The FINANCIAL — The amber lights on 185 out of 195 traffic lights in Tbilisi have been removed due to new safety standards introduced by Tbilisi City Hall recently. The new signal sequence is green > red > amber > green.
There are 195 traffic lights in Tbilisi owned and managed by City Hall. The monthly expense of electricity used by traffic lights in Tbilisi reaches 4,000 GEL monthly.
Akaki Jokhadze, Chairman of Tbilisi City Hall’s Transport Service, says the new sequence of colours regulates safer traffic in Tbilisi.
“The new decision has two advantages. Most drivers didn’t used to slow down at the amber light after green, rather the opposite – they started moving at the amber after red. This obscurity has caused lots of car accidents. International experience has shown that our new system ensures safer traffic. And secondly, the duration of the amber light has been added to the green – resulting in longer periods of the green light which makes traffic faster,” Jokhadze stated.
At the moment only ten traffic signals on Ilia Chavchavadze Avenue and Pekini Street have the old sequence of lights. But soon they’ll also be changed to the new system.
Irakli Izoria, Director of the Fund Partnership for Road Safety, appreciates the new system of stop lights.
“Traffic in Tbilisi is not well-regulated and the new system somehow supports safer driving,” said Irakli Izoria. “But there is one problem. Society wasn’t informed about the change. It’s very confusing when you are used to amber following green and then suddenly it disappears,” said Izoria.
The FINANCIAL asked car owners if they liked the new system. Most male drivers reacted positively to the change, but female drivers didn’t. Some drivers say that such traffic lights are more economic and that’s why City hall made this change, to cut expenses.
Nino Abramishvili has been driving for 15 years already. She thinks that the amber light makes traffic faster.
“Without the amber light we lose time,” she said. “It was good when the amber signal came on after the red for at least a second. It gave drivers the time to prepare to drive. Now it turns green suddenly and the driver is wasting driving time in the period it takes to start moving,” Abramishvili said.
Traffic lights without amber are new in Georgia but not in Europe and America. In some states of the USA and France traffic lights turn from red directly to green. There is no amber phase to warn you of when they are about to change.
But in the United Kingdom and Germany there is an intermediate amber stage when changing from green to red.
Azerbaijan deploys both types of signal sequences at different places and times.
The first traffic light in Tbilisi was installed on Rustaveli Avenue, next to the Opera House in 1932. It wasn’t an automatic one. Policeman sitting near the traffic signal controlled it.
The first stop light in the world was installed outside the British Houses of Parliament in London, by the railway engineer J. P. Knight in 1868. But the modern electric traffic signal is an American invention. In 1912 in Salt Lake City, Utah, policeman Lester Wire invented it. In 1914 the American Traffic Signal Company installed it on the corner of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. The first electric traffic light had two colours – red and green.
In 2010 the Georgian Government introduced safety belts as obligatory while driving. The tinting of car windows (more than 40% on front doors and 75% on others) was also prohibited.
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