There’s a new pedestrian crossing signal in town. Rather than relying on long-standing laws requiring motorists to stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk, the Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon uses yellow and red lights to bring traffic to a stop before signaling pedestrians to cross the road. Also known as a HAWK Beacon (short for High Intensity Activated Crosswalk, somehow), it’s typically used at crosswalks far from intersections, where a standard traffic light would incorporate pedestrian control as well. In theory, that’s great, but the way the lights are implemented on this signal defies several well-established conventions, confusing drivers instead of keeping pedestrians safe.

Many of you have likely never seen one of these, so here’s how the U.S. Department of Transportation says it should work. Under normal conditions, the lights are dark. Traffic flows unobstructed, and pedestrians have to wait to cross. When a pedestrian presses the button, the signal becomes a flashing yellow light, which typically means caution and certainly not that traffic should stop. The yellow light then becomes steady for several seconds, then is replaced by two solid red lights, which we can all agree means stop. This is when pedestrians cross the road safely. Then the two red lights begin flashing alternately, which is supposed to mean that traffic should stop for the crosswalk, then proceed if it is clear. After a while, the light goes dark again until the next time a pedestrian activates it.

Are you confused yet? I sure was the first time I encountered one of these. The Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon works so differently from signals we’re already familiar with in so many ways that drivers often don’t know what to do with them, causing them to stop when they should go and, even worse, go when they should stop.

Mixed signals

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Let’s start with the signal’s default state: completely off. In this state, we’re supposed to pretend it doesn’t exist and keep driving normally, while pedestrians have to wait. However, the standard rule (which, admittedly, some drivers either don’t know or choose to ignore) is that if a traffic signal is completely off, you are supposed to treat it as if it were an all-way stop sign, according to In Control Crash Prevention. Everyone stops, checks for cross traffic, and proceeds in the order in which they stopped. CBS News reports on a UMass Amherst study showing that nine percent of drivers they observed at Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons did precisely that. This is also a rather damning statistic considering it’s probably how they’d handle dark traffic lights at an intersection, but we already know that Boston drivers are the worst. However, here, you’re supposed to drive right through the dark traffic signal, which is not only confusing but also teaches you that it’s perfectly okay to do at any traffic signal, which it’s not.

Then there’s the flashing yellow light. There’s nothing inherently wrong with them, except that they’re used in so many meaningless situations that people generally ignore them. Nineteen percent of drivers in UMass Amherst’s survey stopped for the flashing yellow light, though it is possible that they were simply following existing laws to stop for pedestrians in or waiting to cross at crosswalks. In no other traffic signal does a flashing yellow light turn into a solid yellow, so drivers are unsure of what to do with this behavior. It turns out that the solid yellow is a warning that leads to a solid red, which is the same behavior as a normal traffic light. But since this signal has already behaved differently from a normal traffic light, drivers no longer expect the standard yellow-to-red behavior, so it catches them unaware.

Red means stop, but not always?

A solid red light means stop, and pedestrians get the standard signal to cross the road. This is the only unambiguous phase of the entire cycle. But after several seconds, the solid red turns into an alternating red light, like a school bus or railroad crossing. In both of these cases, you really, really need to stop, and for good reason, because kids or a train will be crossing the street. But on a Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon, alternating red lights mean stop, make sure nobody’s crossing the street, and then keep going. This same behavior would get you a hefty fine with a school bus, and pretty much obliterated on train tracks. The proper red light behavior for “stop, look, proceed if clear” is a flashing, not alternating, red light. They were so close to getting it right, but then they took a wrong turn and used the wrong signal.

Not that it matters much. The UMass Amherst survey revealed that 65% of drivers blew through the alternating red lights without stopping, regardless of whether pedestrians were there or not. Perhaps they’ve given up on figuring out what these confusing signals are trying to tell them and decided to just go. Even worse, this phase is near the end of the pedestrian crossing cycle, where the last few people may be rushing to get across before their light turns red and traffic starts flowing again. So instead of keeping pedestrians safe, this creates a situation where people are running into the crosswalk while traffic runs the alternating red light, with a potentially disastrous outcome.

The Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon could be simplified to fix many of its flaws. If we still accept that driving through a dark signal is acceptable, we could remove the confusing flashing yellow part of the cycle, leading directly to the normal behavior of a solid yellow, followed by a solid red light that means stop, as we expect. We could either change the alternating red lights to flashing red lights to accurately communicate the “stop, look, go” behavior they’re trying to convey, or skip this phase entirely and leave the solid red on for as long as it takes pedestrians to cross, turning off only when their crossing signal has expired.

Or, we could just replace the Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon with a standard red, yellow, and green traffic light. It already conveys the behaviors we want, and by the time we’ve fixed the problems with the new signal, we’re just a green light away from this anyway.