a whole essay on this in school. Amazing that 15 years later it comes in handy.
interesting that this is your definition of handy
At Tompkins Street and Milton Avenue, so nerds on the internet can look at it.
I have seen that light when on holiday and asked at a local bar about why that one light was upside down.
From a traffic safety perspective, this seems like a bad idea.
Color blind drivers must like this!
@@vincentpelletier57 I was thinking the same thing. One of the reasons the order is always the same is specifically for color blind drivers.
My thoughts exactly, colourblind drivers are going to have a big problem here unless they account for that in some other way.
Red at the top isn’t universal either. There are plenty of instances of traffic lights being laid out horizontally vs vertically.
@@TXnine7nineBut when horizontal isn't red pretty much always on the left? (Left to right and top down being the typical "orders" for reading letters/words/symbols in Western cultures.) In any case, the diversion from a well established standard is likely a bigger source of risk than simple ambiguity.
Mark Steel has done 12 sets of 6 episodes of "in town" for BBC radio 4. As far as I'm aware the series hasn't been cancelled but he is currently recovering from cancer so it may have been some time since he's made new ones
There is a show in Canada that borrowed this format as well. I assume the BBC one is the original.
@@karlcarlsburg9641The original concept is from Denmark. The program in Denmark is called “På kanten med Jan Gintberg” (On the edge with Jan Gintberg), it started in 2011, but they made the last episodes last year. 😊
@@karlcarlsburg9641What's the Canadian one called and is it available online? "Mark Steel's In Town" is a format I think could work well in most countries with the right comedian.
@@karlcarlsburg9641 I came here to mention the Canadian version - Still Standing. I had so much fun watching that! 😃
@@gigglesvids3561 yeah!! I couldn't remember the name of the show, thanks!
Kinda weird how we all got convinced that people walking across the road (jaywalking) in cities is the issue and not cars going to fast, occupying space that used to be for people. 🤔
please please PLEASE more episodes with the Let's Learn Everything team!! They are my favourite! All episodes with them are the funniest of all, hands down. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the whole episode it was delightful
Agreed!
Yes! Yes! Yes!
That's got to be fun for all the colourblind tourists driving through!
...Tourists in Syracuse, New York?
@@27pattywhack2 no accounting for taste, after all
I hope it still follows the standard sizes for the respective colours, with red being the big lamp. And, as per another commenter, there are several warning signs that the colorblind person would have to miss
Also, Tompkins Street and Milton Avenue is in a pretty residential neighborhood; there won't be too many people randomly stumbling onto this light.
As a person with red / green colorblindness, the modern bulbs don't really look similar in color. My problem is primaily with green, and the green bulbs just look like a bright whitish color to me.
Immediately went into this thinking oh hey Syracuse upside down in the traffic light but apparently I forgot most of the story.
Traffic lights used to be arranged so that three light bulbs would be enough for two crossing roads. In one direction, red was on top and green on the bottom - the standard arrangement. In the crossing direction, green was on the top and red on the bottom. A single light bulb in each position was enough but it came with a problem: What if the driver was red-green color blind? In one direction, they would misread the signal. As far as I know, the last of these three bulb lights in Pennsylvania was in the town of Dushore.
That is a quite clever engineering solution to reduce complexity and parts.
But also demonstrates how what works great on paper, might have unforseen issues.
Very cool Lateral mug at 3:15. I love the energy of having a mug that you can only use for like 1 hour out of the week
That makes no sense. It's a mug "you" can use whenever but should use when you record the podcast to advertise it.
@@RegenTonnenEnte No, this mug only works when you're recording Lateral. It simply won't work otherwise.
@@goinkosu that must be tumblr humour
Not just the English red. But Orange is the colour used by the Ulstermen that stayed loyal to England/Britain over the centuries, so they wouldn't have been happy about that either.
I think the algorithm was vaguely aware of some sort of connection with orange too. The ad I got was for Easyjet's Big Orange Sale.....
With the name of the place I guessed that orange and green was likely part of the answer, but I hadn't thought of the red association with England.
I was aware of this from a radio item many years ago (possibly pre-internet) and that stated that the problem was the orange and green both with their Irish associations (Unionist and Republican). I wonder if the addition of the red as English is a later addition.
...Yellow?
i love it when teams are on, like the answer in progress team and this one, they always make for such engaging discussions!
jet lag the game too!!!!
once they got to the irish part, i was expecting it to be because the traffic light had a red hand sign on it to symbolise "stop", like the one on the ulster banner
Oh I just love the Let's Learn Everything gang so darn much!!
I'm trying to remember how and why I knew this fact. It was in the back of my head and I remembered it immediately.
I wonder how they handle people who are red-green colorblind. How could they cite someone for going thought the intersection when the bottom grey light is lit while the top grey light isn't?
It would be yellow, not grey.
Yeah people who are red/green color blind don't see red and green as gray z they just mix them up.
But yes, it'd be a problem to change the order for even regular color visioned people because it'd be confusing and unexpected.
@@gljames24 a mate of mine is colour blind and can only see grey scale, so when he drives if the bottom is on so he can go, the top is on he has to stop
As someone who is red green colourblind, the shade is dissimilar enough for me to distinguish at a distance. I just think they are "bright white, mid red, dark red"
@@gljames24 , There are different form of red/green colour blindness. I'm red/green protanopic colour blind and see most read and green as shades of grey. In the case of a traffic light, I usually see the bottom on (green) as white, and the top one (red) as grey.
Thanks Google earth, saved me the money of going there. 😁
As someone from the Syracuse area, I *knew* this had to be about Tipp Hill just from the title.
I talked to an automated driving engineer as an Uber driver in Austin Texas during my grad school years. He said that the software was having two problems with the local roads:
1) An expansion to i 35 resultes in new lanes being installed above the ones at ground level (the highway is literally two stories from around Airport through downtown.... try to follow the road southbound on google streetview and you will have an idea with the issue they were dealing with.
2) Many lights in TX are positioned left to right instead of up and down which was troubling the cars.
I'm only disappointed it wasn't every light in the town! That'd be really funny to see tourist's reactions lol. Great episode as always!
Hey!!! I knew this one from the title of the video!
I use to live in the area after college, and spent my weekends staying at friends house on Tip Hill.
In larkhall Scotland they smash the green light due to it representing Ireland and catholics. Had to cover all the green lights with a protective mesh. Had to paint the subway shop black aswell.
Roundabout?
Edit: hilarious.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As an Irishman I'm disappointed that we haven't adopted this at home lol. Green white and gold would be a fun variant to roll out.
I heard about this on 99% invisible - great podcast
I learned that story on a broadcast of the New York City St. Patrick's Day parade DECADES ago.
I feel like watching the thumbnail is always playing hard mode, it gets into your brain and stops it from thinking laterally
Good one!
Congrats on 100k
The radio programme was on Radio 4 called Mark Steel's in Town.
He's on series 12 now.
Great listening and funny.
I really hope the way the locals teach it for Drivers Ed is something to the effect of "Red over Green made the locals mean"
They'll give up... have you ever met an Irishman?
I got caught up with the fact the first traffic lights were actually for guiding police officers at junctions as to which roads to wave to go, and the only reason we don't have that now is because the drivers just started watching the lights themselves. Was that a previous lateral?
Tipperary did catch my attention living in Northern Ireland myself, but then seeing New York I dropped it. It wasn't until they brought their attention back around to it that I ended up getting it with basically all the clues at that point.
I was like: hang on, that was all Ella and Caroline, so what is Tom Lum claiming to have contributed to the answer? 🤣
I had an inkling what this might be just from the video title. As soon as Tom said "Tipperary Hill" I knew it.
The official color of Ireland is "Azure Blue" not green as it would be easy to believe
i love tom scott's description of lakitu
first guess at 30 seconds in: they turned it off at night?
Ha. I saw the title of the video and immediately knew the answer. Wife is from Syracuse so we've spent a good amount of time in Tip Hill. I'm actually wearing a tip-hill t-shirt with the upside down traffic light on it right now.
I love it when Tom comments "That sounds American" ... because the American agrees almost every time 😉 ... And regardless, it's always funny imo
I saw "Syracuse" and "traffic light" and immediately my mind went to the traffic light that existed on an interstate highway to ease State Fair traffic for two weeks a year. Pretty sure it was the only traffic light on an interstate in the country, but it was removed a few years ago with a major traffic reconfiguration.
Kind of weird that they took exception to that given England's national colour is White, not Red. Maybe they just didn't like being underneath Wales.
I know traffic lights tend to be a bit emerald now, so green with a tinge of blue, but I don't know about back before led lights. Red and green both look yellow to a color blind person.
They probably used the red lenses marked with the word STOP, the yellow lenses marked CAUTION, and the green lenses marked GO (but those lenses are no longer manufactured).
A RUclipsr called "wildhorseguy" used to have videos about his old traffic lights.
Now that was good craic.
My instinct says the light is shining straight into a building and they changed the angle of the light
that thumbnail had me convinced it was abt the recent farmers protests in Germany
I never really though that the orientation of a traffic light is arbitrary. Maybe red is top so that it can be seen from a further distance?
4:39 "i'll read the question again, locals at (some) hill.."
My mind tried to figure out what is specific about it being on the hill.. e.g. the semaphore in the middle of the hill would cause the cars to stop and they had to start uphill again.. or, when they were already talkin about colours, that it has to do something with the sun during some part of the day shining in such an angle on the hill that the people have no chance of seeing the colour on the semaphore (so they were frustrated from the amount of traffic tickets...)
Boy was i wrong, but also surprised that her first idea upon hearing that was something completely different...
My first thought with this was Irish related but wrong country. In Glasgow in Scotland green traffic lights in some areas, that are Rangers football fans dominant, have had at some point the lights covered by grates to stop the green being smashed (the colour for Ranger's rival Celtic, which has Irish origins) I believe even Subway had to use different colours when it opened in certain areas of Glasgow.
I believe the invention of the traffic light precedes the invention of the automobile, because the railroads were using signal lights already.
Guess at 3:29
was there an rival sportsteam that had the same colors as the stoplight?
Guess at 5:35
Were they just mad that green was at the bottom?
This is how we rebel in New York. The welsh paint cows, new yorkers vandalaize traffic lights.
Judging from the title, I thought this was about protests in Germany against the "Ampel" (traffic light) coalition 😅
Initial thoughts: they changed the lights for signs flipping on and off? Maybe they added shapes on top of colour to accommodate for colour blindness? Changed the colours to not be offensive? Added shades to block the sun illuminating the stop light? Relocated the light so users would not stare into the sun trying to read the light? I have no real clue into this one.
Should have just mounted it sideways so all colors were at the same height.
Lets Learn Everything is back! This is my favourite Lateral group, lets go!
I was thinking it had taken the job of a live traffic officer.
So, a red-green colorblind driver approaches, sees that the bottom light is lit, and drives through? I'll warn my father about this.
My joke answer is that the area had too many railroaders (as railway signals are generally red at the bottom)
0:16 - Was there some form of branding on the light that locals didn't like?
✌
I love that this is a question about the US but you're not going to get the right answer unless you know a lot about Irish history so the Brits are better-positioned to answer it than the Americans lol
In Québec the traffic lights are different shapes as well : 🟥💛♦️🟢🟥 (red square, yellow losenge / diamond, green circle)
Heyyyyyy, I am the 20th viewer!! And happy to see one of my favorite team to feature in Lateral backk.
I'm #69 hehehehe
Not to brag, or anything, but I'm #3,372!
i thought 90 degree, and of course...
After hearing it's Irish guys, I thought they kept braking the red glass, so white light would shine through, making it a misaligned irish flag.
Definitely not a safety hazard swapping the most common color blind light colors at just one intersection
I thought it was going to be that the red light was a hand symbol and they got mad because of Ulster/Northern Ireland or something bot I guess I overthought it?
Wonder how that works out for colorblind people that just take their queue from the order of the lights instead of the colors...
Tom lives in Ireland?
gotta get hank on the show though
Oh my God, this would be terrible for anyone who is red/green colorblind!
you lot should have moved people around at the end such that Ella Hubber is above Tom Lum 😂
ad they say people are too sensitive nowadays...
Not sure if this is a good thing, but at least people have always gotten way too upset about nothing.
That's gotta royally suck for colorblind drivers
Worse than red being on top, was Amber/orange being next.
Well, that just screws over the color-blind drivers that go with the order of the lights, not the color....
Sounds like a bad neighbourhood to be colorblind in
Wait a minute....
Was sideways just not an option? lol
This is definitely the most disturbing fact I've heard on Lateral--mostly because it sounds exactly like stuff happening today. People being easily offended at inoffensive things, people hating other people for their nationality or skin color, and taking out that hate on physical infrastructure. 😢
Then please look up the history of Irish and Italian ghettos in New England in the early 1900s. And the history of the area with signs like “work wanted, Irish need not apply.” Please also look up the history of the Erie Canal, who built it, and its impact on our county’s history in regards to manifest destiny.
As you said, many similarities to modern politics. “Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” and all. ❤
Ha ha How did he find out about this? Color blind people do have to know this.
Ireland's colour is blue, St Patrick's colour.
However the sports colour is green.
@@wbfaulk en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Patrick%27s_blue I'm living in Ireland 60 years I'd have said green until a couple of years ago if asked. It's a fun fact, slightly irrelevant unless it's a state thing.
How many color blind people wreck at this light every year?
How many color blind people have crashes because of this?
From my understanding, most color blind people can still distinguish a red traffic light from a green traffic light even if it's out of its normal place - something to do with the shade of color make a noticeable difference even if you are red/green color blind.
I thought it was opposite a support center for the colorblind or something...
The traffic light where all the colour blind drivers have accidents.