Near Side Traffic Lights
What happens when you position the traffic light to the near side of the traffic flow direction it's managing?
- Helps prevent drivers from encroaching the crosswalk.
- Forces drivers to pay attention at intersections by design.
- Enforces a safe distance between cars and people on the crosswalk.
Mark from BicycleDutch has a good write up on his interview with a traffic engineer that touches on traffic light positioning.
Signals in the Netherlands are always on the near side, so it is true that road users can no longer see them once they are on the junction itself. Eric uses that feature to set the lights really sharp.
How come this isn't the standard of traffic light configuration?
There are two important zones in front of the traffic light: the visible and invisible zone. Visible/invisible in the sense of driver's visual on the phase of the traffic light. Within the Visible zone (green), the driver can see the current phase. On the Invisible zone (red), they do not or they may need to lean forward to do so. The distribution of the zones vary across traffic lights, but let's focus on how to take advantage of it in terms of safety.
The natural reaction is to not go when people are in front of you because 1.) there are people in front of you, and 2.) BECAUSE there are people in front of you. A green light does not grant you the right to go ram or honk people to oblivion.