DENVER — You know that feeling when the light turns green and the driver in front of you doesn't move?
What if there was a new method that warned drivers that the light was about to turn green? Kind of like when the signal turns yellow before it turns red. What if it also worked the same the other way?
"It would just reverse that. It would go red, to yellow, to green," said Rep. Hugh McKean (R-Loveland). "I've been joking with people, maybe it's just an indication for people to put down their cell phones and start driving."
But this proposal actually cannot become law in Colorado. The bill gets its first hearing in the Colorado House Transportation and Local Government Committee on Wednesday afternoon, where McKean will have the rare feat of asking the committee members to not even debate his own idea.
"I have to kill my own bill," said McKean. "Federal law actually says you're not allowed to put anything between the red light and the green light."
So how the heck did a lawmaker get a bill drafted that was never going to fly?
"This one was proposed to me by a paramedic up on Highway 85. He proposed this idea to me that he had seen in northern Europe, so really we just give those ideas to our staff," said McKean. "In this instance, when we were looking for studies, that's when we found out the federal government precludes this."
He said his attempt was to allow intersections to clear out and try to eliminate T-bone crashes caused by red-light runners.
"On Highway 85, you've got people going 65 miles an hour, coming to an intersection, where the light turns red and they're going to go through it," said McKean. "It also gives anybody that's not going to stop for that, it gives them a chance to get through the intersection and have less opportunity to meet their opponents right in the middle of that."
"We've spent a lot of time and effort training our drivers, in particular, to expect that yellow means to slow down and prepare to stop because the light is about to turn red," said Aurora Traffic Manager Anna Bunce. "We're not really on board with yellow sometimes meaning stop and sometimes meaning to get ready to go."
Bunce told Next with Kyle Clark that Aurora is in the process of retiming its lights throughout the city.
She also said that the hardware and software used to time the lights would have some restrictions if they had to program a yellow between red and green.
"Folks who are operating a lethal weapon should be paying attention," said Bunce. "We like to think that if you're behind the wheel that your job is to operate that motor vehicle safely and appropriately, which means that you need to be aware and alert of everything that's happening around you at any given time. Even if you're ready to go, you should also always be ready to stop in case someone else enters the intersection when you're not expecting them.
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