This isn’t all stop lights. At many lights the button doesn’t do anything. But at some of them you do have to press the button. What is the purpose of making you press the button?
In: Engineering
Normal lights will only activate the pedestrian crossing if a pedestrian presses the button – this saves motorists waiting when there is nobody needing to cross.
In really busy locations, some crossings will include the pedestrian crossing by default without a button – in some busy locations where there are virtually always pedestrians crossing. There will still be a button installed (even if it does nothing) so that all crossings are the same and people don’t get confused if some have buttons, and some don’t.
There are also some modern crossings that change how they function depending on the time of day – at busy periods they will follow one set of timings between cycles, or work automatically, at others the timings may change or the cycle will be based on sensors detecting vehicles and pedestrians pressing the button rather than a strictly timed sequence.
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