In Ontario, a flashing green light means "advance green"—it's allowing traffic in one direction to go before traffic in the opposite direction, so those people can turn left without fear of being molested. This is also quite a fast blinking green.
The first time I encountered an Ontario flashing-green, I had no idea what it meant, and it was late at night, and the flashing added all kinds of urgency to the green light. So I floored it. It's "GO! NOW!" It wasn't until a while later that I realized that maybe it didn't actually mean "floor it!".
The BC flashing green light is a much more leisurely flash. It indicates that the current "go" state is the default state of the intersection, but it can be changed at the will of a pedestrian. It means "sure, keep going, but keep an eye open just in case—but I'll give you warning anyway."
Having been a resident of both Ontario and BC, I doubt that I'd ever mistake one kind of flashing green for the other; the frequencies are too different.
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syntheid
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Date: 2004-09-13 11:52 pm (UTC)In Ontario, a flashing green light means "advance green"—it's allowing traffic in one direction to go before traffic in the opposite direction, so those people can turn left without fear of being molested. This is also quite a fast blinking green.
The first time I encountered an Ontario flashing-green, I had no idea what it meant, and it was late at night, and the flashing added all kinds of urgency to the green light. So I floored it. It's "GO! NOW!" It wasn't until a while later that I realized that maybe it didn't actually mean "floor it!".
The BC flashing green light is a much more leisurely flash. It indicates that the current "go" state is the default state of the intersection, but it can be changed at the will of a pedestrian. It means "sure, keep going, but keep an eye open just in case—but I'll give you warning anyway."
Having been a resident of both Ontario and BC, I doubt that I'd ever mistake one kind of flashing green for the other; the frequencies are too different.